Photisan

Blog

Developing, film, black and white and editing: what we learn making Photisan, for photographers who like to understand their tools.

Photisan with a black and white portrait of an old man with a pipe, the black and white settings in the side panel and the print's eleven zones below

November 10, 20267 min read

Black and white from the light: how Photisan does it

Photisan doesn't take the color out of a finished photo: it computes the gray from the scene's light, through an emulsion and a filter, then prints it on paper, places it in zones and tones it. How it works, and how to get your best black and white out of it.

The same detail of a hand with an engraved ring at 200%: on the left, developed in another program; on the right, in Photisan, with sharper engraving and skin

November 10, 20265 min read

Why Photisan gets more sharpness out of your RAW files

Every RAW file arrives a little soft: the lens, the sensor and the color reconstruction see to that. This is how Photisan gets that sharpness back without halos or noise, with a formula from 1972 and a lot of work around it.

A street sweeper with his cart on Avenida Amsterdam: the left half without film, the right half on Kodak Portra 800

November 10, 20266 min read

What's behind Photisan's film simulations

Each of Photisan's 24 films is built from the data its manufacturer publishes. This is how it works inside, from the moment light enters the emulsion to the lab's print.