Dehancer

When I first started taking colour grading seriously, I found myself spending a lot of time trying to get relatively simple decisions right. Contrast, colour separation, highlight handling, the feeling of the image. Every new film meant returning to those controls and trying to rebuild the look I had in mind.

I was shooting on the Canon R5, often in C-Log 3, capturing everything from the streets of London to the rooftops of Lisbon. I wanted the flexibility of a digital camera, but I was drawn to something more tactile in the final picture: softer highlights, richer colour, subtle texture and a sense that the image belonged to a film rather than a collection of technical settings.

The challenge was finding a grading process that could be repeated without every film looking identical. I wanted consistency, but I also wanted each location, person and story to keep its own character.

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Finding a starting point

My first in-depth Dehancer video was built around real footage I had filmed in London and Lisbon. I demonstrated the plugin in Adobe Premiere Pro, using an adjustment layer to apply the look across a sequence. That gave me a practical way of seeing how individual settings influenced the whole edit, rather than judging every shot in isolation.

I spent months experimenting with different looks. One of the film profiles I kept returning to in that early workflow was Kodak Pro 100. I liked the way it handled warm colours, particularly the browns and oranges that mattered to me when filming darker skin, while still allowing the surroundings to feel vibrant.

I was particularly interested in the relationship between a subject and a place. Lisbon's rooftops, for instance, made me want colour that felt alive and inviting. In a portrait, I might care more about the restraint of the image and whether skin still felt believable. The point was to make a creative decision instead of simply turning everything up.

The details that make the image

Some of the controls made an immediate difference. Film compression gave me another way to think about bright areas and highlight roll-off. Print emulation influenced the overall relationship between light and colour. Grain and halation introduced texture and behaviour that could change the emotional quality of an image.

I discovered just how easily those effects could become distracting. In the review, I preferred a fine, subtle grain rather than a heavy 8mm look, and I used the 65mm grain option as an example of that restraint. I noticed that halation could alter perceived colour as well as the appearance of highlights, often introducing warmer edges and more noticeable reds. That meant judging the image as a whole, especially around clothing, faces and practical lights.

For me, the most satisfying grades were often the ones where the viewer could feel a difference without immediately identifying the effect responsible.

The effects should support how the audience feels about the image. They should never become more interesting than the story.

From Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve

The original review documented my Premiere Pro workflow. Since then, my grading work has moved increasingly into DaVinci Resolve, where I can spend more time on colour management, exposure, skin tones and targeted adjustments before applying the film-emulation treatment.

That evolution matters. The creative principles I explored in Premiere still guide me, but the workflow and controls are different in Resolve. I work on the foundation of the image first, then decide what Dehancer contributes. I want believable skin, highlights that feel controlled and a look that holds together across an entire sequence.

Dehancer has become part of a wider approach to shooting and finishing, rather than a one-click solution. Camera exposure, lighting, colour space, balancing and the final film treatment all affect the result.

Putting it into the films

Beyond the technical reviews, the most meaningful test is the work itself. I've used film emulation as part of my personal visual language, carrying those decisions into the films I make and the stories I want to tell.

Kapten and Son is one of the films I'd like to use here to show what this approach looks like outside a tutorial. The purpose of the grade is to reinforce the atmosphere and emotion of the piece, while allowing the images and the story to lead.

The result is a growing body of work around film emulation: an in-depth review explaining my early Dehancer process, real-world comparisons filmed in London and Lisbon, and finished creative work that demonstrates the look in context.

The original review walked through the controls that mattered most to me, including input profiles, colour boost, film profiles, compression, print, grain and halation. It also demonstrated the results with practical footage rather than relying solely on software screenshots.

As my workflow has evolved, Dehancer remains a subject I return to, both through the way I grade and through the examples I share with other filmmakers and editors.

Dehancer changed my relationship with grading by making film emulation feel approachable and repeatable. It helped me spend less time getting lost in individual controls and more time making deliberate decisions about what the image should communicate.

The longer-term result has been more important than any single setting: a clearer visual process, a more consistent approach to colour across my work, and an ongoing interest in learning how light, skin tones, contrast and film texture interact.

For me, Dehancer is most useful when it becomes part of the creative process and leaves the audience thinking about the film, not the plugin.