Learning OpenCV 4 Computer Vision with Python 3 - Third Edition

Emulating photo films

A common use of curves is to emulate palettes that were common in pre-digital photography. Every type of photo film has its own unique rendition of color (or gray), but we can generalize some of the differences from digital sensors. Film tends to suffer a loss of detail and saturation in shadows, whereas digital tends to suffer these failings in highlights. Also, film tends to have uneven saturation across different parts of the spectrum, so each film has certain colors that pop or jump out.

Thus, when we think of good-looking film photos, we might think of scenes (or renditions) that are bright and that have certain dominant colors. At the other extreme, maybe we remember the murky look of an underexposed roll of film ...