Mastin Labs film emulation experience

[ejg1890]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I have been looking at several film emulation software profiles/presets for Lightroom and one of interest is Mastin Labs. Several questions:

1. Any experience with Mastin Labs? Thoughts on their film profiles/presets?
2. How do they compare to RNI, Archetype Process and FilmConvert to name a few?
3. One of their products is Lightroom Desktop Presets. Does this also include Lightroom Classic the more feature filled application or are they presets for what was referred to as Lightroom Web/Cloud?
4. What is the difference between Lightroom Desktop presets ve Lightroom Mobile Presets? I thought Lightroom Mobile presets required the installation of presets on Lightroom Web version.
5. Any of the presets considered better than others? Any of the presets that should be avoided?

Thanks appreciate any feed back.  

[Cobram]

3 hours ago, ejg1890 said:

I have been looking at several film emulation software profiles/presets for Lightroom and one of interest is Mastin Labs. Several questions:

1. Any experience with Mastin Labs? Thoughts on their film profiles/presets?
2. How do they compare to RNI, Archetype Process and FilmConvert to name a few?
3. One of their products is Lightroom Desktop Presets. Does this also include Lightroom Classic the more feature filled application or are they presets for what was referred to as Lightroom Web/Cloud?
4. What is the difference between Lightroom Desktop presets ve Lightroom Mobile Presets? I thought Lightroom Mobile presets required the installation of presets on Lightroom Web version.
5. Any of the presets considered better than others? Any of the presets that should be avoided?

Thanks appreciate any feed back.  

Mastin Portra is quite good. If I'm not wrong, @evikne is successful at applying RNI presets to his photos. Maybe he can give you some feedback...

[evikne]

1 hour ago, Cobram said:

Mastin Portra is quite good. If I'm not wrong, @evikne is successful at applying RNI presets to his photos. Maybe he can give you some feedback...

Thank you for showing your trust. Unfortunately I have no experience with Mastin Labs. Currently I only use profiles, and almost exclusively from RNI. Unlike presets, profiles can make more advanced adjustments and create looks that are not possible with the Lightroom controls on their own. I also prefer the way I can browse the profiles in the LR profile browser.

However, the Mastin presets look very good, and the benefit of the profile browser is less important with only a few presets in each package.

The Lightroom Desktop presets should work on both LR Classic and LR CC. The LR CC profiles will also sync to LR Mobile. These profiles, however, seem to be optimized for editing JPEG images and may not take advantage of the extra capabilities of a RAW file.

https://support.mastinlabs.com

[ejg1890]

16 minutes ago, evikne said:

Thank you for showing your trust. Unfortunately I have no experience with Mastin Labs. Currently I only use profiles, and almost exclusively from RNI. Unlike presets, profiles can make more advanced adjustments and create looks that are not possible with the Lightroom controls on their own. I also prefer the way I can browse the profiles in the LR profile browser.

However, the Mastin presets look very good, and the benefit of the profile browser is less important with only a few presets in each package.

The Lightroom Desktop presets should work on both LR Classic and LR CC. The LR CC profiles will also sync to LR Mobile. These profiles, however, seem to be optimized for editing JPEG images and may not take advantage of the extra capabilities of a RAW file.

https://support.mastinlabs.com

Thank you for your feedback.

I agree profiles are more “advanced” than presets and is an option I prefer as usually it can be adjusted to the amount of the profile you prefer. I have also have looked at RNI. While more expensive than Mastin with all the profiles included it’s actually cheaper than Mastin. Also I did read some place that presets are best for jpegs and profiles for raw files. Can’t remember where I saw that comment. 
 

[SrMi]

5 hours ago, ejg1890 said:

Thank you for your feedback.

I agree profiles are more “advanced” than presets and is an option I prefer as usually it can be adjusted to the amount of the profile you prefer. I have also have looked at RNI. While more expensive than Mastin with all the profiles included it’s actually cheaper than Mastin. Also I did read some place that presets are best for jpegs and profiles for raw files. Can’t remember where I saw that comment. 
 

One advantage of profiles over presets is that all sliders remain at default value after applying the profile, while presets change the slider values.

[Adam Bonn]

OT but it’s apparently possible to turn presets into xmp profiles. IIRC (…. been a while since I read up on it) the trick with it is to disable camera specific things like sharpening, nr, lens corrections, and maybe (it’s been a while!) clarity

The sliders may stay on default with an xmp profile, but they often contain code that effects the sliders (eg red hue = -1 stuff like that)

The xmp profiles really score over presets as they can use LUTs in the form of RGB colour tables that can contain a lot of colour manipulation 

[frame-it]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

On 4/26/2022 at 12:14 PM, ejg1890 said:

I have been looking at several film emulation software profiles/presets for Lightroom

 

 

[CPG]

On 4/30/2022 at 6:17 PM, Adam Bonn said:

OT but it’s apparently possible to turn presets into xmp profiles ... the sliders may stay on default with an xmp profile, but they often contain code that effects the sliders.

...

The xmp profiles really score over presets as they can use LUTs in the form of RGB colour tables that can contain a lot of colour manipulation 

That's what often annoys me with most of third-party profiles. They call it "profile" for marketing purposes but in fact it's just a bunch of slider values exported as a "creative profile" from ACR. As a result, such "profiles" don't do anything you couldn't do yourself with the sliders while leaving less room for your own adjustments.

[Adam Bonn]

6 hours ago, CPG said:

That's what often annoys me with most of third-party profiles. They call it "profile" for marketing purposes but in fact it's just a bunch of slider values exported as a "creative profile" from ACR. As a result, such "profiles" don't do anything you couldn't do yourself with the sliders while leaving less room for your own adjustments.

Yeah some are like that. The VSCO ones had dcp files and so do the cobalt ones.

These days I tend to create my own profiles, for better or worse… at least I know that I made it and what to change if I made a mistake somewhere

[CPG]

3 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

The VSCO ones had dcp files

Those were camera profiles, as I remember. They had nothing to do with the actual film emulation. VSCO presets themselves were like others - adjustment presets setting curves, sliders,  etc., and therefore limited by what Lr/ACR allows you to do.

[Adam Bonn]

2 hours ago, CPG said:

Those were camera profiles, as I remember. They had nothing to do with the actual film emulation. VSCO presets themselves were like others - adjustment presets setting curves, sliders,  etc., and therefore limited by what Lr/ACR allows you to do.

When you clicked on a VSCO preset, the preset contained instructions to change the HSL/Curve/etc within LR/ACR but they also had individual .dcp files associated with them, the ACR/LR adjustments were applied on top of VSCO's own profile files, not on top of adobe's standard files

[CPG]

14 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

When you clicked on a VSCO preset, the preset contained instructions to change the HSL/Curve/etc within LR/ACR but they also had individual .dcp files associated with them, the ACR/LR adjustments were applied on top of VSCO's own profile files, not on top of adobe's standard files

Yeah, that's correct. What I wanted to say is that those dcp files, in case of VSCO, were just alternative camera profiles, similar to Adobe's. They didn't have any film characteristics to them. Currently RNI uses similar principle in All Films 4: custom camera profiles that extract more data from RAW than the Adobe's, and adjustments on top to match various film stocks.

However the best approach is to actually profile film to Adobe or ProPhoto RGB color space, which, I believe, VSCO never did. And that's how it's done in RNI All Films 5 (they have a free demo). Such film emulation doesn't touch any curves/sliders at all. You can still use the full range of LR edits and your colors come from the profile, which you can tweak with the Amount slider in Lr for stronger / subtler flavor. 

Edited September 30, 2022 by CPG

[Adam Bonn]

3 hours ago, CPG said:

What I wanted to say is that those dcp files, in case of VSCO, were just alternative camera profiles, similar to Adobe's

Well they have to be similar to adobe's (in that they need color matrices/forward matrices, HSD tables and often a PLUT) or else they wouldn't work as profiles, the point is that they are at least real profile files, not just someone dicking around with the HSL tool saving it as a xmp file then selling it as a profile (it would be a preset)

3 hours ago, CPG said:

They didn't have any film characteristics to them

I don't doubt it. I haven't shot film since before digital was a thing (yes I know... burn me at the stake) so I've no say in the does this Portra emulation look like real Portra or not debate (If I had to guess I'd say no!) 

But VSCO was a least a full fat solution for manipulating the adobe image pipeline, then providing presets that the user could tweak/replace/ignore on top of their custom .dcp profile files.

It's a while since I looked at the VSCO dcp files... but iirc they typically made changes to the HSD tables and used custom PLUTs. This is something that the average home profiler* wouldn't readily be able to do themselves without using fairly specialised software**

I'll look at the link you posted.

*not trying to be rude too anyone, if one has the means and patience to create custom PLUTs, HSD Tables and calculate D50 chromatic adaptation then nothing for you to see here!

**There are now more solutions for this sort of thing than there was a few years ago... and these days it's not all command line based either, there's a GUI! (What a time to be alive :D) 

[Adam Bonn]

4 hours ago, CPG said:

And that's how it's done in RNI All Films 5 (they have a free demo). Such film emulation doesn't touch any curves/sliders at all. You can still use the full range of LR edits and your colors come from the profile, which you can tweak with the Amount slider in Lr for stronger / subtler flavor. 

I just looked at one of their files in a text editor - it's the modern adobe colour table solution.

The one I looked at is generic and doesn't use bespoke dcp files, nor does it piggy back from a native adobe dcp file. It applies itself to each every camera one may care to use it with in exactly the same way (eg it's the same profile in use for an iPhone or a phase one MF back)

I'm not saying this is bad

But that's how it works.

Back in the day RNI used bespoke dcp files like VSCO used to do. (maybe they still do, it's only the demo after all)

[CPG]

23 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

The one I looked at is generic and doesn't use bespoke dcp files, nor does it piggy back from a native adobe dcp file

I think you misunderstand the fundamentals of how the Adobe RAW engine (the thing behind LR/ACR) works.

In Adobe Lr / ACR it's not possible to convert RAW into an image without using a camera-specific profile (dcp file) or a profile embedded with RAW (that's, for example, how many Hasselblad cameras do it). And, when using a dcp file, Adobe simply won't let you apply a wrong profile to your RAW. The model signatures of the profile and the raw should match. 

So, in case of RNI 5th gen - they do use the Adobe's own camera-specific dcp's (Adobe Standard) for the initial RAW conversion, and then apply their own input profiles (film profiles) to create film looks. 

In case of RNI 4th gen - they do come with hundreds of megs of their own camera profiles and recreate film looks with adjustments - which is a much more limiting approach that won't give you proper Technicolor, Aerochrome, Kodachrome and many other emulsions.

 

 

[Adam Bonn]

1 hour ago, CPG said:

I think you misunderstand the fundamentals of how the Adobe RAW engine (the thing behind LR/ACR) works

Well I don't claim to be an expert on the subject... but the fact I was able to list all the parts of a dcp file might give you a clue 😇

1 hour ago, CPG said:

So, in case of RNI 5th gen - they do use the Adobe's own camera-specific dcp's (Adobe Standard) for the initial RAW conversion, and then apply their own input profiles (film profiles) to create film looks. 

Let's look at some examples

Cobalt Fuji S5Pro v1.3.xmp

   crs:CameraProfile="Cobalt Modular"
   crs:RGBTable="ABBDB07C0C001E11A31D0BFA22DB9873"

Adobe Color.xmp

   crs:CameraProfile="Adobe Standard"
   crs:LookTable="E1095149FDB39D7A057BAB208837E2E1"

RNI

Ilford Delta 100 profile.xmp

   crs:HasSettings="True"
   crs:RGBTable="D755E7E6C3EF46C9AD86F0EC5F6177C6"

(^-----look no crs:CameraProfile=)

Both adobe and Colbalt provide a dcp file that's referenced within the xmp file. The dcp performs the chromatic adaptation from un-white-balanced-RAW-data to D50. The xmp then provides subjective look table adjustments on top of that process.

The RNI solution does not.

Anyone who's ever shot the same thing at the same time with two different cameras, then examined the results in adobe using 'adobe standard' and the same settings will see clear differences between each image.

Therefore I suspect the RNI solution will produce a different effect for different cameras, even if the same RNI profile is called up.. (because the RNI solution does nothing to provide a common base for the RAW conversion nor anything to address the inherent differences between digital cameras, other than maybe piggy backing off of adobe's dcp)

For example if I shoot a scene with an M9 and 50 cron, then shoot the same scene with an M10 and a 50 cron, then apply the RNI preset to each RAW file, the RNI effect will be quite different on each because the M9 and M10 are different cameras with different sensors, DR, tonality and colour accuracy trade offs.

However if I shoot the same scene with an M6 and an M7 and a 50 cron and the same film stock the photos will look the same.

This is because digital is different to film and film (IMHO) can't really be replicated by digital.

And it sure maybe the RNI effort is better than the VSCO one or the Cobalt one or whatever.... eye of the beholder etc etc

But it's not the same.

That doesn't mean the RNI isn't pleasing or nice to look at... 

[Adam Bonn]

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

So here we have an shot taken with an M10 and an M9, exactly the same exposure settings and lens and shot at the same time

Next let's apply exactly the same RNI Kodak Portra 400 profile to each file.

Anyone wanna riddle me which one looks exactly like real Portra 400 ? (it's the standard M9 one isn't it? 😅)

I'm not trying to be rude about RNI, but I don't see anything different here than what many other companies offer... and I'm certainly not seeing a solution that provides a common set of parameters that causes different digital cameras to render in anything close to exactly the same way....

....which, (if you'll pardon the fact that that's not really physically possible), has to be the utopic end game of all companies offering profiles and presets that claim to make A look like B.

Instead it all becomes a case of no company can 100% match film on digital (or even get all the digital cameras to look the same), so IMHO one should simply select the company/product that's most preferable to one's personal tastes and budget.

 

[CPG]

17 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

RNI

Ilford Delta 100 profile.xmp

   crs:HasSettings="True"
   crs:RGBTable="D755E7E6C3EF46C9AD86F0EC5F6177C6"

(^-----look no crs:CameraProfile=)

Both adobe and Colbalt provide a dcp file that's referenced within the xmp file. The dcp performs the chromatic adaptation from un-white-balanced-RAW-data to D50. The xmp then provides subjective look table adjustments on top of that process.

The RNI solution does not.

Again, I believe you might be understanding the fundamentals. It would not be possible to see any picture at all in your LR without applying a camera-specific profile - dcp or embedded - as a part of the processing pipeline. It is also not possible to apply an incorrect profile – if you create a custom camera profile for your M9, you won't be able to apply it to your M10 files in Lr/ACR. Likewise you can't apply the M9 Camera Standard profile to an M10 file, etc., because Lr/ACR won't allow that.

The crs:CameraProfile tag is optional. When omitted, it defaults to using Adobe Standard.

[CPG]

17 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

So here we have an shot taken with an M10 and an M9, exactly the same exposure settings and lens and shot at the same time

That's quite expected, considering how different the starting points are. The two RAW conversions, likely made with Adobe Standard, demonstrate very different rendering, dynamic range and, I guess, WB. The input profile treats both images in the same way, so when the input is different, the output will be different too.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Adam Bonn]

Well the net result would be ghastly, but you can actually convert dcp to a human readable format (json is my preference, but also xmp) and edit the unique camera tag to anything you like

My point is more that if one is creating a custom look designed to function across multiple camera platforms, then basing that look on ‘adobe standard’ is fraught because of the inherent differences in the adobe standard (sic)

VSCO and Cobalt (and maybe others, I dunno) do at least provide their own base dcp file that theoretically takes any given camera into their choice of colour space on top of which they can apply whatever film etc simulation they want.

But I reiterate… digital isn’t film, digital emulations of film don’t look like exactly like film, but if you use the VSCO/Cobalt/RNI/etc solutions on enough pictures and compare it to the standard look of your camera then sometimes it’ll look great, sometimes average, sometimes dreadful.. law of averages

Win some/lose some is always the way with things like this.