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Time to ditch Fuji’s film emulation? We review Dehancer Movie Simulator


Fujifilm is considered by many to be the king of film simulation, and for good reason. Anyone who has owned a Fuji camera for the past decade has appreciated the variety of amazing movie recipes that can be created in-camera and certainly has their own simulations that they enjoy using. But is there a better way to give your photos a vintage look? In this review of Dehancer Movie Simulator, we will find out.

What is Dehancer?

Dehancer Film Emulator is a plugin that works with many movie and video editing programs, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Capture One, Affinity Photo, and DaVinci Resolve. It provides users with the ability to quickly and easily apply dozens of different film simulations to their photos, and includes many classic negatives and positives from companies such as Kodak, Fuji, Agfa, Ilford, etc. In this review, I will focus on using Dehancer to edit stills, and for complete transparency I will mention that Dehancer contacted me and asked for this review. However, they have no input on my content or conclusions and will be viewing this review at the same time as the rest of the Fstoppers community.

User interface

The Dehancer user interface is extremely simple and easy to navigate. Once the plugin is installed in your favorite program (I used Capture One for all the photos in this review), it’s as easy as right-clicking the photo, selecting “Edit with” and selecting Debugger. The Dehancer window will automatically open and give you the ability to apply your favorite simulation and many other adjustments. The interface is very well laid out and many simulations can be previewed easily as you edit your photos. On the left side of the window, there is a grid of thumbnail previews showing the effects of each film simulation, and by clicking the thumbnail the simulation will be applied to your photo. Preview different simulations quickly and easily.

On the right side of the window, there are more tools that let you fine-tune your look with options like color temperature, black point, brightness, bloom, vignette, and more. One of my favorite options is the “Film Grain” menu, which allows users to apply grain to an image in a variety of ways to tweak the look. The grain can be applied as a positive or negative film, offering more fine-tuning options as the positive film grain is much more subtle. Users also have the ability to create a list of favorite presets, which is much easier than searching through an entire library of over sixty.

However, there is something missing from the dialog window. Without the histogram, which would be a huge benefit, and without the ability to adjust basic parameters like exposure, shadows, highlights, contrast, etc. Thus, I found myself doing the make basic exposure adjustments in Capture One before opening the file in Dehancer, and while this is not a big deal, it would be easier to adjust these parameters directly in the plugin, although technically it is a plugin.

Real-world testing

I tested the Dehancer using images I took at two recent spot shoots. First, I took some behind-the-scenes photos at a recording session. The lesson took place at Milkhouse Studies in Huntington, New York, and because the studio is located on an old farmhouse, it offers plenty of interesting photo opportunities. I then captured concert images at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York during a tribute concert for bassist Charles Mingus and used Dehancer presets like part of my editing.

Honestly, I never thought about using film simulations for my professional work, as I consider them more or less a novelty to use for fun and family photos. I suppose you can chalk it up to my semi-school-age mentality, but I usually create my own look when editing, mostly by grading or creating the colors and tones I want. in his studio. My experience editing these two series of images using Dehancer’s film simulation has helped me change my opinion on the matter.

In both cases, I found myself able to use simulations to take a great photo and make it look great. I’m glad I don’t have to spend a lot of time creating a unique look for each image, but with one click I can preview and determine if it has more or less where I want to go. . The ability to further fine-tune each preset was also instrumental in getting the picture exactly where I envisioned it and making the whole process quick and rewarding.

Time to ditch Fuji’s film emulation?

Before my fellow Fuji fans get upset, the short answer is clearly no. However, after a few days of testing Dehancer, I came to a few conclusions. Most importantly, I’ve found that I’d rather apply simulations after shooting than shooting in simulation with one of my Fuji cameras, for a couple of reasons. First, I appreciate the ability to preview multiple simulations to see which I prefer over having to select one in-camera before shooting. Second, the workflow is simple and fast so it doesn’t add heavy time to my editing process.

However, I found that Fuji’s films, especially Reala and Provia, seemed a bit color-heavy. I don’t find this to be the case with the Kodak and Agfa presets, and I believe Dehancer has some work to do on their Fuji emulations in particular.

In the end, there will always be a time when I don’t want to edit at all and will choose to use Fuji’s special in-camera film simulation. However, having so many simulations at my fingertips definitely makes me less likely to use the in-camera options going forward.

Inference

As I mentioned, I used to think film simulation was more or less a novelty, but using Dehancer has made me believe in simulation as part of my professional workflow. In my real-world testing with some difficult lighting situations, I found the results very satisfying and appreciated the ability to easily fine-tune the shots to create a variety of excellent looks. In the future, I’m sure I’ll be using Dehancer more as part of a full-blown workflow.





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