I ran across a picture in an article about coffee, and that picture reminded me a lot of the Classic Negative film simulation. I don’t think the picture was captured with Classic Negative; perhaps a VSCO (or some other brand) preset was used that was intended to look something like Superia film. So, with one picture as my guide, I set out to recreate the look with my Fujifilm X100V. Ideally you want more than one sample picture to study, but that’s all I had. These settings look pretty darn close to that picture, but it’s difficult to know if it’s truly accurate because I only had one sample to work with, and I don’t know how it should look in various situations. Still, I’m happy with how it turned out.

Initially I was going to name this recipe “Fujicolor Negative” because it has a Fujicolor Superia-like look, but then I stumbled across some Kodak ColorPlus 400 photographs, and they looked quite similar to these pictures. Even though the resemblance to ColorPlus 400 is completely accidental, I thought that calling it “Color Negative 400” was more appropriate because it is in the general ballpark of a film that’s not Fujicolor. Or, more accurately, it is similar to both a Kodak stock and a Fujifilm stock, and not exactly like either. I do think, no matter how close it may or may not be to an actual film, it has a nice film-like aesthetic to it that many will appreciate.

This recipe is dark and contrasty, and can be used to create a certain moody look. I think it works best in low-contrast scenes, and does well both indoors and outdoors. This recipe is only compatible (as of this writing) with the Fujifilm X100V, X-Pro3, X-T4 and X-S10 cameras.

Classic Negative
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: 0
Shadow: +4
Color: +4
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpening: 0
Clarity: -5
Grain Effect: Weak, Large
Color Chrome Effect: Weak
Color Chrome Effect Blue: Weak
White Balance: Auto, -2 Red & -4 Blue
ISO: Auto, up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: +1/3 to +1 (typically)

Example photographs, all camera-made JPEGs using this Color Negative 400 film simulation recipe on my Fujifilm X100V:

See also: Film Simulation Recipes

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