FREE! Sony and DXO offering Film Pack 3 Essential for FREE!

September 19, 2013 film, News, software 79

FREE! Sony and DXO offering Film Pack 3 Essential for FREE!

This is a must download for anyone who likes to tinker with their images, and it is FREE 🙂 DXO and Sony are offering DXO filmpack 3 Essential for free as long as you go and download it by Halloween, October 31st. I just downloaded mine and all that was required was an email address. DXO is a film simulation plug-in and many swear by it. With so many film plug-ins out there these days, we never know which is good, if any. I previously wrote about the VSCO filters and have been enjoying them from time to time, but they are costly.

DXO is FREE right now, so I highly recommend giving it a try. It is not a trial, or demo..it is a fully functional plug-in for free with license code now through Oct 31st.

I downloaded the software as a plug-in for Lightroom and Photoshop CS6, my FREE license code was emailed to me and bingo, free software.

If anyone wants to take advantage of this, you can download it right now, HERE. The interface is nice, fast and it seems to work great.

SO GO GET IT!  

samples below of some of the Film Stock

APX 25

apx25

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Delta 3200

delta3200

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Ektachrome 100

ektachrome100

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Elite 100

elite

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Pan F Plus

panfplus

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Portra 160

portra160nc

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Rollie IR 400

rolleiir400

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Tri-X 400

trixmike

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79 Comments

  1. No activation code by email – not in the spam box…I tried to contact them without result?
    How I can contact them to get an activation code
    THX

  2. Hi. Ordered the DXO film pack after your recommendation. I really enjoyed it however they never emailed me a receipt for my purchase and it stopped working saying I need to enter my activation code which I do not have because they never emailed it to me. I decided to purchase it again + purchase the disc backup and keep better records. Again, they did not send me a receipt and now the software refuses to open with the security code I was given directly after purchase. I shut off my firewalls, re-download their software-still no success. I plan to contact customer service after going through my bank statements to prove I purchased it twice. I wanted to warn anyone who might purchase DXO products to please print your receipt and keep good records including copying the activation code.

  4. Hello,
    I am using it as a LR 5.2 plugin, works fine, but when it returns to LR I am getting jpgs only, not very good jpgs either. Is there a way to get other output formats ?
    Thanks.

    • Use it as an external editor and set the defaults in LR preferences to 16 bit tiff and LR will round trip. TIFF into dxo.

        • I’m on vacation and only have a tablet with me, so I can’t walk through the steps to see what you might be missing. From memory, I am assuming you have
          -removed or disabled the plugin in LR.
          -entered the LR preferences and selected the Filmpak as one of the two possible setting for external editor (most people with Photoshop installed will have Photoshop already inserted as the first external editor.
          -chosen 16 bit TIFF as the export format, reimport to LR and whatever colorspace suits you.
          -saved and closed your preferences.
          -restarted lightroom.
          -selected the photo you want to apply filmpak to and right-clicked and chosen edit in Filmpak.
          -Applied your edit and saved. Closed the filmpak.
          -Wait a bit and the TIFF edit should should up in LR.
          Check those steps and let me know if you are still having trouble. I’ll be home after Oct 4th.

  5. Be aware that although the license code is free, you need to be using a computer connected to the internet in order to use the code to activate the software.

  10. After further review, it certainly does appear that they (DXO) have removed at least 5 groups of controls from this Film Pack. Can’t understand for the life of me why they would do this especially without any mention of it. If the intention was to give you a taste of their products with the expectation of drawing you in, this just may have the opposite effect, as its left me mildly annoyed, but it’s not like I’m out any money, and I don’t think DXO will be seeing any of it anytime soon, as a can hold a grudge for a very long time ;.)

    • Hey, it is free. Why do you have some sense of entitlement. Grudge? Why? They gave you a couple of cows, but not the whole farm. Why should they? Just because you’re pissed you can’t have more for free? That’s just plain rude and greedy. Want it all-buy it.

      • Really John, you couldn’t discern the humour in my comment, or are you just trolling? I have no sense of entitlement, I’m not pissed, and I’m certainly not rude or greedy, nor, at my age do I belief in, or expect “free things” and I’m much more annoyed with your comment than this hacked up software. The point I was making was, if you announce to the world that you’re offering a couple of cows, then that’s what people will expect to receive, not something less, which is what this is, nor would they expect “the whole farm”, which is ridiculous.

      • There was a great buzz around the forums when this freebie was announced which turned to disappointment for many when they found the software is very restricted. On their announcement page about the free offer there’s no mention of this. We’re led to believe that what we’re getting is the retail version. If you don’t do much post processing at all then this may be a great freebie for some but for those that do post process it is very restrictive. Especially when you’ve already trialled FP3 previously and know what it is capable of then you’ll see why people are disappointed with this restricted giveaway. I have no issue with them giving this restricted version away so long as they were clear and up frontabout it from the start.

        • It appears I was wrong on this. After some digging I found this http://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/…ack/tech-specs So in the Essential version you definitely get less control. Some reviews stated that the only difference between Essential and Expert is batch processing and more films. Not true. So DXO aren’t giving away a watered down version of Essential. Though Essential is a watered version of Expert. I hope that ends the confusion and the the giveaway is the full Essential version. Simple 😉

  11. Sounds nice. Downloaded and put the thumb drive in my work computer but it won’t activate with the registration code – because my work computer does NOT go online. Never.

    Can’t even try it on the temporary basis without the internet connection.

    Emailed the company to see what to do so will find out if this will be usable or not.
    If not, I’ll delete and mark it like Photoshop – NO future use since I won’t put my work computer online for any reason.

  12. Free is always nice, thanks for the link. Although, any reason to use this if you already have SEP2 and VSCO?

  14. Here’s a comment from another forum:

    “Looks like this software is a DUD!!!! When the color mode is selected, the only available control is “color rendering”, “basic settings” and “film grain”. All the other features have been disabled, they don’t show being grayed out. No cross reference to CS4 or Aperture.”

    Is this true- that it’s an abbreviated, “gelded” version???

    • Yes. They chose to completely remove most of the sliders. Very disappointing. I actually find it pretty useless in the state. It’s OK for a quick conversion but if you want to do further editing on a JPEG you’ll need to use something else. Googling a review of Film Pack 3 and looking at a screenshot will show all the sliders that are missing in this free version.

  17. Couldn’t have worked any better. received activation code email within a minute or two, fast download and quick install, fantastic, free stuff ! Thanks for the heads up Steve and might as well thank Sony and DXO as well.

  18. Filled out form, got email with serial number in about 30 seconds. Downloaded for MAC. Mac installer does Aperture plugin and CS6. I added DXO FP3 as an external editor in Lightroom 5.2 and round-tripped a 16 bit tiff with no issues.

  19. Thanks for the tip Steve. The confirming E-mail with registration number showed up right off the bat in my E-mail and wasn’t shunted to spam despite aggressive spam filters. Interesting that the installer allows for an install in Lightroom or Photoshop up to CS6, but not the latest version, Photoshop CC. I look forward to giving the program a try. Free is nice!

  20. Only allows for Photoshop installation for me, whereas I have Lightroom. And I have no activation code in my mailbox, in my Trash or otherwise…

  21. Thanks for the links Steve, I just downloaded it and got my registration codes and it works fine. I’m so used to using Color and Silver Efex opening the DXO software for the first time felt very odd…I’ll have a proper play around with it later. I think it’s going to be one of those things that you’ll prefer the software you first started with…it’ll be interesting to see how it compares to the nik software.

  25. I’m usually not found of plugins – I prefer playing with settings and creating my own presets in Lightroom – but you can’t argue with that price!

    Funny that the activation mail includes a discount code that you can use for the very same version of the software! In case two activations were not enough I guess 😉

  29. Thanks! Got the activation code within minutes. I’ve downloaded it with no problems. But I’m the same as those above – won’t let me tick Lightroom but has automatically ticked CS5 and Elements 11.

  30. I like VSCO and Snapseed for iPhone where I can upload full size Sony RX100 images to Google Drive and edit with either program if I choose to. So simple and so economical. Oh, and Google+ also offers full Snapseed edits now, too! Life is good.

  31. Same with me, submitted email a couple of times, received confirmation, no activation email. Not in my Junk folder either.

  33. I’ve submitted my email multiple times, still no activation email despite their confirmation. Maybe their server is down?

  34. If I unchecked the “Yes, I want to receive further emails about DXO products” box, would I still get an activation key?

  36. Thanks Steve! The other day I was messing with some film presets of Silver Efex Pro. Really nice, but, does all this makes sense? I mean: at this moment I am considering to buy an OM-D E-M5 in silver, which looks retro and imitates the nice cameras made by Maitani in the old 60s and 70s. Then I will spend hours in front of the computer with film presets trying to get this T-MAX look like photojournalists in the old days. And I know that at the same time, many original film OMs in perfect condition are selling at e-bay at 150 USD… At the end, after spending hours in front of the computer most of us will send the files by mail or post them at flickr or any website at low resolution. Maybe it’s time to come back to the real thing?

    • @Oriol, The prospect of going back to a wet darkroom may have some appeal from a nostalgic viewpoint but I remember it as a messy, slow, labour intensive process, hours of work for a few good prints. You are correct in that you will have to mess about ” spend hours in front of the computer with film presets trying to get this T-MAX look like photojournalists in the old days” but you need only do that once or twice if you save the processes as presets. As for the low res screen thing, I am starting to get some of my better shots giclee printed by a quality lab and the results are stunning. And its all a lot cheaper than the wet darkroom route. Just my 2 cents worth. cheers, Max

    • It’s what I do, I shoot lots of film and digital. Go for it. Give it a try. It is even not that hard to develop the negs yourself and scan at home. It is a very satisfying process. We even have a ‘Film Photographers Group’ on facebook, if you want to pop in and get some advice first. 🙂

  39. I have it downloading for the third time. I have the activation code…………I must have some spam on my computer. Got some software on order to clean it. Why do people persist in spamming and creating viruses, unwanted adverts, etc

  40. Wow… very nice, it worked well with me and entered the code they sent me. Thanks Steve! I just played with it a bit and it gave me a very nice file in only seconds. I love these film effects and to have the ability to make choices in rendering is very stimulating. There are several Ilford filters, I love the Ilford XP with nice deep tones, and also Rollei, Fuji Neopan, Agfa, Polaroid, Kodak Tri X. Much appreciated Steve!

  41. oh cool. thanks I wanted to buy the vsco pack a few times but in the end I never did because I just couldn’t justify to spend as much or more money for film emulation than for the whole lightroom.

  42. Thanks very much sir! and thx to sony and dxo. Is a pity that dxo cannot support Sony R1’s raw but at least I can use it in jpegs and certainly the dxo’s film rendering is really nice. Besides one someone is not a professional photographer this promos are fantastic.
    BTW I have no problem with the code like RJM, just they sent the code to my mail et voilà.

    • Francis..i dont know if converting the R1s .SR2 files to .DNGs via Lightroom will help you.-.slowish but effective

      • Thanks very much Mike. Indeed I tried lightroom but I have other profession and I cannot justify the cost of buy two programs (lightroom and dxo) and sacrifice more time in my hobby, so I am actually more into photo ninja as my only raw converter, to my amateur photography is enough simple and time saving with nice outputs, I am thinking in use the film pack with tiffs from the raw.
        Thx again and greetings.

  43. Thanks!
    I already have the Nik suite, and FilmEfex Modern in ColorEfex works good enough for me, but a free try for something new is surely a good thing!

  44. Hi Steve, do you have any idea why it wouldn´t let me tick off the Lightroom plugin option during installation?
    Many thanks for tips,
    Sebastian

    • I’m having the same issue. When I run the installer on Mac I can’t select any of the install options outside of the standalone application. Have CS6 and LR5 installed on my computer and am running OSX 10.8.5.

      Anyone having similar problems?

      Installer looks like this for reference:
      http://i.imgur.com/bkjbO0o.png

      • If you go through and manually install the software, it will give you a breakdown of the software that is being installed. There seems to be a number of photoshop/lightroom files that it is restricting from being installed. I’m using lightroom 5 and photoshop 5. It seems to be only installing the photoshop plugin and doesn’t let me adjust anything else.

    • Thanks. Steve. I have CS6, CS5, Aperture, and Lightroom 5. It would not allow the CS6 or Lightroom 5 plug-in. Too bad. So, I have to either use the standalone or from Lightroom, open CS5 and then use the plug-in. Oh well, it’s free but inconvenient.

      • Woo Hoo!!!! I posted that I couldn’t select the LR plug-in during the installation. Well, true, but it was easy to add the plug-in manually so that I can select DxO from my Edit In menu. Byooootiful!

    • Thanks for all your replies. So I will have to put up with the standalone software. But as Fran mentioned above, it´s free and the results are neat – what more do I need?

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