How to design Fujifilm Recipes
I often get asked to create a recipe mimicking the style of specific films or photographers. Instead of doing that, let me instead show you how I go about doing it in a few simple steps.
Fujifilm has given us a great set of tools for creating distinct looks in camera, without having to do much post processing, if any. With some basic knowledge of these tools you should be able to play around and achieve what you want.
Get your references straight
Before beginning though, you need to know what your desired result should look like. I suggest you find around 5 reference images that look like what you want. Pay attention to contrast, color cast, saturation, sharpness and grain. Make sure that they are actually similar by comparing their histograms. If 3 images have faded blacks and the remaining 2 have rich black levels, you have some more research to do.
The next step is to compile a few of your own raw files that represent a selection of similar subjects and lighting conditions to your reference images. These will be the images you use to test your recipe. Don’t go overboard with this or you will be up all night going back and forth adjusting. 5 images is good here as well, as…
