Create The Look Of CineStill 800T Film With Lightroom Presets
Our CineStill 800T Lightroom preset collection is designed to recreate the cinematic look of CineStill 800T film with cool tungsten-balanced color, rich contrast, visible grain, and the glowing halation effect that makes bright lights feel so distinctive.
If you love night photography, neon signs, city lights, dim interiors, or cinematic film edits, the CineStill 800T look is one of the most recognizable film-inspired styles to recreate in Lightroom. This guide goes over what gives CineStill 800T its signature look, how to use our presets, and how to add a halation effect in Lightroom or Photoshop.
How To Create A CineStill 800T Look In Lightroom
You can create a basic CineStill-inspired edit manually in Lightroom with cooler cinematic color, deeper blacks, visible grain, and warm glowing highlights. Every image is different, so use these as starting settings and adjust them to fit your photo.
Quick CineStill 800T Lightroom Settings
- Exposure: +0.20 to +0.50
- Contrast: +15
- Highlights: -25
- Shadows: +10 to +20
- Whites: +10
- Blacks: -20
- Temperature: Move slightly cooler from your starting White Balance
- Tint: +3 to +8 toward magenta if the image looks too green
- Texture: +5
- Clarity: -5
- Dehaze: +5
- Vibrance: -5
- Saturation: -5
- Grain Amount: 25
- Grain Size: 25
- Grain Roughness: 50
- Vignette: -5 to -10
Tone Curve: Add a gentle S-curve by slightly lowering the darker tones and lifting the brighter tones. If you want softer film-style blacks, raise the black point just a little instead of leaving the deepest shadows completely black.
Color Grading: Try a subtle teal or cyan tone in the Shadows and a soft orange-red tone in the Highlights. Keep the saturation low so the color shift still feels natural.
Color Mix: If the image feels too yellow or green, reduce Yellow and Green Saturation slightly. You can also shift Blues and Aquas a little cooler for a more cinematic nighttime palette.
Quick Halation Starting Point: Go to Masking > Brush and paint only around the brightest lights. Add a soft red-orange color, lower Clarity and Dehaze slightly, and use a very soft brush with plenty of feathering. The glow should stay close to the brightest highlights rather than spreading across the entire photo.
These settings give you a good CineStill-inspired starting point, but they will not create the exact same result on every image. Camera color, original White Balance, lighting, skin tones, and the colors already in the scene can all change how the edit looks.
Why Use Our CineStill 800T Presets?
Our CineStill 800T presets take this much further by combining the film-inspired color toning, custom curves, contrast, grain, and overall tonal balance into one edit. Instead of building every part of the look manually, you can start with a complete CineStill-inspired base and then fine-tune it for your individual photo.
You can choose from Standard, Daylight, Cool, Green, and Teal, then use Lightroom’s Amount control to make the effect stronger or softer. After that, you usually only need to adjust Exposure, White Balance, and Grain to fit the individual image.
The collection also includes additional halation tools for creating that signature glowing light effect, so you can get much closer to the complete CineStill 800T aesthetic without having to recreate the full edit from scratch every time.
Why CineStill 800T Film?
As an avid film photographer, I appreciate so many different film stocks, but CineStill 800T stands out because of its unique color and low-light character. CineStill 800T is an EI 800, 3200K tungsten-balanced color negative film based on motion picture film technology and designed for difficult low-light tungsten situations.
Unlike traditional motion picture film that includes Remjet backing, CineStill 800T is made without Remjet so it can be processed in standard C-41 chemistry. One of the visual results is the slight red-orange halation that can appear around strong highlights and light sources.
The color can feel cooler and more cinematic than a typical daylight-balanced film, especially under artificial lighting. When used in daylight, the color response can shift noticeably unless you compensate for the tungsten balance. Between the cooler tones, grain, contrast, and glowing highlights, the finished look is truly unique.
What Gives CineStill 800T Its Signature Look?
- Tungsten-balanced color: CineStill 800T is balanced around 3200K, giving it a distinctive response under artificial and nighttime lighting.
- High-speed film character: EI 800 makes it especially popular for lower-light scenes.
- Halation: Bright lights can develop a red-orange glow around their edges, especially in night scenes.
- Film grain: Visible grain helps create the textured, cinematic quality people associate with the film.
- Cinematic color: Neon, street lights, tungsten bulbs, and nighttime color can take on a dramatic film-inspired feel.
What Is Halation?
Halation is the glowing red, orange, or warm halo that can appear around very bright highlights and light sources. It is especially noticeable around neon signs, headlights, street lamps, and other points of intense light in darker scenes.
That glow is one of the most recognizable parts of the CineStill 800T look. When recreating it digitally, the key is to keep the effect concentrated around bright light sources rather than adding a red glow across the entire image.
What Does The CineStill 800T Collection Include?
Our CineStill 800T Collection includes color-toning presets for Lightroom and Photoshop ACR. It also includes halation brushes for Lightroom Desktop and a halation action for Photoshop Desktop.
You can use the toning and grain presets in Lightroom Mobile and Desktop. The included halation brushes are designed for the desktop Lightroom workflow, and the Photoshop action is used in Photoshop Desktop.
How To Use CineStill 800T Presets
Apply the toning preset of your choice in Lightroom, then use Lightroom’s Amount control to make the preset effect stronger or softer. After that, adjust Exposure and White Balance for the individual photo.
Our CineStill presets include five tones to choose from: Standard, Daylight, Cool, Green, and Teal. Each variation adds its own film-inspired color toning and grain. The Daylight preset is designed for brighter or daytime photos, while Standard, Cool, Green, and Teal are especially fun for low-light, nighttime, neon, and artificial-light scenes.
Standard CineStill 800T Preset Before & After:
Daylight CineStill 800T Preset Before & After:
Green CineStill 800T Preset Before & After:
Teal CineStill 800T Preset Before & After:
Cool CineStill 800T Preset Before & After:
How To Create The CineStill Halation Effect
The CineStill halation effect can be added with the included Lightroom halation brushes or with the included Photoshop Action.
In Lightroom Desktop, go to Masking and use the Brush tool to paint the halation effect over the bright lights where you want the glow to appear. Keep the effect concentrated around light sources so it feels natural rather than covering the entire image.
In Photoshop Desktop, you can run the halation action to create the effect around highlights and lights. After the action is applied, use the layer mask and Brush tool to remove or soften the effect anywhere you do not want it.
Before Editing & After Green Preset + Halation Brush:
How To Get The Best CineStill 800T Edit In Lightroom
Start by applying the CineStill preset variation you want. Then use Lightroom’s Amount control to fine-tune the strength of the edit. I personally like the look around 75% on many photos, but the best amount depends on the original light and color in your image.
Next, adjust White Balance and Exposure. CineStill-inspired edits can shift dramatically depending on whether the original photo was taken under daylight, tungsten light, neon, or mixed lighting, so these two adjustments make a big difference.
After that, adjust Grain to get the film texture you want. You can leave the grain stronger for a more obvious analog look or reduce it for a cleaner digital-film blend.
Finally, add the halation effect around the strongest lights. In Lightroom, use the included halation brush through the Masking panel. In Photoshop, use the included Action and refine the result with its layer mask. Finish with any small color or contrast adjustments needed for your individual image.
This workflow also makes it easy to batch edit a group of photos. Apply the same CineStill preset across your images first, then make smaller Exposure, White Balance, Grain, and halation adjustments where needed.
What Photos Work Best For The CineStill 800T Look?
You can experiment with this look on almost any photo, but it is especially effective when the original image already has interesting light sources or a cinematic setting.
- Night street photography
- Neon signs and city lights
- Concerts and nightlife
- Low-light portraits
- Gas stations, diners, and storefronts at night
- Indoor tungsten lighting
- Moody travel photography
- Daytime photos when you want a cooler or stylized film-inspired color shift
Ready To Download The CineStill 800T Collection?
Shop our CineStill 800T Collection. The download includes instructions for installing and using the Lightroom and Photoshop preset files.
For the additional desktop tools, you can also watch our Lightroom Brush Installation video and our Photoshop Action Installation video.
If you have any questions or need help using the presets, brushes, or actions, please fill out our contact form.
Want to learn more about the actual film? You can read more on the CineStill 800T website.
You can also shop our full collection of film Lightroom presets. If you are new to Lightroom, Adobe also offers a Lightroom free trial.
