Looks and film simulations
A look is the starting point for a take: a film simulation with a tonal adjustment on top, under one name. The column on the left of the edit page holds every look, each shown on the photograph in front of you.
Six simulations, twenty-four looks
Vixlo has six film simulations: Classic Chrome, Provia, Acros, Astia, Velvia and Eterna. A look pairs one of them with an offset on the eight tonal axes (exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, temperature, tint, saturation, vibrance). Twenty-four ship with the app, in six categories:
| Category | What it is for | Looks |
|---|---|---|
| Neutral | accurate, minimal interpretation | Provia Standard · Soft Neutral · Cool Neutral |
| Portrait | skin first | Astia Warm · Skin Soft · Studio Clean · Golden Skin |
| Reportage | muted, documentary | Classic Chrome · Faded Report · Cold Street · Quiet Flat |
| Landscape | colour and contrast | Velvia Deep · Golden Hour · Blue Hour · Foliage |
| Mono | monochrome — Acros only | Acros Neutral · Acros Red · Acros Yellow · Hard Graphic · Long Scale |
| Cinematic | flat, gradeable | Eterna Flat · Teal Shadow · Warm Cine · Bleach |
The small develop panel in the cull's Single view offers the six simulations on their own, without the looks (The develop panel in Single).
The film simulations column
The column's header reads FILM SIMULATIONS, with the number of looks beside it. Under it, each category is a row with its name, a few words on what it is for, and how many looks it holds. Click a row to open it; one category is open at a time.
An open category shows its looks as swatches, two to a row, each one your photograph rendered under that look through the same renderer the canvas uses, with the look's name under each. That is what makes choosing one a choice rather than a guess at a name. Rest the pointer on a swatch and it says what the look adds to its simulation, in the panel's own words: Contrast −18 · Shadows +10, or base simulation, no offset.
Click a swatch to put that look on the take. The swatch is ringed in orange with a tick, the look's name appears in orange over the canvas and under the take's cell in the strip, and the small card under the develop panel's tabs, beside the frame's thumbnail, names the look and its base simulation. It is one step of ⌘Z.
A look is a starting point
The look sits under everything else. After you choose one, the sliders in the Tone and Colour tabs work on top of it, and the line at the bottom of the canvas says what the look and your eight tonal sliders add to the simulation together. The curve, clarity, sharpening and the rest of the panel are not part of that line.
A take remembers its look by name. If Vixlo ever revises what a look means, every photograph wearing it moves with the revision rather than freezing the old values. The base film simulation is stored separately, by its own value.
A take can name a look the library no longer has, most often one saved before the library could keep looks. The simulation still renders as recorded; only the look's own offset is missing. The panel says so instead of showing the base simulation's name as though it had been chosen: Look “X” isn't in this library.
Saving a look of your own
Once a take looks right, you can keep it as a look for every other photograph in this library. A saved look holds exactly what a shipped one does: a base film simulation and one offset on the eight tonal axes. The offset is the look the take wears plus the take's own eight tonal sliders. The base is that look's film simulation, or the take's own simulation if it wears no look (Provia if it has none). The curve, clarity, colour grading, detail, crop and masks are not saved in it.
- Open the Colour tab (
⌃2) and go to its last section, Look. The card is headed SAVE AS A SIMULATION and says what it will save: Saves the base simulation and the composed offset — followed by the same words the bottom of the canvas shows. - Type a name in Name this simulation, or leave it empty and the look is called My simulation followed by one more than the number of looks already saved in this library, named or not: with none saved it is My simulation 1; with Golden hour saved, the next unnamed look is My simulation 2.
- Choose a category from the menu: Neutral, Portrait, Reportage, Landscape, Mono or Cinematic.
- Press Save.
The look appears under My simulations, a row above the six categories, and a message says “Golden hour” saved, with Filed under Landscape · available to every frame under it. The take you saved from moves onto the new look at once, and its own tonal sliders drop to zero, because they now live inside the look rather than on top of it.
Saving clears more from the take than its tonal sliders. Everything on it that the look does not hold (its crop and rotation, its curve, clarity and colour grade, its detail settings, its masks, spot cleans and lasso removals) is cleared along with them. Press ⌘Z straight after saving and the take is back exactly as it was; the look stays saved and is there for your other takes.
The base comes from the look, not from a simulation chip chosen under it in Single's develop panel. If the two differ, the saved look, and the take that moves onto it, wear the look's own simulation, and the picture changes.
Your looks are kept in the library itself, so they are there every time you open it, and only in that library. A library that cannot store adjustments keeps a look you save for the rest of the session only, and the message says exactly that: Filed under Landscape · kept for this session — this library can't store looks. If the library's file of looks cannot be read back, the column opens with no saved looks and a note at its top saying so.