darktable preset inspired by ORWOWolfen NC500

What the style changes

The style sets five darktable modules. It follows the majority of the reviews described on the ORWO Wolfen NC500 film page: muted colors, a green-yellow cast, shadows that fall off quickly and heavy grain. ORWO publishes no datasheet for this film, so nothing here comes from published curves or granularity. All figures below come from renders made with darktable-cli 5.6.0 at 1000 px, measured in CIELab. No t3mujinpack reference exists for this film.

• Muted colors, blues most of all. The color balance rgb instance named “film” lowers global saturation by 22 %, and the color equalizer lowers blue saturation by 25 %, cyan by 15 % and green by 8 %. On photo 0775 the chroma of the whole image drops from 21.4 to 8.4. Sky chroma falls by about 60 % (27.5 to 11.1) and sea chroma by about 62 % (22.2 to 8.4), against about 16 % for skin and about 24 % for the pink T-shirt.
• A green-yellow cast. The “film” instance tints the shadows and midtones toward 100° and the highlights toward 80°, and rgb primaries turns greens slightly cooler and blues less pure. Sky and sea hues move toward cyan-green (273.6° to 256.1°, and 270.1° to 230.0°). Skin turns a little more yellow (44.2° to 52.8°) and the pink T-shirt drifts toward orange (358.8° to 18.7°).
• Shadows that fall off. The tone curve has a low toe: input 0.08 maps to 0.035. The darkest 5 % of photo 1014 go from L 2.6 to 1.0. The midtones are soft and the highlights slightly compressed (L95 87.9 to 86.6).
• Contrast left in between. Reviews disagree, calling the film low in contrast or very contrasty. The style stays between the two: Lsd moves by about 1 unit on both test photos (30.7 to 31.9 and 14.3 to 15.4).
• Coarse grain. Coarseness 2800 and strength 40, above the Phoenix 200 style (2400 and 36), with a midtones bias of 60 so that it shows in the shadows and midtones and less in the highlights.

The color equalizer leaves oranges and yellows intact on purpose, because one reviewer found them punchy in golden-hour light. In our comparison with neighboring styles, this one is clearly more muted and greener than the Gold 200 and Phoenix 200 styles.

What it leaves alone

• Your base development. The style contains no exposure, no sigmoid or filmic, no white balance and no LUT. Those settings stay as you made them.
• Your color balance rgb. The style’s color balance rgb is a separate instance named “film”: it is added next to yours, which stays untouched.
• But not your rgb primaries, color equalizer, tone curve or grain. When you apply a style from the lighttable or the darkroom, each of its modules replaces the instance of the same module with the same name, if the photo has one, and is added otherwise. These four modules carry no instance name, so they replace any settings you had already made in them. Your earlier settings remain in the history.
• Halation. The style adds none, because none of the sources describes it on this film.

Exporting with a style, or rendering with darktable-cli, works differently: every module of the style is added as a separate instance. Our measurements were made that way, on darktable’s default rendering. The details are in Install and apply darktable styles.

Limits

• An interpretation, not an emulation. With no datasheet, no curve, granularity or spectral sensitivity value was used. Everything comes from reviews, which contradict each other.
• Contrast. Sources say “low” or “very contrasty”; the style picks a middle path.
• Color cast. Most reviews report green and yellow, one reports a cool, blue-leaning rendering. The style follows the majority. On the real film, the look depends heavily on the lab and the scanner, and is often corrected at scanning.
• Gray-green skies. Strongly muted blues produce gray-green skies. The real film varies with the light: reviews say it does poorly under tungsten light and better in sun.
• Grain color. One review sees a reddish tint in the grain in the shadows. darktable’s grain module is neutral, so the style does not reproduce it.
• Provisional test photos. The measurements use temporary photos and will be redone on licensed ones.

Tips

• Sunny scenes suit it best. Reviews find the film at its best in warm, direct light, and the style’s untouched oranges and yellows follow that.
• Watch the shadows. The low toe crushes them quickly. If a scene has deep shadows you want to keep, raise exposure slightly before applying the style.
• Apply it early. If you plan to fine-tune the rgb primaries, color equalizer, tone curve or grain yourself, apply the style first: it would replace those settings if you made them before.
• Everything stays editable. Each module the style sets is an ordinary module instance: you can adjust or switch it off afterwards, for example the grain strength or the “film” color balance rgb.
• Installation: see Install and apply darktable styles.