Review - RNI Film Presets

 RNI film presets for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe ACR - I am fond of using presets for Lightroom, I usually look at them as a good place to start. RNI has gone to a lot of trouble to create a massive database of presets that simulate various film styles, the Pro version, comes with an immense amount of presets. Fuji, Agfa, Ilford, Kodak, Polaroid, Rollei, from my old favorites in the film days.

 

 RNI - Agford Scalia-200, plus, Vignette +5 and Slide Frame Black  

Original RAW file

 I used 3 presets as noted, then some minor modifications to complete the image. Shadows and highlights and removed the grain. A lot of time can be saved using presets, I didn't have to adjust individual channels and curves and I came out with an image I liked in Short order.

RNI-Kodak-Elite-01

 Original RAW file

Here I used RNI Kodak Elite 01 adjusted shadows and highlights and cropped to taste, the image is over saturated for my taste, which can easily be fixed, but I wanted to show what comes out of the presets.

 Fuji Superia 200

Original RAW file

 Fuji Superia 200, adjusted shadows and highlights. Again a little to saturated, but easily fixed.

These where created in a very short time, relative to my normal post production. Having a place to start is a big advantage and those looking for the original analog film look will appreciate the time savings that can be had.

The Tool kit that's included gives you black and white frames, a variety of grain types, Fade and softness at various levels. It would be nice to see more frame types added.

A place to start, as I mentioned, these presets can be a great place to start, you can also apply a preset, make your own adjustments and then save them as your own presets. I will continue to use these presets for future post work and look forward to RNI's future upgrades.

From the RNI web site:

Available to purchase here at the RNI web site.

"How the RNI film presets are different from other offers in the market

1. Exceptional quality
RNI Film Presets provide realistic simulation of real film stocks. All RNI presets derive from real film shooting (for present films) and private archives of slides and prints (for legacy films).

2. Striking diversity
Probably, RNI All Films is the most comprehensive film-simulating package that exists in the market, offering almost 300 beautiful and accurate film simulations. What's also important is that we don't charge any extra for the ACR versions of our presets since RNI Films v.3.0.

3. Customised camera profiles
RNI film presets for Adobe Lightroom and ACR come with customised camera profiles. This makes for better tonal range and really convincing film simulation tailored to work with your camera.

4. Constant support and development
At RNI we keep our products constantly evolving. We are not only adding new films but also improving on the quality and sophistication of the existing presets with every new release. And we are also testing our products for the best performance with the most recent cameras, so you always get the most from your gear.

5. Massive upgrade discounts
All the existing RNI customers get massive upgrade discounts.

All the above makes RNI film presets a superior creative tool for your digital workflow. 

How to install RNI All Films for Lightroom and ACR

Please refer to our step-by-step installation manual (PDF)

Can I use RNI film presets for editing JPEGs?

RNI Film Presets are designed to work with RAW files and they do their best with RAW. However they also perform very well with properly exposed JPEGs from modern cameras. In case of JPEGs you may want to use a special '- JPEG Compensation' included into each package. Also some additional brightness and contrast correction may be required.

What is a recommended workflow for RNI film presets in Lightroom?

We would recommend to pay attention to the following points:

1. Use ‘Reset’ command before applying a new preset to the image. This will prevent inheriting any odd settings from the previous edit.

2. After a preset is applied, try some settings from Film Essentials Toolkit: Hard Fade, Grain, Vintage Lens — they can influence the style of the image greatly.

3. You can get even more variations of any film look if shooting RAW. Just take a look at the Camera Calibration Panel. By default all the presets use RNI customised camera profiles. But your RAW images also give you a choice of profiles specific to your camera. Try those with different presets and see how they affect contrast and colour rendering of your photos."

Disclaimer: I was not paid to review this product, I received the software from RNI to test and review.

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Ross

Images In Light