Top 15 'Analog-Soul-Infusing' Editing Suites to visit for Perfecting the Film Look in 2025 - Goh Ling Yong
Hey there, fellow creators. Let's talk about something we all chase: that elusive, intangible feeling in a photograph. In a world of pixel-perfect sharpness and hyper-vibrant HDR, there's a growing movement pulling us back to the warmth, the grain, and the beautiful imperfections of analog film. It’s not just about nostalgia; it’s about infusing our digital files with a soul—a tangible sense of time, place, and emotion that modern sensors sometimes struggle to capture on their own.
The quest for the perfect film look is a journey, not a destination. It's about finding the right tools that don't just slap a filter on your image but fundamentally understand the science and art of celluloid. We're talking about how light interacts with silver halides, the subtle color shifts in the shadows of a Portra 400, the beautiful bloom around highlights, and the organic, chaotic dance of film grain. It’s a craft that requires more than a one-click preset; it demands a digital darkroom that respects its analog ancestors.
That's why we've dived deep into the digital landscape to curate this list for 2025. These aren't just software; they are creative partners. Whether you're a seasoned professional looking for the ultimate control or a passionate hobbyist wanting to add character to your shots, this guide will introduce you to the 15 best "analog-soul-infusing" editing suites that will help you master the film aesthetic.
1. Dehancer Pro
Dehancer has exploded in popularity, and for good reason. Originally a powerhouse in the video world, its photo plugin for Lightroom, Photoshop, and Capture One is a meticulously crafted love letter to film. It goes far beyond simple color grading by simulating the entire analog pipeline, from the characteristics of a specific film stock to the effect of print processing.
What sets Dehancer apart is its sheer depth and scientific approach. You can control not just the film stock but also crucial elements like Halation (the red glow around bright highlights), Bloom (a soft, ethereal glow), and a grain engine that is breathtakingly realistic. It simulates the actual size, amount, and sharpness of grain based on the film profile you choose. It’s a tool for photographers who want to get their hands dirty and control every variable of the analog process.
Pro Tip: Don't just pick a film stock and stop there. Experiment with the "Print" section. Choosing a different print medium like "Kodak 2383" can dramatically and beautifully alter the color contrast and final look of your image, much like in a real cinematic workflow.
2. DxO FilmPack 7
For the purists and the historians, DxO FilmPack is a must-have. DxO Labs takes an almost academic approach, painstakingly analyzing real film stocks in their labs to create profiles that are as close to the real thing as you can get. This isn't about creating a "vibe"; it's about authentic, historical replication.
FilmPack 7 excels in its library of classic black and white films, from the gritty punch of Kodak Tri-X 400 to the silvery smoothness of Ilford Pan F Plus 50. The color profiles are equally stunning, offering legendary stocks like Kodachrome and Fuji Velvia. Beyond the profiles, its grain engine is top-tier, and you can even add light leaks, frames, and textures for a fully vintage feel. It integrates seamlessly as a plugin or can be used as a standalone application.
Pro Tip: Use the "Time Machine" feature. It organizes film stocks by historical period, which is not only fun but also helps you pair an authentic film look with the era or mood your photograph evokes.
3. Exposure X7
Exposure (formerly Alien Skin) has been a cornerstone of the film emulation world for years. It's a mature, powerful, and complete standalone photo editor that can also be used as a plugin. Its greatest strength is its vast library of beautifully crafted presets that are both authentic and highly usable right out of the box.
Exposure's magic lies in its balance of authenticity and creative freedom. The grain is organic, the overlays for light leaks and dust are subtle and realistic, and the color science behind stocks like Fuji Pro 400H and Portra 160 is spot on. It also features unique tools like bokeh simulation and a brilliant organizational system, making it a viable alternative to Lightroom for photographers who live and breathe the analog aesthetic.
Pro Tip: Dive into the "Overlays" panel. Instead of using a heavy-handed light leak, try adding a subtle "Dust" or "Scratches" overlay at a very low opacity. This adds a layer of tactile imperfection that feels incredibly authentic.
4. Mastin Labs
If you're a wedding, portrait, or lifestyle photographer—especially one who shoots both film and digital (a hybrid shooter)—Mastin Labs was practically made for you. Their philosophy is simple: create presets that perfectly match the look of real film stocks as they are scanned by professional labs like The FIND Lab or Photovision.
Mastin's strength is its consistency and simplicity. The packs are typically focused on a few key stocks—the "Portra Pushed Pack" or the "Fuji Original Pack"—and they are designed to give you a clean, timeless, and accurate film look with minimal tweaking. They also include custom lens correction profiles and "tone profiles" that help you nail the classic pastel colors and soft highlights that film is famous for. Here at the Goh Ling Yong studio, we've long admired Mastin for its ability to unify a gallery of digital and real film images seamlessly.
Pro Tip: Follow their "3-Step Workflow" religiously: apply the preset, adjust exposure, then adjust white balance. It’s designed this way for a reason and deviating from it can lead to less-than-ideal color shifts.
5. RNI All Films 5 Pro
Really Nice Images (RNI) approaches film emulation with an artist's eye. Their profiles feel less like scientific copies and more like interpretations—capturing the soul of a film stock rather than just its data points. The result is a set of emulations that are deeply atmospheric, nuanced, and beautiful.
The "All Films 5 Pro" pack for Lightroom and Photoshop is a treasure trove, containing over 180 film presets. It covers everything from consumer-grade color negative film to expired Polaroid stocks and rare cinematic emulsions. RNI's grain is subtle and feels integrated into the image, and their color palettes are renowned for their gentle, painterly quality. It's a perfect choice for fine art, travel, and editorial photography.
Pro Tip: Don't overlook the "Essentials Toolkit." After applying a film preset, use the toolkit's "Fade" or "Compress" sliders. These can help soften contrast and lift the blacks for that classic matte, printed-on-paper look.
6. Capture One Pro
While not exclusively a "film emulation" suite, Capture One Pro's color editing engine is arguably one of the most sophisticated on the market, making it an incredible platform for crafting analog looks. Its built-in "Film Styles" are a great starting point, but its true power lies in the granular control it offers over color and tone.
Capture One's Color Balance and Color Editor tools are second to none. They allow you to introduce subtle color casts into the shadows, mid-tones, and highlights independently—a technique essential for emulating the complex color theory of different film stocks. Furthermore, its film grain tool is highly customizable, allowing you to control the impact, granularity, and even the "type" of grain to match different film formats.
Pro Tip: Use the "Advanced Color Editor." Select a specific color range, like the greens in a landscape, and slightly shift the hue and decrease the saturation. This is a classic technique for emulating the subdued, earthy greens of Kodak Portra.
7. FilmConvert Nitrate (for Photography)
FilmConvert has been a titan in the video color grading world for years, famous for its camera-specific profiles that ensure accurate film emulation. Now, they've brought that same technology to photography with their Nitrate plugin. It works by matching its film profiles to the specific data from your camera's sensor, resulting in a more accurate starting point.
The Nitrate version introduces a new level of control with Cineon Log film emulation, which gives you incredible command over the final contrast and color. You can adjust the full spectrum of the film's response curve and independently control the amount of grain in the highlights, mid-tones, and shadows. This is a tool for the technical-minded artist who wants precision.
Pro Tip: Use the "Camera Profile" dropdown and select your exact camera model. This single step makes a huge difference in the accuracy of the color transformation and is the core of FilmConvert's power.
8. The Archetype Process
Developed by photographers for photographers, The Archetype Process (TAP) by GTG is less of a preset pack and more of an entire color-profiling ecosystem. Like Mastin, it focuses on matching scans from a specific lab (in this case, Richard Photo Lab), but it does so through custom camera profiles (DCP/ICC) rather than just Lightroom presets.
This profile-based approach means the color science is being applied at a more fundamental level, leading to smoother tonal transitions and more accurate colors, especially in tricky lighting conditions and with diverse skin tones. The profiles for Kodak Frontier and Fuji Frontier scanners give you two distinct starting points for your edit, emulating the look of the two most beloved lab scanners in the industry.
Pro Tip: After applying the profile and preset, experiment with the "Foundations" tools included in the pack. The "Shadow Tone - Green" or "Shadow Tone - Warm" tools can add that final, subtle touch of color contamination that sells the analog effect.
9. Color.io
This is one for the modern, tech-forward photographer. Color.io is a powerful, browser-based color grading application that feels like having a Hollywood-level tool at your fingertips. It allows you to analyze color palettes from reference images, create incredibly complex looks, and save them as 3D LUTs (Look-Up Tables) that can be used in Photoshop, Affinity Photo, and other software.
For creating a film look, its real power is in deconstructing the colors of your favorite film photographs and building a custom grade from scratch. Its "Color Remapping" and "Cine-Grade" tools give you a level of control that most raw editors can't match. It’s the perfect suite for photographers who want to develop their own signature "film stock" instead of relying on existing emulations.
Pro Tip: Use the "Image Analysis" feature. Upload a screenshot from a movie or a scan of a film photo you love. Color.io will generate a color palette and even a starter 3D LUT based on that reference, giving you a massive head start on your grade.
10. Affinity Photo 2
For those who have moved away from the Adobe subscription model, Affinity Photo 2 has become a formidable alternative. While it doesn't have a dedicated "film emulation" section, it provides all the professional-grade tools you need to build convincing analog looks manually.
The power lies in combining its features. You can use its non-destructive LUT adjustments, add realistic grain with the "Live Film Grain" filter, and use the "Channel Mixer" to introduce subtle color crossovers (like cyan in the shadows and red in the highlights). Affinity's robust layer-based workflow makes it easy to stack these effects and control their opacity for a truly custom look. I've often discussed with Goh Ling Yong how empowering it is to build a look from the ground up, and Affinity is a fantastic canvas for that.
Pro Tip: Create a "Film Look" recipe. Start with a "Curves" adjustment to create an S-curve for contrast. Add a "LUT" adjustment using a cinematic LUT. Finish with a "Live Film Grain" filter set to a low intensity. Group these layers into a "Film Effect" group that you can save and drag onto other photos.
11. VSCO (for Desktop)
Let's pay homage to an OG. Before film emulation was mainstream, there was VSCO Film for Lightroom. While the company has pivoted heavily towards its mobile app, the original desktop presets (VSCO Film 01-07) are still legendary and used by countless professionals. They are no longer sold, but for those who have them, they remain a benchmark.
The classic VSCO presets are known for their subtlety and tastefulness. They nailed the desaturated greens of Fuji 400H and the warm skin tones of Kodak Portra long before anyone else. They are less about heavy-handed effects and more about creating a cohesive, film-inspired mood. If you can find a photographer selling their license or still have them in your library, they are pure gold.
Pro Tip: The presets often reduce contrast. After applying a preset like "Fuji 400H++", go to the tone curve and create a very gentle S-curve to bring back a little bit of pop and contrast, giving it a more modern feel.
12. ImagenAI
This is the future knocking at the door. ImagenAI is a cloud-based, AI-powered editing service for Lightroom Classic. Instead of providing presets, it learns your unique editing style from your past work and applies it to new photos with stunning accuracy and speed.
So, how does this help with the film look? Simple. You can "train" a profile on your best film-style edits. Edit 3,000+ of your favorite photos using Dehancer, Mastin, or your own custom techniques. Then, feed that edited Lightroom catalog to ImagenAI. It will create a "Personal AI Profile" that understands exactly how you manipulate color, tone, and grain to achieve your signature analog aesthetic. It’s the ultimate tool for consistency across thousands of photos.
Pro Tip: Create multiple AI profiles. Have one trained on your Portra-style edits for warm, golden-hour portraits, and another trained on your Tri-X edits for gritty, high-contrast black and white street photography.
13. Lattice
For the ultimate color nerd, Lattice is a professional tool for creating, converting, and visualizing 3D LUTs. This is not for the faint of heart, but if you want to understand and manipulate color on a mathematical level to create the most accurate film emulations possible, this is your playground.
With Lattice, you can take a generic film emulation LUT and visually remap its color space, correct for issues, or blend it with another LUT. You can see a 3D representation of the color transformation, giving you unparalleled insight into what the look is actually doing to your image data. It’s like being able to open the hood of a car and tune the engine yourself, rather than just driving it.
Pro Tip: Use Lattice to "normalize" LUTs from different creators. You can analyze their color and contrast transformations and adjust them to have a similar baseline exposure and white point, allowing you to build a more cohesive personal library of looks.
14. CineStill Film Maker's Toolkit
This one comes directly from the source. CineStill, the company famous for reformatting motion picture film for still photography (like the beloved 800T), offers its own digital tools. Their "CineStill Film Maker's Toolkit" provides custom LUTs and presets designed to emulate their own unique film stocks.
This is as close as you can get to the "official" digital version of CineStill 800T, 400D, and 50D. They understand the unique color science and halation effects of their stocks better than anyone. The toolkit is perfect for hybrid photographers who shoot CineStill film and want their digital files to match perfectly, capturing those iconic vibrant reds and cool, cinematic undertones.
Pro Tip: The halation on CineStill 800T is its most iconic feature. While digital halation is hard to perfect, combine the CineStill LUT with Dehancer's halation tool. Use the CineStill LUT for the color base, then use Dehancer only for its halation effect for the best of both worlds.
15. RNI Films (Mobile App)
In 2025, mobile editing isn't a compromise; it's a workflow. The RNI Films app is a testament to this, packing an incredibly powerful and tasteful film emulation engine into your phone. It uses the same underlying color science as its desktop counterpart, offering a wide range of film stocks that look genuinely fantastic.
The interface is clean and minimalist, focusing you on the creative process. The grain is subtle, the presets are beautiful, and the adjustment tools are surprisingly robust. For the photographer on the go, for editing social media content, or for developing a look you can later replicate on your desktop, RNI Films is an essential tool. It proves that you don't need a high-end computer to infuse your images with an authentic analog soul.
Pro Tip: After applying a film filter, go into the "Adjustment" tools and use the "Shadows Tint" and "Highlights Tint" sliders. Adding a tiny bit of green to the shadows and a touch of yellow to the highlights can instantly enhance the vintage feel of almost any photo.
The Final Frame
The search for the perfect film look is a deeply personal one. The tools on this list offer different paths to the same destination: creating images that feel timeless and emotionally resonant. Whether you crave the scientific accuracy of DxO, the hybrid-shooting consistency of Mastin Labs, or the deep customizability of Dehancer, the best suite is the one that clicks with your creative process.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Combine tools. Use a Capture One style for your base color and then bring the image into Photoshop to use Dehancer's grain engine. The beauty of the digital darkroom is its flexibility. The goal isn't just to copy the past, but to use its timeless aesthetic to tell your own stories in a more powerful way.
So, what's your secret weapon for achieving that analog soul? Did we miss a hidden gem on this list? Drop a comment below—we'd love to hear about your favorite tools and techniques for bringing the magic of film to your digital work.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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