darktable preset inspired by KodakVerita 200D

What the style changes

The style sets five darktable modules. It aims at what most still photographers would see from this film: the lab scan of a negative developed in ECN-2, as for the Vision3 250D style. It does not simulate a print on positive film. What the film is and what the sources say about it is on the Kodak Verita 200D film page. Verita 200D is very recent and few independent sources exist, so the style follows Kodak’s description and marks what remains uncertain. All figures below come from renders made with darktable-cli 5.6.0 at 1000 px, measured in CIELab. There is no t3mujinpack reference for this film.

• A steeper curve with deep blacks. The tone curve acts on each channel. Contrast rises (Lsd 30.7 → 32.5 and 14.3 → 16.1), the darkest 5 % of the frame go from L 2.6 to 1.8, where the Vision3 250D style lifts them to 6.8, and the brightest 5 % rise from 87.9 to 89.4.
• Franker colors. rgb primaries and color balance rgb raise saturation. Sky chroma rises from 27.5 to 31.9 (+16 %) and sea chroma from 22.2 to 28.1 (+27 %), against +8 % and +10 % with the Vision3 250D style, while the sky hue barely moves (273.6° → 275.2°).
• Warm, dense skin. Skin chroma goes from 16.4 to 20.6 (+26 %) and its hue from 44.2° to 43.0°, slightly toward red-orange.
• Orange-leaning reds. A pink T-shirt goes from chroma 33.7 to 43.9 and from hue 358.8° to 6.8°, toward orange. This is the strongest saturation change of the whole measurement set.
• A trace of magenta in the highlights. color balance rgb tints the highlights toward 335°, at a deliberately low 0.012. This effect was not measured separately.
• Visible but fine grain. Kodak calls the granularity “exceptionally low”, while the ASC article says it is visible on screen; the style chooses a grain slightly more present than the Vision3 250D style.

What it leaves alone

• Your base development. The style contains no exposure, no sigmoid or filmic, no white balance and no LUT. Those settings stay as you made them.
• Your color balance rgb. The style’s color balance rgb is a separate instance named “film”: it is added next to yours, which stays untouched.
• But not your rgb primaries, color equalizer, tone curve or grain. When you apply a style from the lighttable or the darkroom, each of its modules replaces the instance of the same module with the same name, if the photo has one, and is added otherwise. These four modules carry no instance name, so they replace any settings you had already made in them. Your earlier settings remain in the history.
• Your pipeline order. The style file carries no module order list, so it does not impose one on your image.

Exporting with a style, or rendering with darktable-cli, works differently: every module of the style is added as a separate instance. Our measurements were made that way, on darktable’s default rendering. The details are in Install and apply darktable styles.

Limits

• Few independent sources. The film came out in 2026, and the descriptions come mostly from Kodak and cinema press. The style follows the datasheet first.
• No curve values. Kodak publishes no numeric curve: slope and shoulder are estimated by eye from the graph.
• The magenta drift varies. Its strength depends on the lab and on grading, and Kodak itself says it is corrected in post-production. The style keeps only a trace.
• Conflicting sources. They disagree on saturation (Kodak: higher than Vision3; Camera Clara, in C-41: close to Portra 400) and on grain (“exceptionally low” against “visible”).
• No print look and no C-41 rendering. The style covers neither a print on positive film nor a C-41 development.
• Greens not measured. The test photos have no green reference area.
• Grain barely visible at 1000 px. Judge it on full-size exports.

Tips

• For Verita 200D developed in C-41, reviewers report a stronger magenta shift in the highlights. The style aims at ECN-2: add magenta to the highlights yourself afterwards, for example in the color balance rgb “film” instance.
• Apply it early. If you plan to fine-tune the tone curve, rgb primaries, color equalizer or grain yourself, apply the style first: it would replace those settings if you made them before.
• Installation: see Install and apply darktable styles.