FilmLab Desktop 2.5 for Mac and Windows is coming out of beta testing and the official version is being released today! The negative conversion software has been in beta testing since the announcement of the upgraded 2.5 version in December 2022.
The software will go live on filmlabapp.com along with a new user guide and new pricing. A subscription can be had for $7.99 monthly or $59.99 annually or you can purchase a lifetime license for $199.99. Licenses cover full access on all devices to the software which doesn’t rely on any other programs to run.
FilmLab Desktop 2.5 is brought to you by Develop + Fix, a company founded in 2019 by software developer Abe Fettig that started as a personal project in 2016. If you would like to read more about the company’s background story, check out the original FilmLab 2.5 news post from January here:
NEWS: Big Updates for FilmLab’s Mobile and Desktop Standalone Scanning Apps
Updates mentioned in the original release article include batch processing, crop and perspective correction tools, non-destructive editing, and viewing images as thumbnails.
If you have macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or Windows 8.1, the FilmLab Desktop 2.5 will be compatible with your computer. In the last update we posted about FilmLab, Abe said he would like to make the software available for older hardware and systems as long as possible, but this may pose a challenge in the future depending on the nature of support needed for older systems.
FilmLab is also offering its software for free use for educational programs that teach young people film photography. So, if you are an educator, get in touch with the team here.
To test out the software for yourself and find more info about the product and company, head over to FilmLab’s website here!
I tested the app a bit on iPad, it was fairly impressive for such new and standalone software, to be able to handle RAW and deliver a good output file like that was refreshing, and it’s quite affordable if you don’t subscribe to other post processing app like Lightroom and C1, I will surely use the app in the future
sounds great! thanks for sharing your experience!
A dedicated scanner has ICE for dust and scratch removal. For those who scan with a digital camera, how much do you miss that?
Hi Steve! I’ve scanned with both the Plustek 8100 and the Pixl-Latr and I get less dust with the Pixl-latr despite the Silverfast software having dust removal. With a rocket launcher to blow away the dust for each frame scanned with a digital camera, it’s easy to have a clean negative so don’t really miss the dust removal in the software!
I shoot 50/50 color vs. B&W. I couldn’t use ICE for B&W anyway. I slide my film through a Kinetronics Staticvac right before it enters my film holder. I get barely any dust with this setup, it works on *all* my film, and I don’t have the slight image degradation ICE imposes. I sold my scanners, a V800 and a PIE XAS for $1200, which paid for the staticvac, film holder, copy stand, and an Olympus EM5ii to use as the dedicated scanner.
I tried this software – it’s solid, no complaints. I think the output is mostly on par with Negative Lab Pro. For my workflow I prefer Negmaster BR, as I can use that with Adobe Bridge CC for free. I invert in BR-CC then perform my final tweaks in DxO Photolab. That way I have no recurring costs and I have a single program I use for both digital and analog photos (DxO).
For what it’s worth, I’ve also not had any dust problems using a camera (Sony A7R and A7R4 in this case) and a Pixl-Latr setup to scan vs. using scanners (Epson V850 being the latest).
Especially when scanning recently developed negs I find they’re rarely dirty enough to warrant much time on dusting/cleaning either physically or in post.
I might go with ICE and ‘good enough’ if I were doing bulk scanning of old dusty slides and negs as a commercial service. Different expectations and practicalities.
Glad there are more programs/plugins for converting film negatives to finished images as well as alternatives to Photoshop. There are open source alternatives as well, Which are not « on the radar ». I’ve used two to invert/correct straight scans of negatives
– Darktable [https://www.darktable.org/] is an « open source photography workflow application and raw developer ».
– Rawtherapee [https://rawtherapee.com/] is « cross-platform raw photo processing system »
Both have tools to convert negatives (RAW and DNG) into positives as well as other post-processing tools. Gimp [https://www.gimp.org/], a « free & open source image editor » program, plays well with Darktable and Rawtherapee.
All three are worth a try.
thanks for sharing those Marco!
I have been using Capture One for my digital photography for a few years now. For my camera-scanned medium format colour negatives, I have been trying Analog Toolbox and I am very happy with the results as a starting point. Typically, only very few additional tweaks are needed. For black & white negatives, I actually prefer the manual conversion since there is not much one can do wrong.