VSCO filters - anyone using them?

[Prime]

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Hey! Discovered the vsco filters for Lightroom couple months ago and been using it for almost all my images taken with the M9.

It emulates real films, and gives your photos att nice filmish look withouth damaging the quality of the photo.

 

Was wondering if anyone else uses these filters for their work?

[sblitz]

I do and think they are great. Also use iPhone app for iPhone pics

[Ecar]

Yes, I use them occasionally, along with SilverEfex, Exposure, DxO and - more often than not - the channel mixer, vignette and grain controls in LR, which are often good enough when I want a filmish look from a digital capture.

[CaptZoom]

I use the presets as a starting point than further tweak/manipulate to get the look I want (which usually results in a new preset). Then I apply that look to the whole project. In effect VSCO presets function as short cuts, but not a replacement for PP workflow.

[leicatraveller]

Hey! Discovered the vsco filters for Lightroom couple months ago and been using it for almost all my images taken with the M9.

It emulates real films, and gives your photos att nice filmish look withouth damaging the quality of the photo.

 

Was wondering if anyone else uses these filters for their work?

 

i wanted to try before to buy, but they dont offer even 10 days for a trial version...

[CaptZoom]

i wanted to try before to buy, but they dont offer even 10 days for a trial version...

 

They are presets not applications. There's no way to put a time limit. On the plus side, they offer nothing you can't do yourself in LR.

[CalArts 99]

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Then again why not use the real stuff?

 

You get all that VSCO 'goodness' right out of the box and with an arguably better and smoother color palette.

 

Seriously, I do realize that these are worthwhile software solutions in the digital world where a 'film look' still seems to be sought after (although one can do them easily in PS, too.) But just as a reminder, film is readily available and is still pretty nice stuff.

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[CaptZoom]

^Agreed, though I do not use film. And I don't try to emulate film unless specifically asked by clients. I do use a handful of VSCO's presets occasionally as a starting point or to get a rough idea about what photographs will look like with different treatments. But all of this is a tiny minority of my PP work. On the other hand, I haven't yet settled on a particular style (and don't know if I ever will).

[sanyasi]

I use the equivalent in Nik, but may buy one set of the VSCO presets to experiment.

 

One thing I don't understand is the notion that these are film emulations and should be used to emulate film. I think that view is too narrowing. In Silver Efex, I use the film type box all the time. I am not trying to emulate a particular film type, but I like how the film type affects contrast and tone. In other words, I use the film type as just another preset or in conjunction with a preset.

 

Thanks for highlighting this software. I was unaware of it.

[CalArts 99]

 

One thing I don't understand is the notion that these are film emulations and should be used to emulate film. I think that view is too narrowing.

 

 

Maybe it's because that is precisely how VSCO markets them. "VSCO Film: The gold standard of digital film emulation."

[Guest borge]

Yes I use them. I have all the Film packages.

I mostly use them as a starting point for further editing.

 

It's very nice to have them directly in Lightroom and be able to quickly flick through many different types of looks without using any external software at all.

[Guest malland]

...I mostly use them as a starting point for further editing...It's very nice to have them directly in Lightroom and be able to quickly flick through many different types of looks without using any external software at all.

Bo, I tried the color film presets very quickly and very superficially on a friend's machine and got the (superficial) impression that, for the color look that I wanted from the M9, it was simpler just to work directly with LR5 because there were so many presets to try out. Do you find that you use only one or two of the color presets as a starting point, or do you actually try quite a few of them before deciding which one to use?

 

For the M-Monochrom, does it makes any sense to use the B&W VSCO presets? I used to use only LR for the Monochrom, but then found that sometimes SEFEX 2 gives me more of the look that I want. So, now, I tend to do a quick processing with LR5, to see what sort of general look I want for that particular picture; then I make a virtual copy and reset the adjustments, then process in SEFEX; and, finally, I compare the LR and SEFEX version and decided on which one to do the final edit. Am I likely to get anything different from the VSCO B&W presets?

 

—Mitch/Paris

Looking for Baudelaire [WIP]

[Guest borge]

Bo, I tried the color film presets very quickly and very superficially on a friend's machine and got the (superficial) impression that, for the color look that I wanted from the M9, it was simpler just to work directly with LR5 because there were so many presets to try out. Do you find that you use only one or two of the color presets as a starting point, or do you actually try quite a few of them before deciding which one to use?

 

I have a few favorite film presets that I usually try out, just to decide in which direction I want to take the image. Think Astia, Velvia, Portra, and so on. This is for colors. I usually end up not using the presets for colors. But I really love the black and white presets, which is what I mostly use. Each preset is also shipped with low, mid and high contrast versions, so it's very quick and easy to see how I prefer the image to be - rather than using the sliders and the LR development module.

 

For the M-Monochrom, does it makes any sense to use the B&W VSCO presets? I used to use only LR for the Monochrom, but then found that sometimes SEFEX 2 gives me more of the look that I want. So, now, I tend to do a quick processing with LR5, to see what sort of general look I want for that particular picture; then I make a virtual copy and reset the adjustments, then process in SEFEX; and, finally, I compare the LR and SEFEX version and decided on which one to do the final edit. Am I likely to get anything different from the VSCO B&W presets?

Well I personally used some of the B&W presets for my Monochrom files as well. To get the grain structure I wanted, and the high or low contrast look. It's much less necessary on the MM files of course, but - again - I use the prestes mostly as a very quick way to browse through different looks: low, mid, high contrast, with or without grain, with or without vignetting... I always use the VSCO presets combined with my own custom presets as well (which I create individually for each camera I have owned or currently own).

 

VSCO has become a part of my workflow in that sense. It really helps me to quickly decide in which direction I want to take a image, or a set of images. The last point is becoming more and more critical for me nowadays. I'm trying to not edit single images individually, but rather try to keep the same style of editing for a complete set of images so that they match in look and feel (just like you would have gotten from a roll of film basically). It makes watching a complete image set much more pleasing and coherent.

 

I try my best to do everything I can within Lightroom. I rarely if ever use Silver Efex (or the entire Nik Suite which I have), Alien Skin Exposure 4, and so on... External editors which requires file exports and stuff like that is annoying and gets in the way of a optimal workflow for me. If I have to use an external editor I always open the DNG directly in Photoshop first, since you can just apply Silver Efex, Exposure, and so on, as layers without actually having to export the file to a TIFF first...

[Guest malland]

Thanks, Bo. Interesting and helpful.

 

Mitch/Paris

Tristes Tropiques [WIP]

[Guest malland]

Bo, after reading your excellent post #13, I tried out the VSCO presets again. For the Monochrom, I reprocessed some files that I had processed with either LR5 and SEFEX2, and found that, without looking at the earlier finished files, I essentially ended up with a very similar look (although I was probably remembering the earlier finished file the look that I wanted).

 

From this, my feeling is that the VSCO presets work well for Monochrom files. However, if I look at my Monochrom photography, I find that the pictures for which I've tended to use SEFEX rather than LR5 (although I always make final adjustments in LR) are ones where I want to the picture to have a "contingent look," that is to say a look that has an element coming from "chance," as one would get in the darkroom. For this, the visualization in SEFEX is, for me, somewhat of an advantage, although, as you point out, having to export the file is an annoying factor in SEFEX.

 

As for M9 color files, I did not find an advantage in using the VSCO presets. Generally, the preset gave me too much contrast, and I found that I can color that I like better without. But perhaps this works better with M240 since they have more dynamic and, therefore, like those of the Monochrom, come out of the camera with less contrast than M9 files. Is that what you found?

 

—Mitch/Paris

Tristes Tropiques [WIP]