Optical printing is the last stage of the analogue production. As the result we get a paper print for direct viewing or a positive film for screen projection. Both can be scanned for digital delivery.

Optical printing is the only analogue solution that can be used for proper interpretation of the negative films.

Beyond the technical significance, any print medium has its own tint, photo latitude and contrast curve that makes it a useful creative tool.

In the Print parameters group, you have a choice of the print mediums:

Linear

Only a ‘pure’ profile of a selected film is used, without the influence of the characteristics of photographic paper.

Cineon Film Log

Selected film is ‘printed’ into Cineon film scan format. This parameter also makes it possible to ‘print-out’ negatives outside Dehancer.

Kodak 2383 Print Film, Fujifilm 3513 Print Film

Selected film is ‘printed’ onto Kodak Vision Color Print Film 2383 or Fujicolor Positive Film Eterna-CP 3513DI.

Kodak Endura Glossy Paper

Selected film is ‘printed’ onto Kodak Endura Premier Glossy Paper.

Relying on our experience in optical printing and our research into the psychophysiology, we have developed the dedicated print settings that faithfully reproduce the analog processes:

Target White

Only available when Kodak 2383 Print Film or Fujifilm 3513 Print Film is selected. Allows to adjust the temperature of the printing light source in the 5500-6500 K range.

Exposure (Ev)

The Exposure tool is based on characteristic curves of optical prints. With the analogue approach to the exposure correction it naturally affects the image contrast too. This parameter is measured in the exposure value steps (Ev).

Tonal Contrast

The Tonal Contrast tool inherits a nonlinear nature of analogue processes. Increase the value to give more punch or apply negative correction to visually ‘soften’ an image. Notice that changing the contrast also visually affects the exposure, which is also typical for analogue media.

Color Density

Traditional ‘digital’ saturation affects all hues equally and linearly. On the contrary, the Color Density tool provides perceptual saturation control, i.e. it affects aesthetically significant colors in a higher degree. Color Density can be used to quickly solve many specific problems – for example, to mitigate oversaturated accents or emphasise meaningful colors without painstaking adjustment.

Saturation

This is a more "traditional" saturation control based on altering the chroma components in YCrCb space. This correction is available only in the reduction way due to the fact that oversaturation usually degrades the aesthetics.

Analogue Range Limiter

By default, Print adjustments work within the boundaries of the ‘digital’ contrast range. Black and white points are normalised to the digital brightness values of 0 and 100, respectively. To obtain a softer image and improve the detail at the extremes of the tonal range, enable the Analogue Range Limiter which uses the uncorrected black and white point values as they were measured on the reference prints.

💡 Even though Tonal Contrast uses sophisticated nonlinear compression, it may lead to some clipping at high values. If this happens, revisit Expand to set a more ‘relaxed’ cutoff for black and white points or enable the Analogue Range Limiter checkbox to get more headroom for processing.

Also you can use the Film Compression tool to make the highlights more textured and smooth out the clipping.

💡 It is convenient to follow the analogue pipeline when matching the print medium with the film. Use the Linear profile with positive films, Kodak 2383 or Fujifilm 3513 for corresponding movie stocks and Kodak Endura paper for photographic negative films. However, experiments are always welcome.

💡 To get a saturated and expressive image, we recommend starting with increasing the contrast and simultaneously slightly decreasing the exposure.

You can also adjust the Color Density to emphasise your colors.

💡 Some combinations of the print settings may produce colors falling out of the gamut, with visible artefacts, especially when Color Density is increased.

In this case lower the contrast and saturation or try another film or print media profile.