Dehancer Review: Is the Film Emulation Plugin Worth It?

In the digital age of photography and film-making, we have become accustomed to near-perfection in our images. Before the birth of the digital; age we had to capture pictures using negatives and then process them in a lab. Believe it or not, the digital camera was invented in 1975, although the technology didn’t hit the mainstream consumer until the 1990s.

During the analog age, numerous variables directly affected the look and feel of your final printed images. This included:

• The make and type of negative film used.
• The in-camera settings when you captured the image.
• How the image was developed in a lab
• The type of paper used to develop your images.

If we look back at images taken before the digital age, they have an organic feel to them, and this is directly attributable to the variability of the processing.

Here’s a photo of mine from the early 1990s taken on a Canon SLR using Kodak Gold 200 film and processed onto Fuji Paper. You can immediately tell this looks more organic than modern-day photographs.

Programs like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom allow us to emulate certain elements of the analog age. For example, adding grain, toning, & color grading. However, if you are looking for the specific look and feel of the analog age, with precise control over the developing process, then Dehancers’ Film Emulation Software may be worth your time to take a look at.

The software has over 60 photographic and movie films stored as presets. For each preset you have full control over the tonal balance, and effects such as film grain, halation, bloom, and many more. You also have the flexibility to create your own presets.

The following video covers our review of this plugin, including an integrated workflow in Camera RAW, Adobe Photoshop, and Dehancer Film Emulation. We used a wildlife image I took in 2024 using a Canon EOS 5D MkIV and a Canon 200-400 F4 L 1.4x. We used the Kodak Gold 200 emulation in Dehancer to see if we could get something that felt similar to the image I took whilst on safari in the 1990s.

Note that the review was sponsored by the Dehancer Team. However, we have given an un-biased and honest review of the plugin to answer the question: “Is It Worth The Money”.

Dehancer Film Emulation Plugin Conclusions

At first glance, I have to admit I found the interface slightly daunting. But, it didn’t take that much time to get up to speed with the software, as the help guides provided by Dehancer are pretty good.

As an example, when you select a Film Profile, you need to set the exposure of the profile using the EV slider in order to get the desired color contrast. The reference to EV is a nod to the days of analog processing when the developer would push or pull the exposure. So you obviously need to invest time reading the Dehancer manuals to understand some of these terms. But, once you do, you realize the user interface is quite intuitive.

When I first looked at the plugin, I was somewhat skeptical, as it’s essentially based on using presets and then fine-tuning them. But I quickly recognized that unlike the majority of other presets available, the ones in the Dehancer Film Emulation Plugin are based on actual vintage film stocks, so they have a historical basis.

If you have an in-depth knowledge of how to use curves in Photoshop or Lightroom, then you can emulate some of the looks in Dehancer. What I will say though, is that whilst Photoshop & Lightroom are an industry standard, in the wrong hands it’s very easy to make a perfectly good image look perfectly bad!

The advantage I see in the Dehancer plugin is that you are starting from a preset with a historical basis in reality, and the controls in the software enable you to precisely and subtly adjust that to develop your own look or style. Since the changes you are making are subtle, the less likely you are to completely destroy what was a perfectly good image to start with.

Is The Dehancer Film Emulation Plugin Worth The Money?

If you have paying clients that say want a specific film look, then the answer is a resounding yes.

If you find using Curves in Lightroom or Photoshop too daunting and/or complicated, then the answer is also yes. But, if you know your way around Photoshop and Lightroom’s advanced features, then you probably don’t need this plugin.

But, having said that, if you have the budget and are looking for high-quality effects that you can tailor to develop your own unique style, then Dehancer Film Emulation might be worth a try!