The Film Look Guide

How film simulation actually works: stocks, grain, halation, colour grading, and how to get a convincing film look out of a phone camera.

• What is film simulation?What a film simulation actually models — response curves, colour crosstalk, grain and halation — and why it is not the same as a filter.
• Film stocks and why they look differentNegative versus reversal, tungsten versus daylight, consumer versus professional — the technical differences behind the looks people copy.
• Grain and texture, done properlyHow grain forms in the emulsion, why it sits in the midtones, and how to add it without making an image look dirty.
• Halation, bloom and glow — what is whatWhat causes halation in real film, how it differs from lens bloom and digital glow, and how to use it without turning highlights to mush.
• Colour grading basics for a film lookLift, gamma and gain, split toning, and the small number of moves that produce a filmic image instead of a tinted one.
• Shooting for a film lookLight, exposure, contrast and lens choices that make a digital image behave like film before any processing is applied.
• A film look on a phone cameraWhat phone processing does to your image, how to work around it, and which settings matter most for a convincing film look.
• LUT versus shader: what each can actually doWhat a LUT can and cannot do, why grain and halation need a shader, and which approach fits which job.