Above-Left: Kodak Portra 400 v2 recipe — Above-right: same recipe, but slightly modified.

Film Simulation Recipes are one way to replicate the look and feel of traditional film on your Fujifilm camera. You can do something like this by editing RAW files and applying Alien Akin, VSCO, RNI, etc., presets during post-processing; however, using recipes cuts out this step, saving you a lot of time and hassle. One-step photography (as discussed by Ansel Adams in his book about Polaroid photography, which he was fascinated with) is an easier approach. Some advantages of using recipes on Fujifilm cameras are simplicity (quickly and easily achieve a desired aesthetic with little or no editing), authenticity (film-like quality that doesn’t appear heavily manipulated), consistency (a single recipe over a series of pictures produces a cohesive visual style), and productivity (not editing pictures saves a lot of time). There are over 250 Film Simulation Recipes published on Fuji X Weekly, which are also available on the Fuji X Weekly App.

Even though there are a lot of recipes to choose from, you may not always find one that’s the perfect fit for your personal style, subject matter, or lighting condition. I’ve often said that it is fine to “season to taste” any recipe to make it work for you, because making it work for you is preferable to rigidly adhering to a recipe and being dissatisfied with the results (the notes section in the App underneath a recipe is an excellent place to keep track of your modifications). In this post, we will discuss some reasons why someone might choose to modify a Film Simulation Recipe to suit their personal style.