Which software have the most accurate Kodachrome emulation?

I recently became interested in film especially Kodachrome with Steve McCurry's famous last roll of Kodachromes. I'm just wondering which software will give me the most accurate Kodachrome emulation? I have read about the limitation of software emulation due to the hundreds if not thousands of variables that occur during film development so I'm not expecting 100%.

It seems like VSCO have some nice film emulation, but I don't see Kodachrome listed in their list. Otherwise, I'd give that a shot.

One final thing and that is when is the best time during the workflow to apply the film preset? After the exposure, highlights, shadows, and etc. are set or at the beginning of the workflow process?

Thanks!

Alien Skin Exposure does Kodachrome in 25/64/200 variants. Applying a film preset should be done as you would sharpening, at the last moment, because it has it's own sharpening and you also don't want to sharpen grain.

Kolor-Pikker wrote in post #15535206
Alien Skin Exposure does Kodachrome in 25/64/200 variants. Applying a film preset should be done as you would sharpening, at the last moment, because it has it's own sharpening and you also don't want to sharpen grain.

I've never used AS Exposure 4 before. So I wouldn't need to sharpen with LR4 upon export because once I've adjusted exposure, highlights, and etc., then I just send the image to edit in AS Exposure 4 right? From there I can fine tune the image and then export from there with or without sharpening from Exposure 4?

I'm also somewhat intrique by VSCO because I get the impression that the software will work within LR4 and that I won't have to waste tons of storage space for TIFF files that Exposure 4 require from me.

lsquare wrote in post #15535290
I've never used AS Exposure 4 before. So I wouldn't need to sharpen with LR4 upon export because once I've adjusted exposure, highlights, and etc., then I just send the image to edit in AS Exposure 4 right? From there I can fine tune the image and then export from there with or without sharpening from Exposure 4?

Yep, pretty much.

I'm not sure there are any external plugins that can work directly with the raw data without leaving LR, but I could be wrong...

In any case, accurate or not, ASE4 has some really great "looks" that it can apply to your images, even if you do not want to emulate film. One of my favorite presets to start with is the "Technicolor 4-strip process" in the Cinema group, which is almost a magic button for many types of shots, especially landscape.

An export from the eposure plug-in will result in a tiff. A preset, resulting in slider adjustment, will result in a Raw file that can show adjustments to, say, Adobe Photoshop via the Save Adjustments to File function...

Presets can't do film grain though. In any case, if one can afford a plugin for film stock emulation, a 1/2TB HDD is trivial matter. I have a 2TB external that's yet to come close to running out of space, and boy do I have a lot of Raws and Tiffs on there.

Edit:

Same with digital, actually, different sensors and different Raw processing methods can be used before the image has a film look applied, so here's the thing - if the software judges it's adjustments from a specific unknown baseline, what kind of image does the software expect you to give to it?

Raw processors usually apply a film curve to the linear sensor data, and a film effect will apply yet another film curve on top of that, wouldn't it be better to feed it a linear image? No one can really say.

The motion picture industry loves standards, and thanks to the huge influx of Raw digital cameras in film production, a thing called ACES was introduced, and it's actually rather brilliant. What it does is: you have a profile for every major camera that ACES uses to correct the image to a specific baseline to even out any differences, and then it corrects the image again to a standard film curve, and then you apply all your corrections on top of that.

If photography could have a system like that, it would make the concept of accuracy more relevant across cameras and effects.

Doesn't the "Adobe Standard" Profile in Lightroom do exactly that?

I have a question which it would seem would be appropriate for this thread. I was playing in LR looking for a vintage colour effect for a picture of a B17. I tried out the default installed LR Colour Presets, specifically the Yesteryear preset. This preset sets all of the LR sliders to default, and selects Adobe Standard as the Camera Profile. Despite this it also manages to apply a vintage colour look to the image. I was wondering exactly how this was achieved?

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #15952406
I have a question which it would seem would be appropriate for this thread. I was playing in LR looking for a vintage colour effect for a picture of a B17. I tried out the default installed LR Colour Presets, specifically the Yesteryear preset. This preset sets all of the LR sliders to default, and selects Adobe Standard as the Camera Profile. Despite this it also manages to apply a vintage colour look to the image. I was wondering exactly how this was achieved?

Alan

Alan, I believe all the adjustments for that preset are in the Split Toning panel.

Oh right, I so seldom use Split Toning, that I had not even noticed the pannel was collapsed. Same with the Curves, since PV2012 I just never seem to need to play with them. Yet I was forever working the curves in CS3's version of ACR.

Alan

DXO Film Pack has Kodachrome presets that emulate the channel curves and film grain - if you use DXO Optics Pro as your raw converter, you can apply these presets directly in the raw conversion phase, otherwise it is a standalone application that you can use with an RGB image.

Raw Photo Processor has two K64 preset looks that alter the tone curve for the raw conversion. There is no grain applied in RPP.

kirk