Grain, halation, dodge and burn. Modeled on how the emulsion behaves, not stacked on as filters.
Halation40%
Halation that blooms like film. Drag the slider.
Grain that belongs to the film. Not a flat noise layer.
Sharpness the way film makes it. Edges snap with no digital halo.
Shot exposureBox speed
Box speed2 under
Demonstration of Chromogen's Shot Exposure control across three real exposures: box speed, one stop under, and two stops under. As the film is shot further under and the lab re-balances the scan to keep it viewable, the shadows lift, contrast flattens and colour starves, giving the faded look of underexposed film.
Underexpose it, and it fades like film. The washed look is not a filter; it is how film answers the light.
Flow 8% · Opacity 100% · Hardness 35
Dodge and burn like a printer. Brush, gradient, radial or luma masks, fully reversible.
Aureon 100EI 100 · box speed
DevelopmentNormal
Pull 2Pull 1NormalPush 1Push 2
Push and pull the development. The light never changes, the chemistry does.
A preset freezes one exposure. A Chromogen stock is the film measured at every stop.
As a presetSame look
In ChromogenThe film at +0.0
Identical
Real exports from the app
The lab
And around the darkroom, a lab.
Develop is half the app. The rest is the machinery serious work needs. No Lightroom underneath, no plugin host.
8-bit · 25616-bit
levels / channel65,536
posterizedsmooth roll-off · 256× more levels
Demonstration: an exaggerated 8-step posterized ramp (8-bit, 256 levels) beside a smooth ramp (16-bit, 65,536 levels), showing how more bit depth removes banding in shadow-to-highlight gradients. Displays are 8-bit, so this is an illustration, not a literal 16-bit capture.
Start from 16-bit RAW. The sky a JPEG already clipped is still in the RAW; reconstruction brings it back.
Field Notes
The last ride home
No. 01 · Chromogen
Type that designs from the photo. Paired fonts on a column grid; Try another composes a fresh layout.
Computed from this frame
Read the negative like a lab. Waveform, parade and vectorscope, running live from the frame above.
Splitting the shoot by date.
Re-route files between any folder structures. Pick a key; it builds the tree and moves every frame.
Lift0.17 @ 324°
Gamma0.00
Gain0.18 @ 117°
Wheels · Mixer · Curves · Unify
Grade like a colorist. Wheels, mixer, curves and Colour Unify.
RF 24-70mm F2.8 · matchedAnimated demo: a distorted test grid with colour fringing straightens out as the matched lens profile is applied.
Your lens, recognized and corrected. Thousands of built-in profiles, applied before the film goes on.
~/photos/roll_079 photos
RAW★★★★★★★★RAWRAW★★★★★★★★★★★RAW★★★
A real library, not just a develop module. Your folders are the catalog, so there is no catalog to corrupt.
Chromogen · Roll 07
16A17A18A19A20A21A
Leave with the post, not just the picture. Compose carousels, split panels and contact sheets straight from the roll, and every frame in the composite renders through its own edits.
Instant film
Your shot, as an instant print.
A real scanned instant border, with the dye diffusion of a finished print.
Format
Pull it out
Pull ↓
Lightroom & Capture One
Bring your presets. Keep your workflow.
Your presets convert into native looks, and a photo can leave the catalog and come home developed.
LrC1Your presetsChromogen · now native looks
→
Chromogen
Presets
Aureon 100film stock
Warm Fade 01native look · 100
Editorial Tealnative look · 100
Silver Mononative look · 100
Click a preset on the left
Straight out of your presets panel. .xmp, .lrtemplate, .costyle, ICC or any .cube LUT, each becoming a native look with an amount dial.
C1LrYour catalogChromogen
Saved · same file
Save & Return
OpenEdit With Chromogen→Export…
01Right-click · Edit With Chromogen
02It develops in Chromogen
03Save & Return
04Same file, back in your catalog
A loop of the round trip: a photo leaves the catalog through the Edit With Chromogen menu, is developed in the Chromogen window, and Save and Return writes the same file back into the catalog. No copies are made.
A clean round trip. Edit With Chromogen hands over the file; Save & Return writes the same file straight back. No duplicates.
Watch it come alive
Don't filter your photo. Develop it.
A flat photo comes out as film: real grain, real colour, the way the negative made them.
Pricing
Own the darkroom. Don’t rent it.
One app, everything in it. Rent it by the month or the year, or own it outright and never pay again.
Lifetime is a little over two years of the subscription, paid once, and after that every year is free. Just looking? Try it free first.
Built with you
Software that listens.
Chromogen is independent, made by people you can actually reach. Feature requests go straight to the person who writes the code, and they are what the roadmap is made of.
No “we'll pass that along.” You're not a ticket number here.
Chromogen is a standalone film-emulation photo editor for Windows and macOS. It develops your photos the way film does: it reads your exposure and lays in a real film response (13 stocks measured from real film, with grain, halation and tone modeled on physics) instead of stacking filters on top of a JPEG. It works on 16-bit RAW and JPEG, needs no Lightroom underneath, and can be bought outright.
What's included in the free trial?
Four days with the real app on your own photos: full RAW developing, 5 of the 13 film stocks, and clean exports with no watermark up to 2048px on the long edge. The other 8 stocks preview on your photo when you hover them. No credit card to start.
Is it a subscription, or do I pay once?
Your choice. You can subscribe monthly or yearly, or buy a lifetime licence: one payment, and Chromogen is yours to keep forever — every future update free, usable on Windows or macOS, and no recurring charges. Lightroom and Capture One only rent you the software; here you can own it. The lifetime licence is $498. The rent plans are $29 a month or $228 a year.
Can I run it on more than one computer?
Your license works on either platform: the same key activates the Windows app and the macOS app, active on one computer at a time. Move it between your own machines freely; you just can't run two computers at once on one key. Need that? It's a second license. If you get stuck moving it, email us and we'll sort it out.
How is this different from presets or a filter pack?
A preset drops a look onto a finished JPEG. Chromogen develops the actual file: a real film engine with physics-modeled grain, halation and tone, working on your full 16-bit RAW. It's the difference between a filter and a darkroom.
What if it's not for me?
Try it free first, so you know before you buy. That is exactly what the trial is for. A licence is a digital product delivered instantly, so all sales are final. If anything ever misbehaves, email us and a human will help you get it working.
What if I want a feature Chromogen doesn't have?
Email us. Requests go straight to the person who writes the code, not a ticket queue, and they shape what gets built next. Chromogen updates often — take a look at the release notes to see what people have already asked for and got. We can't build everything, but you'll always hear back from a human.
Does it work with Lightroom or Capture One?
Yes. Set Chromogen as an external editor (Lightroom Classic's “Edit in / Additional External Editor”, or Capture One's “Open With”) and your photo opens straight in Chromogen, ready to develop. You can also just drag any file in. When you're done, export the developed image back out to your library.
Do I have to shoot RAW?
No, JPEGs work fine. But RAW gets the most out of it: Chromogen develops the full 16-bit file, so your highlight and shadow latitude survives instead of being baked away.
Will it change my original files?
Never. Editing is non-destructive: your adjustments are saved in a small sidecar file beside each photo, and the original is left untouched.
Does my work stay private?
Chromogen edits your photos locally, so your images aren't sent to us. Two exceptions: licensing is checked online when the app launches, and the optional AI assistant, if you turn it on with your own API key, sends the current preview to the AI provider you choose.
Free to try · Windows & macOS
Develop your first roll in the next five minutes.
Not sold on owning it yet? Take the free four days and let your own photos decide.
Free 4-day trial · RAW included · clean exports to 2048px · 5 of 13 film stocks · no credit card
Aureon 100
EI 100 · box speed
As a preset
Same look
In Chromogen
The film at +0.0
Field Notes
RAW
RAW
RAW
RAW
