Summary
Digital Film Tools offers Digital Intermediate-style film looks as well as film emulation for video and pro compositing compliant with your favorite editing packages
Target Apps
Video, film, broadcast and Web animation visual effects pipeline work
What It Costs You
$295, Composite Suite (After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Avid); $795 for 55mm, Digital Film Lab, Composite Suite and zMatte "super bundle" (After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Avid)
WHAT’S COOL
DFT supplies a massive array of pro filters that cover more ground for DI looks, film emulation and compositing than some artists may be able to handle. That’s a problem worth having.
What's Missing
More show-and-tell in the form of video tutorials would help shrink the learning curve on more complex offerings within DFT. Some filters are less useful than others, depending on niche workflows and tastes.
SPECS
8- and 16-bit filters for Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid edit systems; for Windows and Mac OS X systems; pro workstation class machine (1 GB or more of RAM) with an OpenGL-enabled graphics card preferred.
Ratings: Products are rated for features, performance, ease of use and overall value.
A Vast Set of Plug-In Options for Avid, After Effects and FCP
Ed Heede
July 1, 2007 Source: Studio Monthly
The 2D plug-in market offers a jungle of options. But it isn’t often that so many of those choices exist in one product line. In the case of Digital Film Tools, the style and power of plug-ins offered span a vast field, from composite keying and Digital Intermediate-style looks to color correction, all at up to 16-bit color.
The DFT line for Adobe After Effects, Avid editing systems and Apple Final Cut Pro breaks down into four categories: 55mm for traditional photographic lens, lab and filter simulations; Composite Suite with 2D filters for matte editing, color correction, grain and lighting; Digital Film Lab 2 for Digital Intermediate-style looks designed to take video into film emulation; and zMatte with blue and greenscreen keying designed for simple-to-challenging film or broadcast matting work.
So Many Utilities, So Little Time
There’s no way to cover the hundreds of utilities here so I’ll focus on the highlights. The 55mm tools work surprisingly well at mimicking photographic treatments with the proper set up. As an example, filters like Rack Focus, Depth of Field and Split Field can simulate what their names suggest, especially if objects and actors are chroma-keyed or rotoscoped to reside on different layers. The 55mm Color Correction tools range from Telecine to F-Stop and Printer Point styles. Plus 55mm offers an Effects batch with items like Bleach Bypass (very popular), Cross Processing and Film Graining that closely emulate the lab looks these are named for. A vast section for Gels, Grads and Tint plug-ins offers a multitude of Digital Intermediate-flavor treatments that, as fine as they are, are as editable as the rest of the tools here. A 55mm Lens section offers filters like Chromatic Aberration, Lens Distortion and Polarizer for optical effects. Light effects can go from subtle to more art-house fare with tools like Vari-Star.
As the name implies, Composite Suite is a full-featured compositing package with close to 30 filters dedicated to pulling and cleaning mattes from blue- to greenscreen and more. Color Correction is included.
Digital Film Lab 2 supplies more than one hundred presets for Black and White, Color Looks, Diffusion, Film Grain Stocks and Temperature settings. And, of course, all are editable via Diffusion, Color Grad, Gels and Lab controls.
Finally, zMatte rounds out the DFT bundle as a dedicated blue- and greenscreen keying program built for simple to more hair-raising matte creation tasks. Final Cut Pro and Avid editors will have their hands full with the Digital Intermediate looks alone.
DFT offers a vast depth and quality of filters for film and video— what a blessing!
