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FilmSkool — a free film school

A solid (free) film emulation, grain & halation dctl

A walkthrough of a free DCTL-based film emulation setup in DaVinci Resolve covering grain and halation, for colourists who would rather understand the chain than buy a black box.

Colorist Foundry · 17 min · Advanced · COL · Color · 2026

What you take away

Everything the commercial film-look plugins do is available in Resolve’s own tools; what you are buying is the preset, not the capability.

Watch it

Filed under

Films to study for colour

Books on colour

Kit for this lesson

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor — A search dial, and Resolve Studio in the box
Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio — The paid Resolve, bought once, kept for ever
Calibrite Display Pro HL — Calibrates the monitor you are trusting
Tangent Ripple — The cheapest set of real trackballs
Dell UltraSharp U2723QE — The sensible 4K second monitor
Blackmagic DeckLink 8K Pro — Clean video out to a reference monitor

More Color

Grade School: Watch a Senior Colorist Color Grade in Real Time — Cullen Kelly · 22m · Advanced
5 Levels of Look Development in Color Grading - Cullen Kelly [ResolveCon '24 - Day 3] (HQ) — Casey Faris · 41m · Advanced
How a Pro Colorist uses film grain — Cullen Kelly · 16m · Advanced
Color grading | Color science | Computer Animation | Khan Academy — Khan Academy Labs · 2m · Intermediate
My Perfect Node Tree for Color Grading - Darren Mostyn [ResolveCon '24 - Day 2] — Casey Faris · 36m · Advanced
Introduction to gamuts | Color science | Computer animation | Khan Academy — Khan Academy Labs · 2m · Intermediate
Masterclass in color grading with Mark Todd Osborne — Lowepost · 32m · Advanced
CIE chromaticity diagram | Color science | Computer Animation | Khan Academy — Khan Academy Labs · 2m · Intermediate
How Professional Colorists Read Scopes featuring Darren Mostyn — timeinpixels · 15m · Intermediate
Halation effect: What is it and why is it important for the film emulation? — Dehancer · 13m · Intermediate
I wish I knew this when I started color grading | DaVinci Resolve — Waqas Qazi · 14m · Beginner
Learn professional color grading and look development in DaVinci Resolve. — Lowepost · 27m · Intermediate

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