NegClone

NegClone is a Python CLI tool that analyzes your film photography archive (on Flickr or locally), extracts a grain and color fingerprint per film stock, and auto-generates Darktable .dtstyle and Lightroom/ACR .xmp preset files. The result is a publishable preset pack derived from real scanned negatives — not synthetic emulations.

Use Cases

• Sell your own preset pack. If you shoot film and scan your negatives, NegClone can extract the look of each stock you shoot and turn it into a distributable preset pack (Darktable + Lightroom) that you can sell on Gumroad, Etsy, or your own site.
• Match your digital edits to your film scans. Use NegClone to fingerprint your favorite stocks, then apply those presets to your digital photos for a consistent look across both formats.
• Compare film stocks objectively. Use negclone compare to see exactly how Portra 400 differs from Ektar 100 in your scans — grain, color bias, tonal response, all measured.
• Preserve your film look. If you're switching from film to digital (or hybrid shooting), fingerprint your go-to stocks before you stop buying them. The presets capture the characteristics of your actual scans.
• Build presets from a specific body of work. Point NegClone at a tagged subset of your Flickr archive (e.g., --tags desert) or a local folder to generate presets that capture the look of a specific project or series.
• Generate visual reports. Use negclone report to create an HTML page with fingerprint cards, color swatches, and a similarity matrix — useful for blog posts, Gumroad listings, or your own reference.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.12+
• uv (recommended) or pip
• Film photos either uploaded to Flickr or in a local directory

Getting a Flickr API Key

Only needed if you're pulling photos from Flickr (not needed for local scans):

1. Go to https://www.flickr.com/services/apps/create/
2. Click "Apply for a Non-Commercial Key"
3. Fill in the application details
4. Copy your API Key and API Secret

Install

From PyPI:

pip install negclone

Or with uv:

uv pip install negclone

For development:

git clone https://github.com/pfrederiksen/negclone.git
cd negclone
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"

Configuration

For Flickr mode, set your credentials as environment variables:

export FLICKR_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
export FLICKR_API_SECRET=your_api_secret_here

For local mode, no configuration is needed.

Quick Start (Flickr)

# 1. Authenticate with Flickr (opens browser for OAuth)
negclone auth

# 2. Build an inventory of your film photos
negclone inventory --output inventory.json

# 3. Download original images for a specific stock
negclone download inventory.json --stock portra400 --sample-size 30

# 4. Analyze and fingerprint the stock
negclone fingerprint inventory.json --stock portra400 --sample-size 30

# 5. Generate Darktable + Lightroom presets
negclone generate fingerprint_portra400.json --format both --output-dir ./output

# 6. Package everything into a distributable zip
negclone pack --output-dir ./output --name "Desert Paul Film Presets"

Quick Start (Local Scans)

# Organize scans in folders by stock name:
#   scans/portra400/IMG_001.tif
#   scans/hp5/scan_042.jpg

# 1. Build inventory from local directory
negclone inventory --local ./scans --output inventory.json

# 2. Link local files into the cache
negclone download inventory.json

# 3. Fingerprint, generate, and pack — same as Flickr workflow
negclone fingerprint inventory.json
negclone generate fingerprint_portra400.json --output-dir ./output
negclone pack --output-dir ./output

Commands

negclone auth

Authenticates with Flickr via OAuth 1.0a. Opens your browser to authorize the app, then prompts for the verifier code. Tokens are stored securely at ~/.negclone/flickr_tokens.json (file permissions 600). You only need to do this once.

negclone auth
negclone auth --verifier 123-456-789   # skip interactive prompt

negclone inventory

Scans your Flickr photostream or a local directory and groups photos by detected film stock. Outputs an inventory.json with photo IDs, URLs/paths, detected stock names, and metadata.

# Flickr: scan your own photostream
negclone inventory

# Flickr: scan a specific user with filters
negclone inventory --user paul-frederiksen --tags film --min-date 2023-01-01

# Local: scan a directory of scans
negclone inventory --local ./scans

# Use a custom tag-to-stock mapping
negclone inventory --tag-map my_tags.json

For local mode, stock detection works by checking:

1. Parent folder name (e.g., scans/portra400/)
2. Filename (e.g., portra400_001.jpg)
3. EXIF metadata (ImageDescription, UserComment)

The --tag-map option accepts a JSON file like {"myportra": "portra400", "bw": "hp5"} for custom aliases.

negclone download

Downloads original-resolution images from Flickr to a local cache, or creates symlinks for local scans. Skips already-cached files.

negclone download inventory.json --stock portra400
negclone download inventory.json --sample-size 30   # all stocks, 30 each

negclone fingerprint

Analyzes cached images and computes a fingerprint per film stock. Each fingerprint includes:

• Grain profile — intensity, FFT-derived size (peak spatial frequency), clumping factor, spectral slope
• Color bias — R/G/B channel shifts in shadows, midtones, and highlights (with optional scanner compensation)
• Tonal rolloff — shadow lift, highlight compression, midtone contrast, plus a PCHIP monotone spline tone curve
• Confidence score — how consistent the measurements are across samples
• Scanner model — auto-detected from EXIF, used to compensate for scanner color bias

negclone fingerprint inventory.json --stock portra400
negclone fingerprint inventory.json                        # all stocks
negclone fingerprint inventory.json --sample-size 40       # more samples

negclone generate

Generates preset files from a fingerprint JSON. Supports Darktable .dtstyle and Lightroom/ACR .xmp formats. Lightroom presets include spline-based tone curves when available.

negclone generate fingerprint_portra400.json --format both
negclone generate fingerprint_portra400.json --format darktable
negclone generate fingerprint_portra400.json --dry-run
negclone generate fingerprint_portra400.json --force

negclone compare

Compare two fingerprints side-by-side with a detailed diff table showing grain, color, tonal differences, and an overall similarity score.

negclone compare fingerprint_portra400.json fingerprint_ektar100.json

negclone report

Generate an HTML report with fingerprint cards, color swatches, and a similarity matrix across all provided fingerprints.

negclone report fingerprint_portra400.json fingerprint_ektar100.json fingerprint_hp5.json
negclone report fingerprint_*.json -o my_stocks.html

negclone pack

Bundles all generated presets into a zip archive with a README.txt containing import instructions. Prints a Gumroad upload checklist.

negclone pack --output-dir ./output --name "Desert Paul Film Presets"
negclone pack --dry-run  # preview contents

How the Analysis Works

Grain (FFT Spectral Analysis)

NegClone samples patches across each scanned image, applies a 2D Hann window, and computes the FFT power spectrum. The radially averaged spectrum gives a frequency profile of the grain texture. From this it extracts:

• Peak frequency — dominant spatial frequency in cycles/pixel (inverted to get grain size in pixels)
• Spectral slope — steepness of the log-log power spectrum (steep = soft/large grain, shallow = sharp/fine)
• Spectral centroid — weighted mean frequency for robust size estimation

Local standard deviation and spatial autocorrelation are also computed for backward-compatible intensity and clumping metrics.

Color (with Scanner Compensation)

For each image, pixel luminance is bucketed into shadows (bottom 25%), midtones (25-75%), and highlights (top 25%). Within each bucket, the mean R, G, B channel values are compared to the per-bucket neutral mean, producing a color shift vector per region.

When scanner model detection finds a known scanner (Epson V600/V700/V850, Noritsu, Frontier, Plustek, etc.), the scanner's inherent color bias is subtracted from the measurements, so the fingerprint reflects the film stock rather than the scanner.

Tone (PCHIP Spline Curve)

Tonal analysis measures the luminance histogram shape: shadow lift (deep vs. near shadow density), highlight compression, and midtone contrast. A PCHIP (Piecewise Cubic Hermite Interpolating Polynomial) monotone spline is fitted to the luminance CDF, producing a smooth, non-inverting tone curve that is exported directly into Lightroom presets as a multi-point ToneCurvePV2012.

Supported Film Stocks

NegClone auto-detects these film stocks from tags, titles, descriptions, folder names, and filenames:

Stock	Type	Key Characteristics
Portra 160	Color Negative	Fine grain, neutral-warm tones
Portra 400	Color Negative	Medium grain, warm midtones, lifted shadows
Portra 800	Color Negative	Visible grain, warm tones, good in low light
Ektar 100	Color Negative	Fine grain, saturated, warm shadows
Gold 200	Color Negative	Moderate grain, warm/yellow bias
HP5 Plus	B&W Negative	Pronounced grain, high contrast
Delta 100	B&W Negative	Fine grain, smooth tones
Tri-X 400	B&W Negative	Classic grain, rich midtones
Fomapan 100	B&W Negative	Fine grain, soft tones
CineStill 800T	Color Negative (Tungsten)	Halation, cool tones, visible grain

Custom tag-to-stock mappings:

{"portra": "portra400", "bw_street": "hp5", "cine": "cinestill800t"}

Importing Presets

Darktable

1. Open Darktable and switch to the lighttable view
2. Find the styles module in the right panel
3. Click import and select the .dtstyle file(s)
4. Apply: select a photo, then click the style name

Note: Darktable module params use approximated binary encoding in v1. Grain, tone, and color grading are functional, but exact C struct encoding for all Darktable versions is a v2 feature.

Lightroom / Adobe Camera Raw

1. Copy .xmp file(s) to your presets directory:
   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings/
   • Windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings\
2. Restart Lightroom
3. Find presets in the Develop module preset panel

Tips

• More samples = better fingerprints. --sample-size 40 gives higher confidence and more stable results.
• Local scans are best. TIFFs from your scanner give better fingerprints than re-compressed Flickr JPEGs.
• Organize by folder. For local mode, put scans in folders named after the stock (e.g., portra400/) — this is the most reliable detection method.
• Use --dry-run on generate and pack to preview before writing.
• Compare stocks with negclone compare to understand how they actually differ in your workflow.
• Generate reports with negclone report for blog posts or preset pack marketing pages.

Development

uv pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest                  # 65 tests
ruff check . && ruff format .
mypy negclone

License

MIT