You reinforce my feeling that the Pack is probably not for me.
Rather than trying different films I (and this is simply personal) would have spent the time altering the shadow tones of the nearest horse and then wondering whether to reduce the prominance of the other one.
But - as I say by way of a pun - horses for courses!
Don’t forget, there are other extra adjustment tools, such as fine contrast for highlights, mid-tones and shadows, 8 channel HSL settings, custom split toning colours, plus others, as well as the film emulations.
I rarely use film emulations but I couldn’t be without the other tools FilmPack gives me.
No they are not. Find contrast, and it’s three separate components, highlight contrast, midtone contrast, and shadow contrast are only available if you have FilmPack. The channel mixer, split toning, creative vignetting, a blur tool a grain tool, frames, various filters and textures are also only available when FilmPack is installed.
I just found a PhotoLab Color Wheel training video from 2020 and there were 8 channels present in the HSL tool, Additionally, the tool displayed in the image above are sliders, not the color wheel. I think that new feature is part of the standalone version.
In general, I lean more to the Kodak emulsions, purely for taste. Recently, I have been using Kodak Elite Color 200, which produces heavy contrast by darkening shadows, which I offset by bumping up the black slider and often the Midtones slider also. I leave the shadows slider alone usually because just a few added points demolishes contrast. Obviously, it varies by image but that is working for me right now. Kodak Portra and Ektar are also good. I also like Tri Ex for some B&W but there are many great options there. The most recent release added Fuji simulations under Digital Films but the only one I really like is Fuji Classic Negative. I am not sure which film stock that emulates.
The standalone definitely has 8 channels. I don’t have FP5 installed any more so I can’t check to see if it just had 6. I do remember some (not much) discussion about FP6 having added channels so something got increased.
The “old” Channel Mixer has 6 colours and is meant for tweaking B&W tonality.
The newer HSL tool is much more effective and flexible and it has totally replaced the Channel Mixer tool in all that I do in DPL. Still, it is rough compared to FilmPack’s film emulation presets. Checking all of them out can be a drag indeed.
I have never had Film Pack and can confirm that the Enhanced HSL tool is exactly as shown in Joanna’s screenshot. The PL5 Manual also shows it like this.
Photo-DKO
(Dirk Offringa, Windows 10, RX570, PL6E-VP3-FP6, Fujifilm shooter)
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