darktable preset inspired by LomographyLomoChrome Color '92

What the style changes

The style sets five darktable modules. Lomography publishes no datasheet for this film, so the style rests on the description of the film and on reviews, summarized on the LomoChrome Color ’92 film page. It is an interpretation, not a calibrated emulation. Renders were made at 1000 px with darktable’s default processing as the base.

• Soft contrast, lifted blacks. Global contrast is almost unchanged (Lsd 14.3 → 15.3 on photo 0775, 30.7 → 30.6 on photo 1014), but blacks rise (L5 2.6 → 6.3 on photo 1014). The result is a soft look that does not crush the blacks.
• Pastel palette. Global chroma drops a little (C 21.4 → 19.3 on photo 0775; sky 27.5 → 24.7).
• Blue hues. Sky and sea shift toward cyan (sky 273.6° → 263.6°, sea 270.1° → 258.4°), in line with the “blue hues” in Lomography’s description.
• Skin. Skin hue barely moves (44.2° → 47.9°) and chroma rises slightly (16.4 → 17.4), so it stays pinkish rather than orange. A first version turned skin yellow-orange (hue 58.5°), against the “muted pink” one review reports; it was corrected by leaving the red primary at 0 and setting orange at −22°.
• Reds. The pink T-shirt drifts about 8° toward orange (358.8° → 7.2°) with stable chroma (33.7 → 32.8).
• Heavy grain. Coarseness 2000 and strength 30, more than the Color Negative 400 style (1700 / 22).

What it leaves alone

• Your base development. The style contains no exposure, no sigmoid or filmic, no white balance and no LUT.
• Your color balance rgb. The style’s instance is named “film” and is added next to yours.
• But not your rgb primaries, color equalizer, tone curve or grain. These carry no instance name: when you apply the style from the lighttable or the darkroom, each replaces any instance of the same module already on the photo. Your earlier settings stay in the history.
• Your pipeline order. The style file carries no module order list.

Exporting with a style, or rendering with darktable-cli, adds every module as a separate instance. See Install and apply darktable styles.

Limits

• Interpretation, not a calibrated emulation. No manufacturer datasheet and no measurement on film.
• The color cast is a choice. Reviews place the shadows in blue, green or yellow-brown, and the highlights in yellow-green or blue. The style fixes one compromise: blue-green shadows, yellow-green highlights. This is a choice between diverging sources, not a measurement.
• Contrast is a judgment call. Most reviews say low or flat; the style follows them.
• Grain and saturation are set without any manufacturer figure.
• Color shifts from underexposure and light leaks are not simulated.
• Sun-kissed is not modeled. The style targets the original film, not the warmer Sun-kissed variant.

Tips

• Apply it early if you plan to fine-tune the tone curve, rgb primaries, color equalizer or grain yourself, since it replaces those settings.
• Shift the cast to taste with the hue of the “film” color balance rgb instance, given how much reviews disagree.
• Installation: see Install and apply darktable styles.