Unlock the Magic of Film

I recently got my hands on Dehancer Pro, and let me tell you, this plugin is a game-changer for photo work in Photoshop and video editing in Da Vinci Resolve.

If you’re like me and have a deep love for cameras and are aiming to get those film-like aesthetics, you’re in for a treat with Dehancer Pro. Let me tell you why!

First things first, what is Dehancer Pro?

Dehancer Pro is a plugin for both Photoshop and Da Vinci Resolve that enables users to enhance their images and videos with a focus on emulating the look and feel of classic film stocks. Not just a filter being applied but having the tools to adjust effects precisely.

So what types of tools does it offer to help you achieve these looks?

• Plethora of film profiles including the full range of Kodak Vision 3 negative movie films.
• Realistic Film Grain simulation with adjustable size, amount and impact on the overall image.
• Film Compression tool that enables the recovery of highlights with smoother roll.
• Bloom effect which gives a misty softy glow that can resemble the use of a Pro Mist filter.
• Halation film emulsion effect, which is visible as a subtle red glow around bright light sources, specular highlights and contrasting edges.
• Push / Pull simulation: 3 exposure samples and 3 separate profiles for each film – Normal, Underexposed (–2 Ev) and Overexposed (+2 Ev), smoothly adjustable with dedicated control.
• Exposure, Contrast and Analogue Range Limiter tools, based upon printed samples and simulating real analogue media behaviour.
• Colour Density tool emulates analogue saturation and desaturation.
• Animated Gate Weave and Film Breath effects dynamically bring the image to life.
• Generate LUT module allows LUT exports for those who need monitoring.

As you can see there are a huge amount of effects possible with Dehancer Pro.
Looking at this cut-down list, you’d imagine it would be rather tough to create a look, but what the team have done is actually make it extremely simple to experiment with and use.

Version 7 of the software has also enabled the use of tool profiles which makes the plugin even easier to use!
Tool profiles enable what are essentially ‘Presets‘ which are targeted at 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, and 65mm film formats.

This affects grain, bloom, halation and other effects, giving you a great starting point for your footage or image. Don’t worry, you can set it to custom and input all the manual values yourself.

Personally I start in the 35mm profile and then customise it from there, this generally gives you a moderate setting for most of the tools, then enables me to dial it in more precisely through the custom mode when I want to.

For photographic work, I typically load my image into Photoshop, do any spot removals, tidying up of the background or subject, then resizing if I need to.
After that initial pass, I load into Dehancer to adjust colours, add grain, a small amount of halation and bloom to round off those harsher digital edges from modern cameras.

Using Dehancer in Da Vinci Resolve is also a similar process, I balance out the original image in a node, then in a second node I put Dehancer and apply colour adjustments with grain, halation and bloom.

For me, I find the plugin is best used in moderation, it’s very easy to overcook an image and for it to look bad. This goes for every plugin, every piece of software and every filter.

So depending on the image or video, I typically apply filters in 10% increments till I get a base look I like, then adjust colours and the more specific parameters to my liking.

My personal preference tends to favour making the images or footage look like what movies from the 80s-90s looked like to me growing up.

They still have relative sharpness that makes them pleasing to watch but are typically softened up due to the nature of the film or stock used back in the day.

I’ve not had any issues using Dehancer Pro in either Photoshop or Da Vinci Resolve, both being extremely intuitive to use and working fast on my PC and Macbook Pro.

I’d highly recommend checking it out at https://www.dehancer.com and seeing where it takes your style, because I know for me it has established a baseline in quality, that I love.

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Email — paul@morphmagazine.co.uk