Resolve FX · Texture · Film Damage

Film Damage

A procedural damaged-film toolkit: controlled softening and colour drift, optical-style vignetting, animated dirt and up to five independently shaped scratches.

Foundation

Blur + Temp/Tint

Surface

Vignette + Dirt

Damage

5 × Scratch

Mental model

A box of film defects — not a single vintage preset

Blackmagic frames Film Damage as a way to make clean digital clips look worn, dirty and scratched. Treat the groups as independent layers: first the base image, then edge optics, then surface contamination, then scratches. The most convincing result is usually the one where no single defect dominates every frame.

Blur / Shift

Softens digital sharpness and adds temperature/tint drift.

Vignetting

Shapes edge darkening and allows controlled asymmetry.

Dirt

Generates static or time-varying adhered particles.

Scratches

Adds up to five independent line defects with motion and flicker.

Every control group

Build the look in layers instead of pushing every defect at once

Old-image foundation

Film Blur · Temp. Shift · Tint Shift

Film Blur slightly knocks back digital sharpness, Temp. Shift moves colour temperature — Blackmagic relates the default warm bias to the feel of a projector lamp — and Tint Shift mimics dye change. These are three independent creative controls, not an exact model of a particular stock or scanner.

Film Blur — targeted defocus/softening, not film grain
Temp. Shift — warm/cool creative bias
Tint Shift — dye-like yellow/magenta drift

Edges and asymmetry

Add Vignetting

Vignetting darkens the image edges. Focal Factor controls how far the vignette extends into the frame; Geometry Factor affects darkness and edge definition. Tilt Amount introduces top/bottom imbalance, while Tilt Angle rotates that imbalance — with Tilt Amount at 0, the angle has no visible role.

Focal Factor — vignette reach
Geometry Factor — depth/edge character
Tilt Amount + Angle — deliberate asymmetry

Procedural dirt

Add Dirt

This group models larger dirt particles on film — Blackmagic explicitly distinguishes them from fine dust texture. Dirt Color sets the particle colour: black is closer to dirt on a print, white to a defect on a negative. Changing Dirt makes the distribution temporally unstable; disabling it behaves more like static dirt on a lens. Density, Size and Blur shape the defect, while Seed selects a repeatable random pattern.

Changing Dirt ON — the pattern changes over time
Density/Size — amount and average particle scale
Dirt Seed — a different but repeatable pattern

Up to five independent scratches

Add Scratch 1…5

Film Damage contains five equivalent Scratch groups. Scratch Color, Position, Width, Strength and Blur define one line. Moving Scratch enables jitter; Moving Ampl. sets its travel, Moving Speed its rate, and Moving Rand. its irregularity. Flickering Speed varies scratch severity over time. Five layers let you build several different defects instead of one exaggerated line.

Position — horizontal scratch placement
Width/Strength/Blur — severity and optical softness
Moving + Flickering — temporal character rather than a static line

Final mix

Global Blend · Film Grain · Flicker

Global Blend mixes the complete Film Damage result with the source and works best as a final trim rather than a substitute for tuning the individual sections. Importantly, Film Damage is not Film Grain and it does not provide a complete film-flicker generator. Blackmagic's Reference Manual explicitly suggests combining it with Film Grain and Flicker Addition for a convincing damaged-archive look.

Blend = final wet/dry for the whole effect
Film Grain handles grain structure separately
Flicker Addition adds overall brightness instability separately

Scratch architecture

Five layers are for variation — not five identical bright lines

A convincing damaged print rarely has every scratch behaving the same way. Use the five groups to separate a static soft line, a fast jittering scratch, a faint intermittent mark and occasional stronger defects. Randomness is most useful when each layer has a different job.

Important: Scratch movement and flicker must be judged in motion. A still frame cannot tell you whether the temporal cadence looks mechanical.

Production workflow

Six passes from clean digital footage to controlled wear

Remove digital perfection first

Start with a small Film Blur. Judge real texture at 100%; the goal is usually to soften the digital edge, not to turn the shot visibly out of focus.

Age colour independently

Use Temp. Shift and Tint Shift only as far as the shot needs. Do not use them to compensate a wrong white balance or colour-management transform.

Shape a believable vignette

Set reach with Focal Factor, then edge severity with Geometry Factor. Add Tilt only when the look benefits from optical asymmetry.

Build dirt as a temporal layer

Choose print/negative-like Dirt Color, then Density and Size. Toggle Changing Dirt according to whether you need moving film dirt or a static lens-like defect.

Use several subtle scratches

Prefer two or three different light scratches over one extreme line. Vary position, width, movement and flicker so repeated defects do not look like a graphic overlay.

Add grain/flicker separately, then trim

If the concept needs grain or global flicker, use the dedicated effects. Compare motion at playback speed, then use Global Blend only for the final overall intensity.

Common failures

Believability is mostly about restraint and temporal variation

It looks like an obvious preset

Cause: Blur, vignette, dirt and scratches are all pushed at the same time.

Fix: Reduce the number of visible defects. Let one or two characteristics lead and keep the rest near the threshold of perception.

Dirt looks glued to the lens

Cause: Changing Dirt is disabled when the intended look requires film-transport instability.

Fix: Enable Changing Dirt and judge the pattern in playback. If you actually want lens dirt, leaving it disabled can be correct.

Scratches feel like UI lines

Cause: They are too sharp, too wide, perfectly static or all share the same temporal behaviour.

Fix: Use Scratch Blur, lower Strength/Width, and vary Moving Ampl./Speed/Randomness/Flickering Speed across the scratch layers.

The grade was accidentally 'fixed' with damage controls

Cause: Temp/Tint Shift or vignette are compensating technical exposure/white-balance problems.

Fix: Correct the technical grade first. Film Damage should add a creative defect layer, not become the owner of base colour correction.

A defect layer, not one-stock emulation

Film Damage: the signal-level model

Film Damage is best treated as a procedural builder for physically recognisable defects: slight defocus and dye-like shifts form the base, vignetting shapes the edges, Dirt adds contamination, and five Scratch groups create independent linear damage. Believability comes from combining restrained layers rather than maxing out every control.

Blackmagic's Reference Manual describes Film Damage in ResolveFX Texture as a tool for making a new digital clip look worn, dirty and scratched. It documents Film Blur/Temp/Tint, Vignetting, Dirt and five Scratch sets separately. Grain and overall flicker live in other effects; the manual recommends combining Film Damage with Film Grain and Flicker Addition for a fuller damaged-archive look.

Film Damage is creative stylisation, not a measured model of a specific stock, printer, scanner or projector. Temp/Tint shift should not replace white-balance correction, and vignette should not replace base exposure work. Fix the technical image state first, then add damage as a separate look layer.

Use it when

damaged-archive / old-print stylisation without external overlays
procedural dirt/scratch defects that need repeatable temporal behaviour
separate control of softening, colour drift, vignette and surface damage

Choose another tool when

you need to restore genuinely damaged archival film — that is a Revival/restoration task rather than adding more damage
you are trying to get film grain from this effect alone — grain is not modelled here as its own structure

Control → signal meaning → verification

Layer	What it means	How to verify
Film Blur / Temp. Shift / Tint Shift	Foundation degradation: targeted defocus plus warm/cool and yellow/magenta dye-like shifts.	Inspect texture at 100% and watch neutrals/skin; do not confuse a creative shift with technical WB correction.
Focal / Geometry / Tilt	Shape the reach, severity and asymmetry of vignetting.	Check corners, edge-positioned faces and moving shots — strong asymmetry quickly reveals the preset.
Dirt Color / Changing / Density / Size / Blur / Seed	Generator for larger adhered particles. Changing Dirt switches between a time-varying pattern and a static lens-like pattern; Seed selects a repeatable random distribution.	Judge playback, border density and whether particle colour matches the intended print/negative logic.
Scratch 1…5	Five independent scratches with Colour/Position/Width/Strength/Blur and separate temporal motion/flicker behaviour.	Vary position, blur, speed and randomness; identical cadence across multiple lines looks synthetic.
Global Blend	Final wet/dry mix for the whole procedural damage stack.	Use it after tuning individual groups and compare in motion rather than on a still frame alone.

Production workflow

01Start with a technically correct base grade; Film Damage should not fix exposure/WB/colour-management problems.
02Add minimal Film Blur and only the required Temp/Tint drift, checking texture at 100%.
03Build vignetting with Focal/Geometry and add Tilt only for a deliberate visual reason.
04Set Dirt Colour, Density, Size and Changing Dirt; choose a Seed for the shot and lock it.
05Add 1–3 restrained scratch layers with different character; leave the others disabled when unnecessary.
06If grain/flicker is required, add the dedicated effects, then trim the complete damage branch with Global Blend.

Diagnostics: symptom → cause → fix

Dirt looks frozen on the lens

Likely cause: Changing Dirt is disabled.

Fix: Enable it for film-transport-like pattern changes; leave it off only when static lens contamination is intentional.

A scratch looks like a drawn vertical line

Likely cause: Width/Strength are too high, Blur is too low or temporal variation is missing.

Fix: Reduce severity, add blur and subtle Moving/Flickering behaviour; validate in playback.

The look screams 'vintage filter'

Likely cause: Every subsystem is visible and too strong at the same time.

Fix: Choose one leading characteristic and reduce the rest; blur + dirt + one scratch is often enough.

Temp/Tint push skin/neutrals too far

Likely cause: Creative dye shift is being used as base colour balance.

Fix: Restore technical WB/grade on upstream nodes and use Temp/Tint only as controlled stylisation.

Node placement

In practice, Film Damage is easiest to control on a dedicated finishing/creative node after the base correction. This lets you bypass/mix the complete damage look without confusing it with the owners of white balance, exposure or the output transform. If a later stage intentionally blurs/colours the generated scratches, the order can change — but that becomes part of the creative pipeline and should be documented.

Scopes / validation

Scopes are secondary here: the defects are spatial and temporal, so the primary checks are a 100% Viewer and playback. RGB Parade/Vectorscope help ensure Temp/Tint do not destroy required neutrals/skin, while Waveform can reveal whether vignetting is crushing important edge detail or feeding unwanted tonal compression downstream.

Managed-pipeline warning

Film Damage has no explicit colour-space contract like CST or ColorTone Diffuser. Its creative Temp/Tint and composited dirt/scratches simply operate on whatever signal state reaches the node. In a managed pipeline, the important decision is therefore the stage: a scene-referred working space and a display-referred stage can produce different-looking shifts. Do not treat this as a technical transform.

Do not confuse the roles

Film Damage versus the neighbouring Color FX

Color Space Transform

explicit conversion between colour-space/gamma descriptions, including tone/gamut mapping

Film Damage

A box of film defects — not a single vintage preset

Blur / Shift

Vignetting

Dirt

Scratches

Build the look in layers instead of pushing every defect at once

Film Blur · Temp. Shift · Tint Shift

Add Vignetting

Add Dirt

Add Scratch 1…5

Global Blend · Film Grain · Flicker

Five layers are for variation — not five identical bright lines

Six passes from clean digital footage to controlled wear

Remove digital perfection first

Age colour independently

Shape a believable vignette

Build dirt as a temporal layer

Use several subtle scratches

Add grain/flicker separately, then trim

Believability is mostly about restraint and temporal variation

It looks like an obvious preset

Dirt looks glued to the lens

Scratches feel like UI lines

The grade was accidentally 'fixed' with damage controls

Film Damage: the signal-level model

Use it when

Choose another tool when

Control → signal meaning → verification

Production workflow

Diagnostics: symptom → cause → fix

Node placement

Scopes / validation

Managed-pipeline warning

Film Damage versus the neighbouring Color FX

Primary references used for this technical layer

Practical Film Damage questions

Does Film Damage include film grain?

What is the difference between Changing Dirt on and off?

Why can Dirt Color be white?

How many scratches can the effect generate?

Should Film Damage be placed before or after the grade?

Is Film Damage historically accurate?

Keep damage, grain and base colour as separate responsibilities

ColorTone Diffuser

FilmDamage · Fusion

Film Grain

Resolve FX