DP Michael Maagaard
“Beautiful in one click.”
“What once felt impossible for digital image pipelines is now possible.”
What this is
An OFX plugin for DaVinci Resolve. Plus a kit of DCTLs — the supporting tools, and pieces of the plugin broken out for any node tree. Plus PowerGrades, so you start from a clean setup.
One installer puts all three where Resolve expects them. macOS and Windows.
DCTLs
OFX
PowerGrades
01 The negative / 13
The negative
Start from an authored stock, then go in — the curve, the per-layer response, the dye — and shape it as far as the image needs.
The frame
The negative behind itBuilt on the Kodak 5213 negative · printed through 2383
The negative you build is a real artifact. Keep it, or hand it to another colorist who runs EMBR and they load it in like any other.
Fair warning: it rewires how you think. The controls are real development decisions in the real order, and once it clicks you stop blindly moving sliders. Every change asks what a lab would ask. You start shooting and exposing with the negative in mind.
02
Where it belongs, modeled the way it burns into film.
DP Michael Maagaard
03
Not a scan of anyone else's film. The granules are grown per dye layer and take their color from the dye your image actually has, so the grain moves when the negative moves. Here it is against the real thing: one frame on 16mm 200T pushed two stops, degrained clean, then EMBR's grain on that clean base at defaults. Same image, one variable.
DP Lukas Bryant
04
Silver retention as a look-building tool, authentic or creative. Crushed blacks and muted color the way the lab did it, or aggressive contrast that holds its color, crunching density instead of bending a curve, at the negative or the print stage.
DP Hudson Mendoza
05
One hue everywhere is a cast. Hue that turns with tone is crossover, shadows drifting one way, highlights the other, the way coupled layers actually lean. View Curves draws it on the frame, so you see exactly what you dialed.
DP Christopher Murphy
06
Every hue in the frame pulled toward one scheme. Skin holds. No seams.
DP Hudson Mendoza
07
A thin veil lifted off the whole frame. The exact weight, set per shot, not whatever glass you loaded.
Pro Mist · 100%DP Christopher Murphy
08
Cat-eye bokeh at the edges, oriented around the frame, with the field curving behind it — strongest where the light is brightest.
DP + Colorist Caleb Gonz · Dir. Jack Revell
09
Softness isn’t lost detail. Sharpness, resolution, and acutance are three different things, modeled apart.
EMBRPress and drag to inspectThe Lioness · DP Sam Newton
10
The perf punched where 8mm actually punches it, light blooming through it, the neighbor frames riding above and below. Show the whole strip or keep your frame; either way, every piece of it is yours to dial.
11
Per-clip balance before the film starts. It reads skin to find true white, then seats exposure and contrast. And every view you need to nail it.
Exposure in film stopsExposure read in film stops, with skin as its own band. Meter the frame like a negative before you grade.
12
The same frame at 8, 16 and 35mm. Grain and optical texture scale with the gauge, not just bigger grain.
The print path
Your footage converted to film negative density, ready for the print LUTs you already own.
As a DCTL
One node in the tree. Your image leaves it as a negative.
Out of the OFX
Or set Film FX to output Cineon directly. Same conversion, no extra node.
Into any print LUT
Feeds anything that expects real film in: the 2383s already in Resolve, or any print emulation you trust.
On the scopes
The same gradient through both paths, and what the waveform sees. A straight CST kinks the channels and clips the toe. The conversion holds them the way a negative does.
The image
The scopes
16 DCTLs · Lite ships 2
Two kinds of tool: the ones that do a job the plugin doesn’t, and pieces of the plugin itself, broken out so you can drop them into any node tree. Colour-managed, and hard to break.
Supporting tools
Digital to Negative
Preps footage for any print LUT that expects real film negative — including the ones already in Resolve.
Printer Points
Print-lab printer lights, as a grading control.
Generator
Test patterns and ramps for checking a chain.
Vignette
Falloff that behaves like glass, not a shape.
Pulled out of the plugin
Balance (v1 + v2)
The per-clip balance from inside EMBR: exposure in stops, tint read off skin.
Hue
The hue engine on its own.
Curves
The film curve, as a node.
Tone Core
Contrast that pivots where you anchor it.
Film Sat
Density-driven saturation, not an additive sheen.
Skin Tone
The skin protection the look runs on.
Bleach Bypass
Silver retention, at the negative or the print.
Palette
The harmoniser: every hue pulled toward one scheme.
Negative Designer
The Negative Builder as a DCTL.
Color Head + Primaries
Enlarger-style colour and per-channel primaries.
13 PowerGrades
Ten camera transforms so your footage lands in the right space, plus three node trees from real client work — a map of where every piece belongs, not the product.
Camera transforms
Node trees
Balance + Look
The placement map: where every piece belongs in the node tree.
Shot Balance
The balancing and shot-matching tree from real client work.
Scene Look
A finished scene grade to pull apart.
Pro $375 · Lite $79 · one-time.
Author’s note
Repeatable grading isn’t applying the same look every time. It’s knowing where each decision belongs.
The image should move like light: scene, lens, negative, print. When that order is wrong, halation pastes on, grain floats, and texture goes thin. That’s structure, not taste.
Sometimes realism requires breaking that structure. EMBR knows where, and makes it land the same way, every time.
EMBR carries the science. The physics, the order, the discipline: handled, and still yours to bend. Everything left in your hands is creative. The image and the intent stay yours.
— JVKE
The full index
You just watched a few of these work. The rest ship in the same tool. One pipeline, nothing else to buy.
The lens
The negative
The color
The machine
From the people using it
DP & Colorist
EMBR adapts to my workflow on any project. Music video, documentary, commercial — it helps me quickly create different looks to show clients and get us moving in the right direction.
Head of Production · Bryan Bros Golf
EMBR has been such a treat to work with. Putting out videos weekly means I need to move really fast, and EMBR gives me the tools to create looks for every video faster than any tool I’ve ever used. The flexibility and features are second to none — highly recommend giving it a try.
Senior Colorist · Safehouse Post
EMBR is more than a film emulation tool. It’s an image processing tool, allowing you to hack into the color science in a way that feels photochemical in the artist’s hands. What once felt impossible for digital image pipelines is now possible.
Brennan Fletcher
Cinematographer · BF Productions
EMBR is unlike any tool I’ve used. Beyond building the exact film look I’m after, the structure of the plugin doesn’t break. I set my anchors and can create any image I imagine. Saving stock looks as my starting point is my favorite feature, and there’s still so much to explore. Best purchase I’ve made in 2026.
One-time purchase
Look development built on film physics. Start from an authored stock, build your own negative — it reads like film, not like a grade.
macOS + Windows (Beta)
Lite and Pro run on macOS. Pro and Lite also run on Windows as a beta — NVIDIA GPUs only, and your license covers both platforms.
EMBR Film FX Lite
The look
The look, for grading your own work. The same EMBR engine, curated to the core of the film pipeline — apply it, shape the stock, own it.
$79
One-time · 1 machine
EMBR Film FX Pro
First access · 25% off · ends Oct 31
The whole library, all the way open. Push any of the 24 stocks as far as it goes, or build your own from the emulsion up — then everything else film does to the image.
Everything in Lite, plus
.embrstock$375
$499
One-time · 2 machines
Lite hands you the look. Pro opens the negative. The full breakdown →
Running a facility or a team
We license per-machine studio seats, held by the organization.
One-time purchase. Perpetual license, with self-serve seat moves — Lite on 1 machine, Pro on 2. Sold by Juice Pouch Labs LLC. · DaVinci Resolve Studio 18+ · macOS 13+ · Windows (Beta, NVIDIA GPUs).
Kodak, Vision3, Portra, Ektar, and Gold are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company. EMBR is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Kodak. EMBR’s stocks are original emulations derived from published datasheets.
FAQ
No. A preset hides the decisions. EMBR is the order underneath them, the image moving like light from scene to lens to negative to print. Use the finish as-is, pull it apart, or lift single elements into your own grades. You get the destination and the discipline that got there, including the few places that order has to give for the image to feel real. The long answer is written down: how EMBR is built.
One-Time Purchase
Authored by JVKE from years of client work and real grading workflows.
Launch Note
EMBR is out. From $79.
Own it once. No subscription.
Get EMBROr try it free on your footage