PMA 2007: DxO FilmPack 1.1 simulates the grain and color of popular films and includes new “toning” options. It’s now also available as a stand-alone application, Adobe Photoshop plug-in, as well as add-on to DxO Optics Pro. DxO FilmPack v1.1 is available immediately at the introductory price of £45 until May 31, 2007.

DxO Press Release

New DxO FilmPack v1.1 Adds Exclusive Toning Modes, Adobe Photoshop Plug-in Compatibility and Features a Special Introductory Price of £45 until May 31st
 
Las Vegas, Nevada – March 8, 2007 – PMA 07 Booth #J271 – DxO Labs today announces the immediate availability for Windows and Macintosh of DxO FilmPack v1.1. Based on detailed analysis and calibration of the originals, DxO FilmPack enables digital photographers to add the effect – in terms of color and grain - of more than 20 slide, black-and-white and color negative films. DxO FilmPack even permits users to combine the color rendition and grain profiles of different films. This latest version also adds a range of “toning” renditions bringing DxO FilmPack ever closer to a traditional darkroom experience.

Version 1.1 of DxO FilmPack now provides its functionality as an Adobe Photoshop plug-in (CS2, CS3 and Photoshop Elements 4 & 5), a stand-alone application and an add-on to DxO Optics Pro 4.2 or greater.

DxO FilmPack effects can be applied to any digital image in JPEG or TIFF8 or TIFF16 format, regardless of its source (digital camera, bridge camera, D-SLR, digital scan, etc). When used within DxO Optics Pro, the DxO FilmPack effects can even be applied to RAW images, providing even greater color accuracy.

“Since launching DxO FilmPack as a DxO Optics Pro add-on last December, the demand for a version as an Adobe Photoshop plug-in has been phenomenal. With DxO FilmPack v1.1, we are extremely pleased to bring the benefits of DxO Image Science technology to an ever wider community of digital photographers,” commented Luc Marin, VP Business Development – Photography at DxO Labs.

DxO FilmPack (v1.1) includes the following film profiles and tonings:

Slide films
Kodak Ektachrome 100VS
Kodak Kodachrome 25
Kodak Kodachrome 64
Kodak Kodachrome 200
Fuji Astia 100
Fuji Provia 100
Fuji Velvia 50

Black & White films
Kodak T-Max 3200
Kodak Tri-X 400
Kodak BW 400CN
Fuji Neopan Acros 100
Ilford XP2
Ilford Pan F Plus 50
Ilford HP5 Plus 400
Ilford Delta 400
Ilford HPS 800

Color Negatives
Kodak Portra 160NC
Kodak Portra 160VC
Fuji Fujicolor Superia Réala 100
Fuji Fujicolor Superia X-tra 800
Fuji Fujicolor Superia HG 1600

Mixed rendition
Kodak Elite 100 ? cross-processed into C41
Fuji Superia 200 ? cross processed into E6
Tonings Ferric sulfate - New in v1.1
Gold - New in v1.1
Selenium - New in v1.1
Gold Sepia - New in v1.1
Terra Sepia - New in v1.1

(For details on how the DxO FilmPack was created, please see the DxO FilmPack technical document).

Pricing and availability
Priced at £59 (€79), DxO FilmPack v1.1 is available immediately from the DxO Labs e-store (www.dxo.com) at the introductory price of £45 (€58) (£ including 17.5% VAT; € excluding sales taxes) until May 31, 2007. DxO FilmPack v1.1 will also be available from the company’s network of selected resellers and distributors later in March. All customers having purchased the first version of DxO FilmPack after January 7, 2007 are entitled to a free upgrade to version 1.1. The price of the upgrade for customers having purchased before this date is £29 (€39) (£ including 17.5% VAT; € excluding sales taxes).

System Requirements
1 GB RAM
80 MB available disk space
Adobe Photoshop® CS2 or CS3, or Adobe Photoshop® Elements 4 or 5 for the Photoshop Plug-In, or DxO Optics Pro v4. 2 and above for the DxO Optics Pro plugin

Windows:
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or AMD® equivalent (Pentium® Dual Core or higher or equivalent recommended)
Microsoft® Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista

Macintosh:
G4, G5 or Intel-Mac
Mac OS X.3 or X.4

DxO FilmPack, the quest for silver: Recreating the Magic of Film in Digital Photography

The quest for silver
To successfully complete such a challenge, it’s vital to follow a strict scientific procedure. In order to have the most reliable base possible from which to work, DxO Labs engineering team produced a series of traditional silver-halide-based photographs of calibrated test charts and real subjects (still lives, objects of varying colors and textures, etc.) under very precisely controlled of the lighting conditions.

Prestige laboratories
The photos once taken, the DxO Labs engineering team needed to ensure that the processing phase for the negatives and transparencies would not introduce any spurious variables into the results obtained. The help of two highly-regarded professional laboratories was enlisted. Multiple sets of all the films were developed separately, one by Picto in Paris (France), and the other by Duggal in New York (USA). The only exception to this was the Kodachrome films, which were developed by Kodak’s own professional laboratory (the only remaining laboratory capable of processing this legendary film).

Once the films were developed, calibration required a scrupulous digitizing process using a professional color scanner. Two distinct lines of action were taken: calibrating the color rendition (based on colorimetric measurements taken from all the scans) and determining the grain.

An innovative procedure
The method used for the latter is worth explaining. When it comes to “re-creating” the grain of conventional photography, software solutions available up till now have confined themselves to artificially generating Gaussian noise, the appearance of which is “tweaked” to imitate this or that film. It’s not hard to check, both by accurate measurement and by visual inspection, the extent to which this empirical approach renders the results obtained not very credible.

By contrast, DxO Labs derives “grain matrices” directly from the test images. For each of the films, the calibration models were averaged so they can the be applied to the digital images as realistically as possible.

Once the process was completed, there remained only validation of the results: true to the customary DxO Labs approach of seeking to associate the scientific process with the skills of image professionals, the “looks” were verified both by the DxO Labs technicians and by a number of expert photographers.

These pros also helped design the DxO FilmPack interface, which is identical in the three versions: whether it is a plug-in for DxO Optics Pro, a plus-in for Adobe Photoshop or a stand-alone application. However sophisticated a tool is, it needs to remain simple enough to be used by a novice, yet comprehensive enough to allow expert users to modulate its effects freely. The FilmPack User Interface offers a quick, easy method for applying a “look” by direct selection of the film type. It also offers comprehensive options for separately setting the color rendition and grain profiles.

Profiles and modes
As a result, you can explore original styles, applying the color rendering from one film and the grain from another. Better still, the visibility of the grain and its coarseness can be modulated. Three presets offer grain reproduction in 35 mm, 6x6, or large-format.

Two very special film looks are provided in FilmPack: both of them cross-processed looks. These are silver-halide development techniques that involve processing slide film (in this case, Kodak Elite 100) in the processing line for negative film, and a negative film (Fuji Superia 200) in the chemistry reserved for slide films! The very original results that can be obtained in one or other of these treatments have been faithfully reproduced, to allow digital photographers to draw inspiration from some of the more outlandish creative ideas from the era of silver-based photography…

In the same vein, version 1.1 introduces five special color modes that simulate the effects obtained by toning a conventional photographic print. This technique consists of extending the processing of a conventional bromide print with one (or even two or three) additional baths, to replace the grains of silver by another metal. To achieve these effects, DxO had several versions of the same B&W image produced by a professional printer. These were then toned following the best professional practice. Depending on the types of paper and baths used, multiple versions with differing tints were obtained. From these, the most interesting results were selected and calibrated.

As a result, five color modes are available, offering the following effects (from coolest to warmest): gold (cold, bluish tones), ferric sulfate (verdigris), selenium (grey-brown), terra sepia (tobacco) and gold/sepia (ochre and brown). Generic Sepia, already available in DxO Optics Pro, offers the tint closest to yellow. It should be noted that as a color mode, toning can be applied independently of the film selected from the “Color Rendition Profiles” menu. The result of applying the same toning to images “produced” using Kodak Tri-X or Ilford HP5, for example, will not be identical because it depends on each film’s specific contrast curve…
 
About DxO Labs
DxO Labs offers products and solutions ensuring excellence in digital imaging. DxO Labs develops and licenses intellectual property serving the entire digital imaging chain: licensing of optics and silicon architectures for embedded still and video image processing; image quality evaluation and measurement tools and methodologies; image quality enhancement software for consumers. The company’s key customers and partners include::

Consumer electronics manufacturers such as digital camera vendors and cameraphones vendors;

Imaging components suppliers: camera module manufacturers, sensor vendors, and processor vendors;

Demanding photographers, as well as photography journalists and imaging experts.

DxO Labs’ product portfolio is steadily finding a place at the heart of advanced consumer electronics and world-class industry imaging systems where “Image Science by DxO” becomes a reference for quality.

For more information, visit DxO Labs online at www.dxo.com.

In the UK and Ireland, DxO Optics Pro is distributed by Alpha-Digital Services http://www.alphadigitalservices.co.uk

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