Replichrome III: Archive Review

September 28, 2015 | Matt Grayson | Software Reviews | Rating star Rating star Rating star Rating star

Performance

After using two previous versions of Replichrome on different platforms, we decided to open Replichrome III on both Lightroom and Camera Raw to see which we preferred. It's fair to say that it works better in Lightroom though. The preview windows and one screen editing options make it a much faster workflow than Camera Raw. Let's face it, with 75% of photography being sat behind a computer these days, if there's a way to speed up the process, it's worth doing it. With Adobe CC coming with Photoshop and Lightroom in one package, it's not like you have to invest in separate programs.

It's interesting that with some films, selecting the plus or minus exposure options will change the results of the image to a massive degree. What changes are made are very fast, though, with the previews in the little window changing almost immediately.

Conclusion

As we mentioned previously, it's good to see Ilford film being used after noticing it's absence from the first and second versions. Another major change between the three versions was the use of a Frontier scanner originally. This was then replaced with an Epson scanner in version two only to go back to the Fujifilm Frontier for this version. It would have been really great to have all three scanners on this version, but you can't have everything.

We're photographers from the golden days of film, so we always get a pang of nostalgia when one of these film emulation programs comes out. Replichrome seems to go steps ahead of rival companies by giving you multiple choices of scanners and variations of exposure.

The cost of Replichrome III is $99 and for that, you get a very good program emulating films that are harder to get hold of these days. The only way to truly recreate the effect of a film is to go and buy a film camera and load it with real film. Of course by the time you've bought the camera, sourced the film, processed it and scanned it, you're looking at the same cost as this program which does a pretty good job.

If you want to recreate effects of some hard to find and/or obscure films, then Replichrome III will let you do that without extensive searches online.

4 stars

Ratings (out of 5)
Design 4
Features 4
Ease-of-use 4
Value for money 4.5

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