I created the Color Response Curves preset packs to quietly bring film-like tonality to your digital photos. It leans on classic color-response behavior like gentle highlight rolloff, a forgiving shadow lift, and subtle per-channel shifts. The images gain a calm, filmic feel without looking overcooked, and you don't lose any of your usual controls, so you can keep editing your photos. Color response curves are designed and tested for people who prefer film emulations that support their edits and let them shine without stealing the scene.

You can either use them as Simple Curves or as Camera Profiles. This enables a clean interface so you can do the editing as you would normally do, while helping you achieve natural film-like colors without forcing you into a specific edit.

The third pack focuses on film stocks that were mainly used for portraits:

Contains Color Response Curves for:

Kodak Portra 160 | Kodak Portra 160 Pushed | Kodak Portra 160 Pulled

Kodak Portra 160 NC | Kodak Portra 160 NC Pushed | Kodak Portra 160 NC Pulled

Kodak Portra 400 | Kodak Portra 400 Pushed | Kodak Portra 400 Pulled

Kodak Portra 800 | Kodak Portra 800 Pushed | Kodak Portra 400 Pulled

What are Color Response Curves?

Color Response Curves is a way to map out how the different color layers of film react to light, giving each film stock its unique look. I painstakingly recreated these curves from complex film emulations inside Davinci Resolve and baked them into easy-to-use Lightroom Camera profiles so you can use them to give your photos the film vibes without taking over your Lightroom sliders. So you can now fine-tune the tones in your images while retaining the nostalgic filmic hues.

It's basically like picking a film stock after you have already taken the photo, and you also have the power to influence the rest of the film properties afterwards. They're not magic, but man, they make film emulation feel like a breeze.

Learn more about COLOR RESPONSE CURVES

Read a more detailed article about color response curves: https://vmoldo.com/film-colors/

In the video industry, there are already many techniques for bringing the characteristics of famous film stocks into digital workflows. But as photographers, we’re still catching up in that department. To bridge this gap, I’ve adapted the color response curves found in DaVinci Resolve’s film emulation LUTs to Lightroom. Using Color Response Curves, you can bring those same classic tones and color nuances into your photography editing environment while maintaining the possibility to edit your images however you see fit.

Color Response Curves are graphical representations of how each of the red, green, and blue layers in a film emulsion responds to different wavelengths of light. Luckily, a neutral gray pixel has exactly those three components, so we can reverse engineer film emulation LUTs and get the same classic color response as film stocks.

What is included?

You’ll receive three folders:

• The first contains camera profiles with the color response curves baked into them on top of the Adobe Neutral color profile. This will provide a starting point for your edits with the characteristics of the film stock imbued in it, but will allow you to use all the Lightroom settings you might want to create your final look
• The second folder holds presets that provide a quick way to apply those profiles in Lightroom. If you prefer browsing through the profiles directly in Lightroom’s menus, you only need to install the camera profiles folder. However, for faster previewing, I’ve also created presets to make accessing them easier.
• The third folder contains the actual curves designed for the tone curve panel. I recommend using these with either the Camera Neutral or Adobe Standard profiles for optimal results. Mixing them with Adobe Color might result in oversaturated images with way too much contrast. The main difference between using camera profiles versus curves is TIMING. If you use the Camera Profiles, the color response curve is applied first in the editing process. And if you go for the curves, they will be applied after basic adjustments of the RAW file.

READ ME

For optimal results, I recommend applying the color response as early as possible in your editing process, right after you set a proper white balance for your images and proper exposure.

They are not a 1-click preset!

Please note that these are custom response curves saved as camera profiles, not a one-click preset. They are great building blocks that will help you create nostalgic film emulations with amazing colors, but you will still have to make basic adjustments to your RAW files to bring the best out of your photos.

Purchase of these Lightroom presets and Camera profiles grants the buyer a personal, non-transferable, and non-exclusive license to use the presets. This license strictly prohibits resale, redistribution, or sharing of the presets in their original or any modified form, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

INSTALLATION:

Copy the .xmp files to the specific folder:

Windows: C:Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings

macOS: User Library>Application Support>Adobe>CameraRaw> Settings

You can make as many subfolders and organize the files however you see fit, as Lightroom won't care and it will load everything in them

WARNING: Your Lightroom Version has to be somewhat recent. This won't work with versions of Lightroom that do not have a curve panel inside their maks.

To learn how to add any presets to Lightroom you can follow these steps:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/kb/faq-install-presets-profiles.html