Vintizer / Film Stocks

Eight Emulsions,
Modelled Frame
by Frame

Every film stock was a set of compromises. This is a record of which compromises each one made, and what those decisions did to a photograph.

Stocks 8 Formats 35mm · Square Mounts 3 Cost Free

A manufacturer decided how much silver to lay down, how thick to make each layer, which dyes to couple to which sensitivity, and what to give up in exchange for what. Those decisions are why a photograph taken on Kodachrome does not look like the same photograph taken on Portra, and why neither looks like a file straight off a sensor.

This section is about those decisions. Eight pages, one per emulsion: what it did to a picture, the chemistry or manufacturing reason it did that, and what your options are if you want the same behaviour from a photograph you took last week.

Each is also a model in the Vintizer film lab — three per-channel tone curves, a contrast figure, a grain weighting, a halation strength and colour. Numbers we picked, written out on each page so you can disagree with them.

The Eight

01 Kodachrome 64 Hard Shadow 64 · ISO 64 · 35mm Shadows that close down and stay closed, a narrow palette, and reds no other emulsion matched. Structurally a black and white film — the colour was added during development, by a process only one lab on earth could still run by the end. That is both why it looked unique and why it died. Read the page → 02 Portra 400 Soft Skin 400 · ISO 400 · 35mm The opposite decision. Lifted shadows, restrained contrast, and a colour response tuned around skin rather than landscape. Enormous exposure latitude, which is why it became the film you could hand to a second shooter and trust. Read the page → 03 CineStill 800T Tungsten Bloom 800 · ISO 800 · 35mm Motion picture stock with the anti-halation backing removed so it can run in standard chemistry. Taking that layer away lets light scatter back through the emulsion, which is exactly why every bright highlight blooms red. The defect is the product. Read the page → 04 Ilford HP5 Plus Press Mono 400 · ISO 400 · 35mm Black and white built to be pushed. Press photographers rated it at 1600 and dealt with the grain, because a grainy frame you got beats a clean frame you missed. The grain structure is not a side effect here; it is the character. Read the page → 05 Ektachrome E100 Slide Reversal 100 · ISO 100 · 35mm slide Reversal film: what comes back is a positive image in a cardboard mount, held up to light rather than printed. Clean, cool, saturated, and unforgiving about exposure — a slide gives you roughly half a stop of room before it is gone. Read the page → 06 Polaroid SX-70 Integral Instant 150 · ISO 150 · square Integral instant film, where the negative, the positive and the chemistry all stay sealed in one sheet forever. The image you hold is the only one that will ever exist. Washed highlights, a warm cast, and a square frame with a chin wide enough to write on. Read the page → 07 Superia 400 Drugstore Colour 400 · ISO 400 · 35mm The roll sold at every pharmacy counter, and therefore the film most family photographs were actually taken on. Green midtones, punchy consumer colour, honest grain. If your memory of the nineties has a particular colour, this is probably it. Read the page → 08 Expired Film Expired Drawer 200 · ISO ~200 · 35mm Not a stock but a condition. What happens to a colour emulsion twenty years past its date stamp: the three layers fade at different rates, so the balance drifts — usually toward magenta — shadows die, and fog creeps in from the edges where the roll was least protected. Read the page →

Side by Side

Emulsion	Vintizer model	ISO	Gate	Comes back as
Kodachrome 64	Hard Shadow 64	64	3:2	Mounted slide
Portra 400	Soft Skin 400	400	3:2	Colour negative
CineStill 800T	Tungsten Bloom 800	800	3:2	Colour negative
Ilford HP5 Plus	Press Mono 400	400	3:2	B&W negative
Ektachrome E100	Slide Reversal 100	100	3:2	Mounted slide
Polaroid SX-70	Integral Instant 150	150	1:1	The print itself
Superia 400	Drugstore Colour 400	400	3:2	Colour negative
Expired film	Expired Drawer 200	~200	3:2	Colour negative

Try one on your
own photograph. All eight models are in the film lab. Free, no account, and the photo never leaves your device.

Open the lab

How These Models Were Built

Not with presets copied from somewhere, and not with a neural network trained on scans. Each model is a set of explicit numbers we chose, and the reasoning behind each one is written out on its page.

ToneThree per-channel curves — lift, gamma, gain, offset

ContrastApplied after the curve, per stock

GrainWeighted toward the midtones, as on real emulsion

HalationHighlight bloom, tinted per stock, screen blended

GateCentre crop to the real film format

MountSprocket rebate, slide mount, or instant border

Because the numbers are explicit rather than learned, the strength dial can scale them. At zero you get your original file back, mathematically untouched. At 150 you get more than the film ever did — which is sometimes what you want, and the dial turns red to tell you that is what is happening.

Where These Models Fall Short

Worth saying plainly, because most tools like this will not.

Resolution is not recoverableKodachrome’s thin layers gave it a sharpness we cannot add to a digital file. We can match colour behaviour; we cannot invent detail that was never captured.

Grain is simulated, not structuralReal grain is silver crystals of varying size clumping in three dimensions. Ours is weighted noise. At normal viewing size the difference is invisible; at 100 per cent zoom it is obvious.

Latitude cannot be reversedIf your highlights are clipped, no emulsion model brings them back. Film’s advantage was in what it recorded, and that decision was made at the moment of exposure.

Colour negative involves a scannerWhat people call “the Portra look” is partly Portra and partly whatever a lab scanner decided to do with it. We are modelling a common interpretation, not a fixed truth.

The presets in the film lab carry Vintizer’s own names — Hard Shadow 64, Soft Skin 400, and so on — each described as being after a particular film. That wording means what it says: the preset is our model, built by studying the reference, and it is not the film. Film names on this site identify the real products being discussed and belong to their respective owners. Vintizer is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any film manufacturer. Full notice.