Frequently asked questions

Argentum™ runs your RAW sensor data through a silver halide crystal simulation — the same photochemistry that governs real analog film development. Light absorbed by virtual silver halide crystals, developer concentration diffusing between neighboring pixels, highlight compression emerging from developer exhaustion rather than a tone curve. This isn't a color lookup table or a preset. The physics responds to your image's actual exposure, producing results that emerge from the simulation — not painted on afterward.

A preset applies the same static color remap identically to every image regardless of exposure, dynamic range, or subject. Argentum's™ simulation is spatially coupled — what happens to one pixel depends on its neighbors' exposure values, across twelve iterative timesteps of developer diffusion. Two differently-exposed shots of the same scene develop differently, exactly as they would on analog film. The highlight compression, local contrast, and shadow lift are all emergent from the chemistry, not applied afterward.

Portrait Printer's Eye™ is Argentum's™ automated exposure intelligence — the judgment call a master darkroom printer makes when evaluating a negative. It measures your subject's skin density in linear light, calculates Zone VI placement (the classic portrait standard for skin tones), and determines the correct exposure compensation and Shoulder Hold™ to deliver your subject correctly without washing out the background. The correction is physics-driven: exposure changes what the virtual film sees, Shoulder Hold controls developer replenishment in bright areas. No curves applied after the fact.

Shoulder Hold™ controls how quickly depleted developer in bright areas gets replenished from the reservoir during simulation. Higher Shoulder Hold means bright areas stay developer-starved longer, compressing highlights through chemistry rather than a tone curve. Unlike Lightroom's highlight slider — which mechanically darkens bright pixels after processing — Shoulder Hold changes how the film develops. The result is a natural rolloff that preserves color in highlights rather than draining it.

Natural Light Warmth is a physics-correct warming correction applied before filmulation when cool skin tones are detected under warm light. Rather than simply boosting the yellow channel — which shifts skin hue toward jaundice — Argentum™ measures your subject's skin hue angle in CIELAB space and applies a Kelvin shift along the Planckian Locus (the blackbody radiation curve). This is mathematically equivalent to placing an 81A warming filter on the lens: it shifts color temperature correctly, keeping the a*/b* skin ratio on the flesh line. Applied in 0.7 seconds to the linear TIFF before development begins.

Open sky reflects blue light onto everything below it — including your subject's skin. Blue Spill Correction detects this localized color cast on skin using facial segmentation and neutralizes it selectively, without touching the sky itself or any other part of the image. The correction is applied after development, targeted only to the pixels where sky color contamination is detected.

Rather than applying a generic noise reduction algorithm, Argentum™ uses ISO-profiled wavelet denoising tuned to your specific camera's sensor characteristics. The noise model — measured at every ISO across the sensor's range — tells the denoiser exactly what noise looks like on your camera versus real image detail. Critically, denoising runs before filmulation on the linear RAW data, not after tone mapping. This is the correct position: noise in linear light has well-defined statistical properties, and denoising there preserves the integrity of the data that enters the chemistry simulation.

Argentum™ automatically detects your camera and lens from EXIF metadata and applies measured corrections for lens distortion and chromatic aberration using the lensfun database. These corrections run on the linear TIFF in float32 precision before filmulation — mathematically the correct position, since vignetting correction multiplies pixel values and must happen in linear light. Natural lens vignetting is preserved by default: it draws the eye toward your subject and is part of the optical character of your lens.

Each exposure passes through eight pipeline stages — scene reading, silver halide simulation, grain intelligence, optical corrections, Portrait Printer's Eye™, definition, blue spill correction, and delivery. Total processing time is roughly 60 seconds per image. A batch of 100 images takes around 35 minutes. You'll receive an email when your roll is ready.

Portrait Printer's Eye™ and its sub-features — Natural Light Warmth, Definition, and Blue Spill Correction — can each be enabled or disabled per roll at submission. The core silver halide simulation runs with parameters tuned specifically for portrait work: a film area equivalent to 35mm full frame, highlight rolloff calibrated for natural light, and a tonal curve that approximates high-quality color negative film. Exposure compensation controls are on the roadmap for a future release.

Your originals are never modified. We process a copy and deliver the developed output. RAW files and intermediate processing data are stored temporarily during active processing and automatically deleted after your download links are generated. We do not use your images for training, analysis, or any purpose other than delivering your processed output.

Every major camera brand: Canon CR3/CR2, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Fujifilm RAF, Olympus ORF, Panasonic RW2, Pentax PEF, Adobe DNG, and more. The pipeline uses libraw for RAW decoding — the same library trusted by darktable, RawTherapee, and most professional RAW processors. If your camera is supported by libraw, it's supported by Argentum™.

Every roll delivers high-resolution JPEGs ready for client delivery. 16-bit TIFF masters are available for photographers who want the full dynamic range of the developed output for further adjustments — useful if you want to make selective corrections in Lightroom or Photoshop after development. TIFFs are included in all subscription tiers.

Full native resolution — the same pixel dimensions as your original RAW file. No downscaling. The pipeline processes at float32 precision throughout to preserve the full tonal range of your sensor data before final export.

Yes. The 16-bit TIFF output gives you significant headroom for further adjustments in any editing software. Local retouching, color grading, cropping — all remain available. The TIFF represents a fully developed negative: the film chemistry has done its work, and you can still make selective adjustments on top of that foundation.

Not currently. Argentum™ is designed for still photography RAW files. The silver halide simulation is computationally intensive per frame — video support would require a different architectural approach. It may be explored in the future.

Each RAW file you process uses one exposure from your balance. You can buy a Single Roll (36 exposures, one-time) or subscribe monthly: Grain (108 exposures — 3 rolls), Silver (360 exposures — 10 rolls), or Darkroom (900 exposures — 25 rolls). Annual billing gives you 2 months free. All subscription tiers include exposure rollover.

Yes. Every new account gets 15 free exposures — no credit card required. That's enough to process a full portrait session across different lighting conditions and see exactly how the chemistry handles your specific camera and shooting style.

On Grain, unused exposures roll over up to 1x your monthly allotment (108 maximum). On Silver, up to 2x (720 maximum). On Darkroom, up to 3x (2,700 maximum). Single Roll purchases do not roll over.

Yes, cancel from your Account page at any time with no penalty. You keep access to your remaining exposures through the end of your current billing period. No automatic renewal after cancellation.

All major credit and debit cards via Stripe. We never see or store your card details — all payment processing is handled entirely by Stripe's PCI-compliant infrastructure.

Argentum™ uses magic code authentication — enter your email address and we'll send a 6-digit login code. No password to create or remember. Codes expire after 10 minutes for security.

You'll receive an email notification when your roll is ready. Download links are also available on your My Jobs page. Links remain active for 7 days — download your files before they expire. If you need a link regenerated, contact support.

All file transfers use TLS encryption in transit. Files at rest are encrypted with AES-256. RAW uploads are automatically deleted after processing completes and download links are generated. We do not use your images for model training, marketing, or any purpose beyond processing and delivering your output.

Argentum™ is Latin for silver — element 47 on the periodic table, symbol Ag. Silver halide crystals are the photosensitive material at the heart of analog photography. When light strikes silver halide, a latent image forms. Developer solution causes those activated crystals to grow, creating the density variations that become a photograph. Our name reflects what we simulate: that silver chemistry, running on your digital files.

Portrait, wedding, and editorial photographers who want the organic quality of film development from their digital RAW files — without the cost of film stock, the time spent in Lightroom, or the visual sameness of LUT-based processing. Argentum™ is for photographers who've looked at their digitally-edited work and felt something was missing. It's for photographers who understand what Portra looks like and want that in their digital workflow.

Imagen and Aftershoot learn your Lightroom editing style and replicate it at scale — they automate what you already do. Argentum™ does something different: it simulates the photochemistry of film development, producing results that aren't based on your editing history or anyone else's. The output isn't 'your style, automated.' It's a physically-derived aesthetic that emerges from the simulation of developer diffusion, crystal growth, and analog density curves. The two tools solve different problems for different photographers.

The engine and Portrait Printer's Eye™ are tuned specifically for portrait and people photography — subject detection, Zone VI skin placement, and blue spill correction all assume a human subject. The silver halide simulation itself works on any RAW file, but the automated intelligence is optimized for portrait work. Landscape, architectural, and product photographers can use the base engine effectively, but the automated portrait features will be less relevant to their workflow.