Lifted blacks: film density and the Fade control.
Lifted blacks describe a finished image whose darkest tones sit above display black. They can give a photograph a faded or gentle appearance, but they are a rendering choice, not a requirement of shooting on film. A film photograph can have deep blacks; a digital photograph can have raised ones.
Halation's Fade slider makes that choice explicit. It raises the dark end and lowers the bright end together. Understanding what it changes helps you decide whether a scene needs that compression at all.
From negative density to a finished black point
A film characteristic curve plots density against log exposure. Its toe, middle section and shoulder describe how the material responds to different exposures. Minimum density, or D-min, includes the base and any developed fog; this is often called base-plus-fog for black-and-white film. Density measures how much light the film blocks. It is not a brightness value in a finished JPEG.
In a negative, a dark part of the scene generally produces a relatively thin area of the negative, not its densest area. Printing or scanning then converts that negative into a positive image. The output medium and the chosen tonal mapping determine the final black point. Treating base-plus-fog as a compulsory grey floor in the positive image confuses those two stages.
The Fade formula
In the Halation pipeline the fade control is a single affine transform applied across the whole image: the signal is compressed and then offset upward. For a channel value c between 0 and 1 and a Fade setting f between 0 and 1, it calculates c × (1 − 0.26f) + 0.115f. At Fade 100, that is 0.74c + 0.115: an input of 0 becomes 0.115, and an input of 1 becomes 0.855.
Those are gamma-encoded working values at this stage of the pipeline, not percentages of scene light. At Fade 20, the same endpoints become 0.023 and 0.971. Split toning and the later effects can change them again, so 0.115 is not a guaranteed minimum in the exported image.
This is a straight-line range compression, not a measured film response curve. It does not recover clipped highlights or reveal detail absent from the source. Use it for the relationship between the lightest and darkest tones you can already see, rather than as a way to repair an underexposed or overexposed file.
How much Fade the presets use
Small Fade settings can be enough. Here is how far eight of the built-in presets push it, on a scale of 0 to 100:
- Golden, Ember and Silver — 6. Barely there. Enough to make a small change to the endpoints.
- Nocturne — 7. A restrained lift for this night-oriented look.
- Tide — 8. Enough lift to keep the cold grade from turning daylight shadows brittle.
- Cinematic — 9. The classic small lift that makes teal shadows read as a grade rather than as a colour cast.
- Bloom — 13. A more visible lift for this softer look.
- Komorebi — 16. The highest of these eight, and paired with negative contrast and reduced saturation. Its compressed range is a deliberate part of the look.
These are starting points, not film-stock measurements. If a night sky or a dark jacket starts looking grey, reduce Fade before adding contrast elsewhere. If you only need to brighten shadow detail, try Shadows; if you want to adjust the darkest region without compressing the whole range, try Blacks.
Why order of operations matters
Fade is applied after the tone controls and before split toning. That sequence affects the result. Toning uses a soft-light blend with luminance masks, so the values produced by Fade become the input to both the blend and its masks. Change Fade and you may change how a shadow tint appears, even if the tint controls stay still.
In this editor, exposure and white balance run after conversion to linear light. Tone shaping, Fade and split toning run after conversion back to the gamma-encoded working space. That is the tool's implementation, not a claim that it reproduces the complete exposure, development, printing and scanning chain of a particular film.
A test worth running
Start with Komorebi on the sample below. Open Light, set Fade to 0, then 10, then 20. Leave the other controls unchanged. Watch the dark trees on the island and the brightest part of the sky together; both ends should move inward as Fade rises.
Choose the lowest setting that gives the mood you want while preserving separation between nearby dark tones. Compare again at the size you intend to share. A small lift that works on the large preview can make a small thumbnail look flat.
Try it on a real photo
Start with Komorebi and move Fade toward zero. Watch the dark trees on the island regain depth. Use Look intensity to soften the entire grade.
OriginalKomorebi
Then choose Replace to use your own photo or clip. New here? Read the photo guide or video guide.
References
Kodak's Basic Photographic Sensitometry Workbook explains characteristic curves, density and D-min. The Fade formula and preset settings above describe Halation's own implementation, not Kodak stock data.