You want RNI 5.
The emulations are outstanding.
They include hundreds of stocks, contemporary and vintage, BW, C41, slide. Even the inexpensive "lite" version offers an enormous variety.
But most importantly--and this is where RNI leaps way over DxO, IMHO--they integrate directly into ACR (or Lightroom) in the easiest, fastest, most convenient possible way, as RAW profiles.
The ease, power, flexibility, and speed of this approach can't be overstated. You can control film-look strength (opacity) with one slider within the converter. You can then use every single ACR slider to tweak results right-there-and-then, on the RAW file, non-destructively. You can integrate RNI's profiles into custom ACR/Lightroom presets of your own. You can use RNI profiles anywhere you can use ACR/Lightroom tech--on your computer or on a tablet, or even in the field, on a phone. (Lots of people here say they'd never actually do that--apply a film profile to a photo WiFi'd from camera to phone. But I'd recommend giving it an open-minded try, first. I think lots of people would be surprised by how much fun travel photography is when you can share a beautifully-edited result almost immediately after shooting it.) And in all of these places--even on a phone, for god's sake--you can batch process photos en-masse at lightning speed leveraging all of ACR/Lightroom's convenience tools--edit sync, edit copy-paste, default import presets, etc.
Want an easy way to blast through all your travel photograph edits on the plane ride home? RNI is it.
(Incidentally, even Mastin is now embracing the Adobe RAW-profile approach--though I think you'd ultimately prefer the wider variety of RNI profiles.)
Don't read me wrong: I like DxO Filmpack emulations, too--though I wouldn't say they're aesthetically "better" than RNI. But usability and flexibility is where Filmpack falls far behind RNI. You have to TIFF out of ACR/Lightroom to engage Filmpack as a plugin, which means . . .
- "baking in" ACR/Lightroom edits and creating a destructive edit breakpoint;
- necessarily having to save a massive 16-bit edit TIFF alongside your RAW files;
- no ACR/Lightroom presets that incorporate it;
- no ACR/Lightroom speed or convenience tools--no edit sync, no copy-paste, no import presets. You'll have to convert every single file you run into Filmpack, then bring it back.
- And you have to use a computer. Preferably a powerful one, too, with plenty of storage--because you're going to be throwing 16-bit TIFFs back and forth. No iPad edits on the plane.
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