Film Print Emulation: Paul Dore’s ACES DCTL Look Modification Transform (LMT)

Part 3: Beyond LUTs – An Artistic Approach To Emulating Film Print Looks

Continuing our series on different film print emulation techniques and solutions, we examine color scientist Paul Dore’s Baldavenger GitHub FPE DCTL for use in an ACES grading environment with DaVinci Resolve (learn more about DCTLs in this introductory Insight).  

In this Insight you will quickly discover the differences between DCTLs and LUTs, the custom controls that DCTLs offer, and the flexibility the DCTL approach affords.

About the Baldavenger FPE DCTL

The Baldavenger is Paul Dore’s GitHub handle. Paul is a respected color scientist and contributor to the official ACES project.  He creates and maintains a comprehensive collection of useful Resolve DCTLs, free for download on GitHub.  

One of those DCTLs, LMT_PFE_OFX, has become a widely-used film print emulation in the ACES community.  In this Insight, we take a look at this interesting and popular ACES LMT (Look Modification Transform) and compare it to the baseline we’ve previously established in this series.

You see Paul’s default look (I consider it a desaturated, skip-bleach look) and examine the myriad of controls available in his DCTL to customize the look to your (or your client’s) personal liking.