Apply a look

A look is a color treatment laid over the finished photo, like a film stock or a toned print. You choose it from a list and set how much of it to use.

Apply a look

1. Open Look, the last section in the left column.
2. Click the top row to unfold the list. Type in the filter to narrow it, then click a look to apply it. The list stays open so you can try several.
3. Drag Amount to set how much of the look to use: 0 is none, 100 is full. It starts at 100.

To remove the look, click the clear button on the top row. Amount is dimmed until a look is chosen.

A look comes after every other edit, including Monochrome, the crop and the vignette. Your edits work on the untouched photo, and the look grades the result. That is why a toning look tints a photo you turned monochrome.

Browse the shipped looks

DarkRay ships 29 looks in four groups. Yours lists the looks you import or save.

Group	Looks
Film	Portra 400, Portra 160, Ektar 100, Gold 200, Pro 400H, Superia X-Tra 400, CineStill 800T, Velvia 50, Provia 100F, Ektachrome E100, Kodachrome 64
Creative	Teal & Orange, Faded Matte, Bleach Bypass, Cool Cinematic, Golden Hour, Pastel
Monochrome	Tri-X 400, T-Max 100, T-Max 400, HP5 Plus, Delta 3200, Acros 100 II
Toning	Sepia, Selenium, Cyanotype, Platinum, Warm Split, Cool Split

The film looks are emulations, shaped by eye from the manufacturers’ data sheets and their described character. They are not measurements of the film.

The Monochrome looks do not make a photo gray. Turn on the Monochrome switch in Profile for that. Over a color photo, a Monochrome look is only the film’s contrast. The Toning looks are print toners meant for a monochrome photo. Over a color photo they act as a color cast.

Import a look

1. Click the import button beside the filter.
2. Choose a .cube file.
3. Say which encoding it was made for: sRGB display (gamma-encoded Rec.709), Rec.709 display (gamma 2.4), Linear Rec.709, Linear ProPhoto, ACEScct or DarkRay Log (already a DarkRay look).

The look is applied right away. A look made for a display encoding is tagged display in the list. It is applied last, after the picture is mapped to the screen, the way its author saw it.

Save your edits as a look

1. Select the Base layer. The command is dimmed while a local layer is active.
2. Click the save button beside the filter and name the look.
3. Choose the sections to include: Color Primaries, Curves, Color Grading, Color Adjust (Monochrome included), Saturation and Vibrance, and The look already set, so looks can build on each other. All are on by default.
4. Optional: turn on Apply the look and reset the baked sections. The new look is set on the photo and the included sections go back to their defaults, in one undo step.

The look is saved to your looks folder, and the folder button opens it. The photo is not changed unless you turn on the option in step 4.

Exposure, white balance, Brightness, Shadows, Highlights, Clarity, Sharpen and the other spatial effects, and local layers are not included. A look is a color treatment and can’t hold a mask. The saved look approximates your edits; expect small differences from the edits themselves.

Technical details: how a look is stored

A look is a 3D lookup table (.cube) in DarkRay Log, a fixed encoding that covers ten stops below white and six above. That is why a look from another program can be imported and why the shipped looks keep highlight detail above white. The table is read in one trilinear lookup, the same on the processor and on the graphics card.

Amount blends in linear light between the photo and the looked photo. It stops at 100, because values past 100 would extrapolate a sampled table, which breaks at the edges of the gamut.

A look that was made for a display has no room above white and no colors beyond sRGB, so DarkRay applies it after the display transform instead.