After over a year of going back and forth trying to port my Film Candy presets to Lightroom, I’m delighted to say that they’re finally available. Film candy for Lightroom is a set of Develop Module that I designed to create a stylised image based on the look of expired and instant film. It was originally inspired by the popularity of plastic cameras that became popular and the smart phone apps that followed. Unlike some other presents however, film candy is not designed to try and emulate old and used film, or even the smartphone filters that have become popular. Instead, Film candy is an artistic interpretation of those effects. Rather than try to emulate film, it is instead “inspired” by various film looks.

Film Candy for Lightroom also includes my own personal “Toolbox”. This is a collection of presets that I’ve accumulated over the years that allow me to make quick common adjustments with a single click. So, for example, I have three different vignette settings that can be applied quickly, as well as a selection of Gradients for things like darkening skies, or brightening the bottom of the frame. I use these tools every day in my Lightroom work and so I think they’re a great set of utilities to have.

Film Candy was originally developed for Aperture, and there have been three versions. I’ve been getting requests for some time to port them to Lightroom, and it turned out to be more difficult than I first thought, however I think the result was worth the wait. The original Aperture versions were small preset packs containing a few presets each. Film Candy for Lightroom combines styles from all three of the original Aperture versions, and creates similar looks for Lightroom. Unfortunately though, because of the differences in both applications, it’s not possible to get the looks exact, and so they are instead based on the same ideas rather than exact duplicates. The Lightroom version also contains the ToolBox that isn’t in the Aperture Version. Incidentally, I’m also working on porting Quick Lux and Monolith to Lightroom too.

Getting the Lightroom version ready and available for sale took quite a bit of work, as it involved, not just creating and testing the presets, but also writing the documentation, and also setting up a new store and e-commerce system.

By the way, If you’re wondering what the name is all about, it started as kind of a joke, It was the idea of candy you get when you go to the movies. As development progressed I started using various types of sweets (as we call candy here in Europe!) as codenamed for the various presets I was working on, and the idea stuck. Thus “Film Candy” was born.

Film Candy for Lightroom is available now for €15 (including Vat). It’s a little bit more expensive than the original Aperture versions, but it’s a much large set and is more like all three versions combined, and it includes the toolbox as well.

Here are some more examples of Film Candy in use