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FilmConvert Nitrate is a color grading plugin that gives your digital footage the look and feel of authentic, celluloid film. Choose from a range of film stocks, grain presets, and customisable controls and color with confidence.

Getting Started

When purchasing your license for FilmConvert Nitrate, you will receive an email containing your invoice, installation instructions, and an .fkv file (backup license file).

A user account would have been created under the email address you purchased with, which allows you to activate the plugin, view your license details, and manage which devices are activated. You can reset the password for your account so you can access your license details.

If you are using the free trial of FilmConvert Nitrate, you will be able to use all of the plugin controls, except your footage will remain watermarked until it has been activated.

The first thing you will need to do is make sure you have downloaded and installed the free trial of FilmConvert Nitrate for your editor. Simply fill out the form on our Free Trial page, and your download will begin. Run the installer, and restart your editor to start grading with Nitrate.

Nitrate will appear as an effect that can be applied to your clips, either on the timeline or to a master clip.

Add some footage to your timeline, go to the effects tab and find FilmConvert Nitrate by typing “Nitrate” into the search bar. Drag the effect onto your clip to access Nitrate’s controls. Your footage will remain watermarked until activated.

Activating the plugin

Under the ‘Register Plugin’ header, click the ‘Activate License’ button. This will open a pop-up window, where you can enter your account details to login and activate the plugin. If your login does not work, you can select the ‘Use .fkv file’ button to activate the plugin with your .fkv file.

Once your license has been activated, you will see an ‘Activation Successful’ message. Close the pop-up window to begin grading. If you experience issues with your activation, please contact us at support@filmconvert.com

Camera Settings

We profile the specific make, model, and profiles of a particular camera to ensure accuracy when grading. This means that any adjustments made with Nitrate’s controls are done in-line with the specific camera you shot on.

The first step in grading with Nitrate is selecting the camera profile the footage was shot on. Under the ‘Camera Settings’ tab, you will need to select the camera make, model, and picture profile that your footage was shot on. If you don’t know what camera the footage uses, you can select the ‘Default’ setting.

After selecting your camera settings, you will need to download the camera profile. Press the ‘Download Camera Profile’ button, and a pop-up window downloading your profile will appear.

If you wish to download all of the profiles available for your specific camera model, you can do so by pressing the ‘Download [Camera Name] Camera Pack’ button on the pop-up window. If you find that your download speed is slow, we recommend trying another Server Location.

Pro Tip: FilmConvert Nitrate works best with LOG or RAW types of footage!

Once your camera has been selected and the profile installed, you will notice some color shifts with your footage as the film emulation is applied.

Primary Controls

The primary controls are used to make any color adjustments prior to the film emulation being applied.

Exposure: Adjusts the exposure of your source clip. Moving to the left brings down the exposure. Moving to the right brings up your exposure.

Temp: Controls the color temperature of your footage. This control assumes that your clip color temperature is 5600 (Daylight). Moving the slider to the left will make the scene cooler. Moving the slider to the right will make it warmer.

Tint: Adjusts the color tint of your footage. Moving the slider to the left will add more green to your image, whereas moving the slider to the right will add more magenta to your image.

Saturation: Adds more or less saturation to your image.

Film Settings

The Film Stock drop-down list lets you choose one of our film stock emulations to apply to your footage. You can select from a range of motion pictures, black and white, and stills stocks. Each film stock has its own color characteristics and grain structure, alongside customisable controls so you can get the look you envisioned.

Cineon LOG settings

FilmConvert Nitrate’s film stock emulations work with a Cineon LOG base. This is an industry standard for scanned film negatives that stores more dynamic range in your image. This means that you can carry out your color corrections in a space that won’t destroy your original image, as all of your original camera information is still there. If you are grading footage that was shot in LOG and chose a LOG camera profile, you will then see two settings: Film Color and Print Film Emulation. Nitrate will convert your footage straight to the positive scan of your chosen film stock, to a Cineon LOG gamma, with a print film emulation added on top.

The Print Film Emulation (PFE) is what gives you the projected film look - what the footage would look like if it was projected in a movie theater.

The Film Color slider lets you adjust how much of the film stock color is applied to your footage. Dragging the slider to 100 will give you the full strength of the film stock emulation, but if this doesn’t suit your footage, you can pull it back to an amount that works for you.

The Cineon to Print Film slider allows you to adjust the strength of the print film application, by balancing the applied print film stock colors to Cineon LOG. Putting the slider to 100 will give you the full projected film stock applied. If you pull back the slider to 0, you will see your footage with the Cineon LOG film scan emulation, which looks like your camera’s LOG footage with the film stock colors applied.

You can then apply your own print film look over the top, or manually grade your way out of LOG by adding your own contrast curve.

The Film Size drop-down represents the size of the film frame we’re emulating, from Super 8mm to 35mm. 35mm grain will have a very fine grain structure, while 8mm film will have more prominent grain. This can then be customized with the grain controls below.

sRGB footage

If your footage was shot in a non-LOG profile (often called Standard or REC.709 in your camera menu), you will see two different sliders: Film Luma and Film Chroma.

The Film Luma slider allows you to roll back the film stock curve to the original camera footage curve, without losing the film colors. REC.709 footage often has enough contrast already without the film stock, so use the Film Luma slider to back this off until you’re happy with it.

The Film Chroma slider works in the opposite way. With this slider, you can roll back the film colors but keep the contrast of your selected film stock.

Grain Settings

The Grain Response Curve lets you see the natural response for the grain in your selected film stock, from the Blacks, Shadows, Mistones, Highlights and Whites, just like a histogram. The default curve you see is native to your chosen film stock, but you can adjust the appearance of the grain in those particular areas by clicking and dragging points within the curve.

Grain Strength controls the overall amount of grain that is applied to your image. Moving the slider to the right will create a strong grain effect, while taking it all the way to the left will take away your grain altogether.

Grain Size controls the size of the grain. Moving the slider to the right will increase the area of each grain particle, while moving to the left will decrease the size.

Grain Saturation lets you change the saturation of the grain on your image to make it more vivid and pronounced.

Image Softness controls the softness of the grain. As film is naturally softer than digital sensors, this control allows you to soften the grain to create a softer look overall.

OFX Overlay Controls

The Open FX Overlay controls contain the Grain Curve, Film Response Curve, and Color Wheels in FilmConvert Nitrate. You can access these controls by clicking the OpenFX toggle button under your Preview Monitor.

You can also turn this on by going to View, Viewer Overlay, Open FX Overlay through the menu bar.

This will turn on the Grain Curve, Film Response, and Color Wheels in FilmConvert Nitrate.

To give yourself space, we recommend using the Enhanced Viewer Mode. Go to Workspace, Viewer Mode, Enhanced Viewer, to switch to this view.

Halation

Halation is an effect seen when shooting on celluloid film, where strong light bounces off the camera sensor back into the red layer of a film stock, causing a bright red glow or ‘halo’ to occur over bright parts of an image.

You can apply Halation by selecting the Enable checkbox. This is selected as standard, but if you want to turn Halation off, simply uncheck the box.

The View Halation Alone checkbox brings up a Halation Map, that visualizes where Halation is occurring across your image.

Primary Controls

The Sensitivity slider determines which areas of your image are bright enough to cause Halation. Moving the slider to the right will allow Halation to appear in your midtones alongside the highlights. Moving the slider to the left will cause Halation to only appear in the brightest highlights.

The Strength slider controls how much Halation is blended into your image, and how strong your Halation will be. Moving the slider towards the right will create more intense Halation, while moving it to the left will cause a more subtle effect.

The Hue slider lets you control the color of your Halation, so you can adjust it to best suit your image. This coincides with the Green Channel Slider in the additional settings.

The Soften slider allows you to determine how smooth your Halation is. Moving the slider to the right will make your Halation softer and more spread out. Moving towards the left will result in sharper Halation for more defined edges.

Additional Settings

The Highlights slider controls the Halation response from the black all the way to the brightest highlights. Increasing this setting will bring more Halation into your highlights. Having the slider at zero will show Halation occurring on any shadows surrounding the bright highlights.

The Green Channel slider controls how much of the green channel is involved with the Halation. This can make your Halation brighter while also affecting its color. You can increase this slider if you are wanting more of a classic orange look to your Halation.

The Brightness slider controls the brightness of the Halation, and whether Halation adds only to the Chroma or Luma of your image.

The Saturation Slider controls the saturation of your Halation and how vivid it is. Turning this slider down to zero will desaturate your Halation which can result in a simple Bloom effect.

The Spread slider allows you to widen out your Halation. Increasing the slider will result in your Halation being more spread out. This control works similarly to the Soften slider, but it keeps the edge of the Halation without adding a softening effect.

In most cases, the Boost slider is set to zero, and you may not need to use it. However, if your Sensitivity slider is set very low, you can add some Boost which will create a stronger effect in areas that Halation is present.

The final setting is Quality Control. This setting can often be left as is, however, if you see unwanted artifacts in your footage you can change from the default performance setting to either Balanced or Quality.

Secondary Controls

Grain Response Curve

The Grain Response Curve lets you see the natural response for the grain in your selected film stock, from the Blacks, Shadows, Mistones, Highlights and Whites, just like a histogram. The default curve you see is native to your chosen film stock, but you can adjust the appearance of the grain in those particular areas by clicking and dragging points within the curve.

Film Response

The Film Response works as a linear representation of the scene, with the bottom left corner representing the darkest area of your image, and the top right being the brightest part of your image. You can pull on the line to adjust the film response to your liking.

This is broken up into four parts: Luma (White), Red, Green, and Blue. You can adjust each of these curves independently with minimal effect on the others.

Color Wheels

There are three Color Wheels available in Nitrate, which control the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights.

The color wheels themselves can add a specific hue to either your Shadows, Midtones, or Highlights by dragging the control to a particular color. For instance, you can add more orange to your Highlights, blue to your Shadows, etc.

The slider below each of the wheels controls the brightness for that specific area.

Levels

The Level controls are used to set the clipping point for the Blacks and Whites of your image. The Mid Point slider can be used to adjust where the middle gray of your image is, which can help you set the correct exposure and balance for your image.

LUT Export

You can export a LUT of your grade to use on an external monitor when shooting, in-camera, or for ease of use when grading your next project. Select your LUT size from 16 Cubed up to 64 Cubed, and export within the plugin.

Pro Tip: Exported LUTs are saved to your Desktop!

Deactivating your License

You can deactivate your plugin by pressing the ‘Deactivate License’ button underneath the Export and License section. This will then clear the activation seat, so you can use your license on another device.

If you are using the latest version of FilmConvert Nitrate, you can deactivate your license on particular devices through your User Account.

Uninstalling FilmConvert Nitrate

If you need to uninstall FilmConvert Nitrate, please first deactivate your license so the activation seat is cleared.

For Mac Users: The following paths can all be found in the Finder, if you press SHIFT+COMMAND+C, and then go to "Macintosh HD"

Delete /Library/OFX/Plugins/FilmConvertNitrate.ofx.bundle
Delete /Library/Application Support/RubberMonkey

For Windows Users: Go to the Control Panel, then Programs -> Programs and Features. Right click on the plugin name and select uninstall.