Fuji Fujifilm film simulation recipes

I thought I liked his TwentyTwenty recipe, but even though I set my Highlights to -1, and Shadows to 0, (his are +1 & +1), it was still far too contrasty for me. Below are two shots, the first with TwentyTwenty, and the second is with my usual Provia recipe.
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Not trying to start a disagreement argument but I really don't get the recipes. I can get all the editing I want from raw and lightroom. I have never used the dial and would not even begin to create my own. On one of Fuji lists, a poster keeps posting kind of negative looking photos that I was happy to leave during the film days. It does appeal to many and that is good. I guess I don't understand the omnipresent request for recipes when viewers see a Fujifilm picture.
 
jhawk1000 said:
Not trying to start a disagreement argument but I really don't get the recipes. I can get all the editing I want from raw and lightroom. I have never used the dial and would not even begin to create my own. On one of Fuji lists, a poster keeps posting kind of negative looking photos that I was happy to leave during the film days. It does appeal to many and that is good. I guess I don't understand the omnipresent request for recipes when viewers see a Fujifilm picture.
Click to expand...
@jhawk1000 I must say I completely agree with you. I enjoy fiddling around with RAWs to see different 'color grades' but wouldn't want to dial in recipes at all.
For many, though, it's a major selling point and even the newest Nikon offering (Z50ii) has a selection dial on top.

From Nikon's website :

One-touch access to Imaging Recipes and Picture Controls color filters with a new dedicated Picture Control button.
Nikon Imaging Cloud enables image transfer without the need for a computer and offers download of Imaging Recipes.
 
If you don't get or like these recipes that's fine but for me, output from modern digital photography and the cameras' sensors is all very similar, sort of like an iPhone just with more resolution/ depth of field, but to my eye these recipes are not like that which is why I like looking at their output. Some users wish to move away from the film days whereas some, like me, very much enjoy looking at that output. Subjective, as always.
 
Well now, I seem to have started something! I do not do RAW, period! I do not intend or even wish to spend time 'fiddling' on a computer when I can set my camera to produce photos that I like. All my photos are JPEGs; the only editing I do is cropping a bit to suit the subject, and sometimes some of the adjustments automatically made by the 'magic wand' in Apple Photos on my iPad. I use my camera for my own gratification.
Each to his/her own!
 
Ideally,

I love the idea of recipes so that you get a nearly finished jpg SOOC.

I'm practice, however, I've never been able to make it stick.

I decided to try this for the Single in November challenge. Truth be told, I'm completely underwhelmed by the resultant imagery.

So I guess I'll be pp-ing my raws, at least for the immediate future.
 
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jhawk1000 said:
Not trying to start a disagreement argument but I really don't get the recipes. I can get all the editing I want from raw and lightroom. I have never used the dial and would not even begin to create my own. On one of Fuji lists, a poster keeps posting kind of negative looking photos that I was happy to leave during the film days. It does appeal to many and that is good. I guess I don't understand the omnipresent request for recipes when viewers see a Fujifilm picture.
Click to expand...

If you're like me and spent an entire adult lifetime glued to the screen of a computer (more than 40 years in my case, as an IT guy), the last thing you want to do in your spare time is sit in front of that same screen. I prefer being outdoors, shooting jpegs, among other pursuits. I spend very little time post-processing, other than a bit of cropping. As @Charzes44 says, to each their own.
 
jhawk1000 said:
Not trying to start a disagreement argument but I really don't get the recipes. I can get all the editing I want from raw and lightroom. I have never used the dial and would not even begin to create my own. On one of Fuji lists, a poster keeps posting kind of negative looking photos that I was happy to leave during the film days. It does appeal to many and that is good. I guess I don't understand the omnipresent request for recipes when viewers see a Fujifilm picture.
Click to expand...

I can't speak for anyone else, Mel, but in my own case, there are a number of personal reasons why I have become an avid user of the recipe process. It mainly stems from my years and decades as an analog film shooter, where I shot mainly black & white (Tri-X plus various Ilfords), and then began dabbling in both slide and negative color photography. I've always been an admirer not so much of color fidelity (a term I've never really understood) but, rather, of the characteristics of the different films used by a number of my favorite photographers (both film and digital). I think I probably spent years and years in darkrooms inhaling all kinds of noxious chemicals; digital processing, done with software on my computer, is a blessed relief. But it's always been a struggle for me to attain something resembling the perfection I had in my mind... either in my prints or in my digitally processed photographs. A very smart photography professor of mine, way back in the middle ages, once opined that the most important tool in a darkroom was... (dramatic pause)... the trashcan or wastebasket. In other words, he challenged and encouraged us to never be content with something that wasn't in some way truly great. (And there are a lot of definitions for that adjective 'great'.) Long story shot, in the digital age, I still obsess about not merely my images but many of their more subtle characteristics, tonalities, etc. And, honestly, my editing & processing skills are good...but not anything approaching the level of a handful of those of truly great photographers and printers. Although I've come much closer with my monochrome efforts. But in terms of color processing, I'm lightyears away from the levels of sophistication and artistry that I admire. Anyway, long story short, with some (by no means all) of the film simulation recipes published by some (by no means all) of a handful of truly talented photographers whose work I admire and who've also dedicated themselves to the development of certain kinds of recipes, I've discovered - to my personal delight (it's all subjective, I know, what works for me isn't going to work for other people) that some (mainly color) recipes have come closer to giving some of my images some of the characteristics (light, shadow, detail or lack thereof, curves, etc etc etc) that partially replicate the qualities of some of the images I've admired the most. That's the long rambling version of why I like some recipes.

Do they make my images better or make me a better photographer? Definitely not. But, conversely, I've also spent foolish amounts of time shooting in RAW (mainly on Pentax DSLRs but also on others) trying to process them in ways that I like - and, simply, for me, some recipes are shortcuts along a path that allow me to get a little closer, a little more quickly, with some of my Fujifilm cameras. (Incidentally, the newer ones - with more advanced X-Trans sensors with more capabiities, seem to be generally much more capable in this respect than their earlier siblings with less advanced and capable sensors and internal firmware.)

I also used to be a fan of a number of so-called Lightroom-friendly "presets" - created and published by a number of talented and obsessive photographers - which more or less partially replicated some (not all, by any means) of the qualities, characteristics, tonalities and other aspects of a large number of both negative and positive films. Did I mention I started out in photography as a very old-school analog person? I guess old habits die hard. For me the presets weren't destinations - but rather pathways... to get closer to how I wanted my digital pictures to look in certain ways.

I guess I simply see some recipes - and some presets - as tools... which can help me get closer to something in ways that appeal to my own sense of aesthetics or whatever you choose to call it. I think it all goes back to my own lengthy memories of my days shooting & processing & printing films... and liking some things but being frustrated by others. I think the liking + frustration go hand-in-hand with me.
 
MiguelATF said:
I can't speak for anyone else, Mel, but in my own case, there are a number of personal reasons why I have become an avid user of the recipe process. It mainly stems from my years and decades as an analog film shooter, where I shot mainly black & white (Tri-X plus various Ilfords), and then began dabbling in both slide and negative color photography. I've always been an admirer not so much of color fidelity (a term I've never really understood) but, rather, of the characteristics of the different films used by a number of my favorite photographers (both film and digital). I think I probably spent years and years in darkrooms inhaling all kinds of noxious chemicals; digital processing, done with software on my computer, is a blessed relief. But it's always been a struggle for me to attain something resembling the perfection I had in my mind... either in my prints or in my digitally processed photographs. A very smart photography professor of mine, way back in the middle ages, once opined that the most important tool in a darkroom was... (dramatic pause)... the trashcan or wastebasket. In other words, he challenged and encouraged us to never be content with something that wasn't in some way truly great. (And there are a lot of definitions for that adjective 'great'.) Long story shot, in the digital age, I still obsess about not merely my images but many of their more subtle characteristics, tonalities, etc. And, honestly, my editing & processing skills are good...but not anything approaching the level of a handful of those of truly great photographers and printers. Although I've come much closer with my monochrome efforts. But in terms of color processing, I'm lightyears away from the levels of sophistication and artistry that I admire. Anyway, long story short, with some (by no means all) of the film simulation recipes published by some (by no means all) of a handful of truly talented photographers whose work I admire and who've also dedicated themselves to the development of certain kinds of recipes, I've discovered - to my personal delight (it's all subjective, I know, what works for me isn't going to work for other people) that some (mainly color) recipes have come closer to giving some of my images some of the characteristics (light, shadow, detail or lack thereof, curves, etc etc etc) that partially replicate the qualities of some of the images I've admired the most. That's the long rambling version of why I like some recipes.

Do they make my images better or make me a better photographer? Definitely not. But, conversely, I've also spent foolish amounts of time shooting in RAW (mainly on Pentax DSLRs but also on others) trying to process them in ways that I like - and, simply, for me, some recipes are shortcuts along a path that allow me to get a little closer, a little more quickly, with some of my Fujifilm cameras. (Incidentally, the newer ones - with more advanced X-Trans sensors with more capabiities, seem to be generally much more capable in this respect than their earlier siblings with less advanced and capable sensors and internal firmware.)

I also used to be a fan of a number of so-called Lightroom-friendly "presets" - created and published by a number of talented and obsessive photographers - which more or less partially replicated some (not all, by any means) of the qualities, characteristics, tonalities and other aspects of a large number of both negative and positive films. Did I mention I started out in photography as a very old-school analog person? I guess old habits die hard. For me the presets weren't destinations - but rather pathways... to get closer to how I wanted my digital pictures to look in certain ways.

I guess I simply see some recipes - and some presets - as tools... which can help me get closer to something in ways that appeal to my own sense of aesthetics or whatever you choose to call it. I think it all goes back to my own lengthy memories of my days shooting & processing & printing films... and liking some things but being frustrated by others. I think the liking + frustration go hand-in-hand with me.
Click to expand...
I am an old analog user and fanatic. I worked for some time with Nikon's distributor and got into the darkroom groove and at one time I had a Durst M 301 for 35mm B?W, a Philips 130/150 dichroic enlarger with built in color analyzer for color printing up to 2 1/4 and a Beseler Dichroic 23 XL all set up with wet side being a darkroom sink and counter with a Jobo film and print processor. I generally did more black and white but my color was always Cibachrome. When I married my wife, she bought a pro photo lab and had the Fuji Frontiers, the Chromira for huge prints ;running through a Kreonite processor. My darkroom was taken down, stored and the Philips is still downstairs along with much of the scanners, film demagnetizers and other bottles, clocks, safelights, etc.

I really do not miss the smell of the stop bath, the fixer and other chemicals but I do miss the wonder of seeing an image appear under the safelight..
 
I would guess the recipes offer a novel approach for someone who might want to “put in a roll of film” and go shoot a certain style. I think it also offers a photographer another creative challenge to master. Many see a scene that is “photo worthy,” but it doesn’t end there. There’s exposure, framing, positioning that separates a skilled hand with, say, someone snapping casually with a smartphone. I can totally see the value in also choosing the style and trying to arrive at a finished product with little to no post processing.

I’ll also add in that you can do both with the right software. CaptureOne respects the “as shot” recipe, even on RAW, so theoretically you can still do post processing tweaks, but perhaps far less so because you are starting from the desired base already. Other programs offer simulations of Fuji recipes, but I’ve seen the claim that it’s not quite the same.
 

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