Fujifilm has the best JPEG output in the camera industry, in my opinion. That’s not to say the others are garbage, because some brands are pretty good (Ricoh, for example); however, they are not all equal, and—in my view—Fujifilm is at the very top when it comes to straight-out-of-camera photography. Leaning into their long history of making analog film, they’ve crafted Film Simulations and various JPEG options (which together make Film Simulation Recipes) that achieve authentic aesthetics that don’t require editing.
Over the years Fujifilm has added many new Film Simulations and JPEG settings so that photographers can get a wider variety of looks straight-out-of-camera. Nostalgic Negative and Reala Ace are found on the latest generation of models. Eterna Bleach Bypass and .5 Highlight and Shadow adjustments were introduced with the Fujifilm X-T4. Classic Negative, Grain size, Color Chrome FX Blue, and Clarity were first found on the X-Pro3. So what should Fujifilm introduce next? What new Film Simulations and JPEG settings should be added to future cameras?
There are a number of Film Simulations that Fujifilm could make. Probably the easiest would be Fortia, which would simply require moving Pop Color from Advanced Filters to the Film Simulation set. Another easy option would be a new B&W Film Simulation (maybe called Neopan) that would essentially be a higher contrast and grainer version of Acros. A Film Simulations that I believe would be a big hit is one modeled Fujicolor PRO 400H that turns pastel when overexposed, like the film was famous for. Another option that I would like to see is Cross Process, modeled after Velvia 50 developed in C41 chemistry. A fifth potential future Film Simulation is Instax, mimicking instant film.
As for JPEG settings, one option might be Split-Tone, where a certain color cast could be selected for the shadows, and a different color cast could be selected for the highlights (for example, blue for the shadows, yellow for the highlights). This could be available for both color and B&W images. Another one might be Faded Blacks, where deep shadows are rendered lighter. A third potential option could be vignette. For those last two, it could simply be Off, Weak, or Strong. To demonstrate what Faded Black and Vignette might look like, I edited some pictures using the Photos App in my iPhone, simply setting the Black Point to -50 and Vignette to +10, which might be similar to Faded Black Strong and Vignette Weak, if such settings existed. You can see the before and after below:
More Faded Blacks & Vignette examples:
Now it’s your turn! What would you like the next Film Simulation to be? Should Pop Color be moved from Advanced Filters to the Film Simulation set? What new JPEG option would you prefer be introduced next? Do you like the idea of Faded Blacks and/or Vignette? Let me know in the comments!
Sometimes I even feel that there are too many sims… So should I ask for a new one it would be something very extreme, like the cross process
While I would find more useful more settings like faded blacks. What I really would like is a camera autofocus option that automatically focuses on the hyperfocal distance, it would be really useful for street photography
Cross Process would be my top choice, personally.
The XF10 had a snap-focus type feature… would love for that to be included in other models.
I’d like to see a “pushable” BW sim that gives increased contrast and grain when shot at higher ISO. As for settings, maybe other colors could get Chrome FX separately like we currently have with blue. Also need some higher/lower settings for effects, e.g. +\- 5 options for settings that currently only go to 3 or 4.
I would like to see a higher-contrast and grainy B&W option for a more dramatic effect, along the lines of pushed Tri-X or similar.
Full Rockers all the way. Problem and carping point solved. No particularly European but commercially, the US and China crave more nursery colours. We tend to be more introverted and subtle.
In addition, an accurate, technical recipe, named just “Technical”, is a must for those with machinery, archiving etc, to photograph.
Fujifilm’s film simulations aren’t designed to be technically accurate, but to convey a mood or nostalgia through what Fujifilm calls “memory color”. So a technical film sim that attempts to be as clinically accurate as possible could be interesting, and useful for certain applications.
Not sure that I understand about JPEG settings. What I would like to see are JPEG-XL and JPEG 2000 with adjustable compression including lossless and adjustable bit depth.
For Film simulation I would like to see CT18 (pre E6) and maskless CN17 color negative.
“JPEG Settings” are settings that don’t really mean a whole lot to the RAW photographer, but are baked into the camera-processed image (JPEG, or possibly HEIF), so they are very meaningful for the JPEG photographer.
I’m not sure that Fujifilm would try to mimic any Agfa stocks, but it would be interesting if they did. Obviously it wouldn’t have “Agfa” in the name (like Classic Chrome and Nostalgic Neg don’t say “Kodak”), but maybe they’d call it “Euro” or something like that.
You pretty much covered all JPEG settings at the top of my wishlist.
Related to “Faded Blacks”: I’d like to see a more direct manipulation of the tone curve. For example, give the user 4 or 5 tone curve points to shift around.
AFAIK Sony has a setting that allows you to separately change luminance of each individual RGBCMY color. It would be even more interesting to do that with hue and saturation shifts.
Then there’s more gimmicky/niche possibilities like simulating halation or even light leaks.
Also, a bigger range on some of the existing settings would be nice. For example, I’d like to use Velvia’s color shifts but with much less saturation (Color -4 is still very saturated).
As for film simulations, I’d like to see something more daring with bigger color shifts and split toning. So far only Classic Neg. really does this, partially also Classic Chrome, and these two film sims are the most popular.
I think it’s a fine line that Fujifilm has to walk between robust options and simplicity. For example, a 5-point tone curve would be nice, but maybe too complex for many to mess with; however, a Highlight, Shadow, and Midtone (3-point) might be simple enough. Definitely when you talk about the luminance of each individual color, that’s great for customization, but also not great because few will bother to mess with it. In other words, it’s great for a few, and meaningless to most. I don’t envy Fujifilm (or any camera maker) trying to walk that line, but I think Fujifilm has done pretty well (especially on the newer models) of offering plenty of customization without making it too overwhelming for the average user. But, as someone who likes to customize, the more options there are, the more you can do.
I think a halation effect similar to CineStill 800T could be interesting. With negative Clarity, you can get a subtle halation effect, but it’s nothing like that film. It could be an Off, Weak, Strong type thing.
Light leaks could also be cool if done well (it would be easy to not implement well). Perhaps if enabled, it would randomly choose one of 20 light leaks, and maybe only apply them to 10% of the photographs randomly. That could be a lot of fun.
Hi Ritchie, Here’s a few things I’d love that would take jpeg (or HEIF) files to the next level:
First, a variable “dynamic” control that works with all existing film sims, to mimic changes in color and contrast that occur when *actual* film (from which a simulation is based) is pushed/pull processed or over/underexposed. This could add a new and realistic (or exaggerated, if desired) dimension to existing film simulations and solve, somewhat, the need to develop multiple recipes intended to mimic various characteristics of any particular film stock.
Second, I’d love the WB shift to have the ability to increase/decrease colors individually instead of being constrained within the current grid where increasing one color may decrease the complimentary color.
Lastly. I’d love if SOOC HEIF files would start supporting the Clarity control.
You can kind of simulate the push or pull effect (see links at bottom), but not automatically. Maybe it would work kind of like D-Range Priority, but instead of just DR and Tone Curve, it also does Color and Grain. And maybe it’s a -2 to +4 type of thing, where -2 represents pulled two stops, and +4 represents pushed four stops, while 0 is DR-Auto, 0 Highlight & Shadow, 0 Color, and Grain Weak/Small?
Classic negative is the only film sim that changes the way it looks depending on the exposure in order to emulate film in that way.
I’m not sure how the WB Shift things would work, but maybe a 0 through 20 scale each for Red, Yellow, Blue and Green?
The lack of Clarity for HEIF is a real bummer, IMHO. I hope that gets fixed.
https://fujixweekly.com/2021/05/24/a-different-approach-7-new-fujicolor-pro-160ns-film-simulation-recipes-yes-7/
https://fujixweekly.com/2021/05/25/7-new-fujicolor-pro-400h-film-simulation-recipes/
It’s all a bit academic for me because on my ipad screen I can’t detect any difference between the pairs of images. Is it the screen, my ageing eyes, or what. I think I’ll just stick to Reala Ace 🙂
What you should be able to see is that the bottom image in the pair has shadows that are more grey and less black, and overall looks a bit more flat. Mostly, you are looking for the shadows.
Bonjour,
J’avais déjà soulevé ici même certaines attentes pour la gestion des jpeg, content que ce soit repris pour un article :
– vignette sur n’importe quelle partie de l’image et non pas qu’au centre
– courbe pour les tons moyens
– courbe pour chaque couche RVB
Pourquoi pas aussi rajouter de nouvelles simulation de film, encore faut il ,qu’elles aient du caractère et apportent vraiment quelque chose dans le contraste, les couleurs, la tonalité, quelque chose de visible comme pour Négative Classique ou Classic Chrome ou même encore Bleach Bypass. Idem pour le noir et blanc. Mais chez Fuji, le tour est déjà bien fait, ils devraient donc s’inspirer d’autres fabricants de pellicule.
Penser aussi à l’ Effet Chrome individuellement sur le Rouge / Vert / Jaune.
Inclure un filtre GND numérique.
Bruno
Thanks for the input! I think it would be cool if a physical GND was an option on a camera like the X100-series… choose either the ND or the GND. Not sure how possible or practical something like that would be to engineer, though, to have two filter options in the lens.
Re Bonjour, c’est encore moi !
Une autre solution consisterait à pouvoir enregistrer ses réglages directement depuis son logiciel de post traitement quel qu’il soit vers sa caméra, peu importe le logiciel, peu importe la marque de caméra.
C’est utopique mais dans l’absolu, pas irréalisable.
L’avantage c’est que les réglages via un logiciel sont bien plus fins.
En attendant cela, et peut être même à jamais, le logiciel X RAW Studio, devrait être repensé tel un vrai logiciel de post traitement, en plus de ce qu’il fait actuellement, pour pouvoir ensuite enregistrer l’ensemble des réglages sur sa caméra tel un LUT, un vrai.
Bruno
I’ve often wondered why a camera maker doesn’t team up with a company like Alien Skin, RNI, VSCO, etc., to offer their filters built-in. I think it would be a massive win for whichever camera maker does it first.
HUE shift. Similar as in Lightroom. For example – always make yellows more oragne, reds more magenta, etc. It partially clashes with Film Simulations, but I would like the option to tweak them.
But more importanlty I wish they would change the way Custom settings are saved back to the old way, where they only affect the visuals and don’t save all other camera settings. This change mostly ruined the whole Custom setting idea for me.
Totally agree re: custom settings. Many of the saved settings aren’t related to IQ and should really be global functions that just “stick” when changing custom settings.. or at least have that option. By far my biggest pet peeve among those is having to continually re-save the vintage lens I’m using at the time while cycling through various recipes. Meanwhile I’ve fashioned a workaround by adding Auto Update Custom Setting to My Menu so I can switch it on/off as needed, but it’s still a clumsy solution.
That would be a bug, a lens is a hardware thing so changing a custom setting should not save the lens setting. Is the lens in IQ? Your workaround sounds like a great idea, I sometimes wonder if I should use the auto-save feature and just remember to undo, a save for the day would be a nice feature as often my change is outing related
YES please to both, dear Fujifilm!
Here’s one idea:
https://fujixweekly.com/2024/12/15/fujifilm-please-read-a-firmware-update-idea-for-fujifilm-fixing-c1-c7-on-newer-cameras/
For me a Neopan simulation of both low and high ISO with the red, orange and yellow filter options would make sense.
Other than that, a technical and as much as possible close to reality color sim would be good.
I would like to see a more punchier/grittier B&W option, personally. I think that would be really cool.
If anything, a higher number of recipe banks, or an easier way to load and unload them through the app (similar to what Panasonic is doing with the S9, or Leica with their stuff).
I think 10 or more banks is overdue. I’m also surprised that Fujifilm hasn’t made them easier to load and store.
Hue shifts all the way!
Thanks for the input!
One option that would be great, is customize grain settings. Film tends to have more grain in the highlights than the shadows. Having the ability to customize grain in highlights and shadows would be nice but probably too complicated for the in camera processor.
Other options might be a true red scale mode, and even a faux Infrared black and white mode with black skies and white foliage.
Lastly if Fuji were to come out with their own inkjet printer similar to the Epson Ecotank 8550, and offer icc profiles matched to certain papers on this printer and the ability to modify the jpg to make it optimized for print that would be so amazing. Their color science started with their frontier scanners in film labs. Making a solution for sooc jpgs that printed to 4×6 photo paper in your home and actually looked like photo labs prints would be the ultimate sooc workflow.
I think the Grain options of Weak or Strong and Small or Large is a good start, but I would like to see it be more customizable, especially with grain pattern and shape.
Cross Process would be all I need. The ability to remove that reddish magenta from the highlights only of classic negative would be fantastic. Then maybe we could replicate Pro 400H even closer SOOC.
I think Cross Process would be such a fun film simulation. I hope Fujifilm does it.
Compared to many LUTs that other camera manufacturers are now introducing in their new models or to the vast number of free LUTs, the Fujifilm simulations are simply outstanding for me. I always have the feeling that the Fuji simulations, calculated in the camera, are always consistent in terms of tonality, color, highlights, shadows, etc. I can’t say the same about most LUTs. That’s why I’m in favor of Fortia. We now have a lot of film simulations for portrait, street and cinematic photography, which is great. Fortia would be a very welcome addition to Velvia for nature and landscape photography.
I think Fortia would be an easy one, and I think it would be well received, especially by landscape photographers.
I find the current Velvia (XT-5) to be appreciably worse than in XT-1-3). It feels like they have done something odd with it
Fujifilm stated somewhere—it didn’t come up on a quick Google search, but I know it’s out there—that the Velvia film sim Fujifilm wanted wasn’t possible on the older sensors, and they have been striving to make it “better” (more as it was originally intended to be, but wasn’t possible due to technology restraints) ever since. One of the guys on the Velvia film sim team was involved in the creation of Velvia 100F slide film, and I believe mimicking that emulsion is the goal of the film sim.
I think before all that, let’s solve the buffering issue when clarity set to other than zero 😄
Yeah, I’m surprised that hasn’t been addressed by Fujifilm. Even if the pause was shorted a little, I think that would be appreciated.
Split toning would be great, but I’d also love to see them add halation if possible.
Thanks for the input!
Easy Answer: more aspect ratios. 😛 I know that’s not the same thing this is mostly asking about, but I really want them in X-Mount.
40mp is enough–heck 26mp is probably also enough–to support TX-1/XPan 65:24. Add also 4:3. It’d be so simple, and also so handy.
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For film sims and JPEG specific settings and such… how about an Orthochromatic B&W film? With Ortho film, it’s not sensitive to red, so skies are lighter, red tones are darker. That’s kind of like a green or blue filter, at least somewhat, but going for full-Orthochromatic would be interesting. Alternately, maybe it’s another kind of filter for the Acros and Monochrome sims. In addition to R/Y/G, you could add Ortho, and maybe a faux-Infrared B&W.
That said, Pentax has a faux-infrared filter, but it looks really bad. When the images are tiny, like on the back screen, it’s kinda cool, with bright white leaves, black skies. But opening them on a computer and looking them at any reasonable viewing size, they really break down. Strange edges like extreme oversharpening. It seems like it’d be possible to do it better, but it just might not really work out well.
The 40mp cameras should have the XPan aspect ratio, and it’s a real shame that they don’t. Such an easy one for Fujifilm. I hope they do it.
An IR film sim would be cool, and I would especially like an aerochrome-like option. RNI has a set of aerochrome-like filters that look pretty good, so I know it’s possible to replicate the aesthetic without an IR camera.
Wow, lots of ideas. For effects I would suggest something like ProContrast in The Nik Collection and TonalContrast but without the grain as there is a separate grain already in the film settings.
How about fixing Clarity so it does not delay 2 seconds, probably requires DSP code additions
I’m surprised that Fujifilm hasn’t addressed the Clarity pause yet. I hope they do. Even a little improvement would be well received.
For me a possibility to reduce color (all colors) in photo’s.
So you can produce ‘Colourized B&W photo’s’!
You can do that with the Advanced Filters.
I’ve thought for a while that curve control for each RGB channel would give us really good control of tones.
The ultimate control would include Black, shadow, mid, highlight, white adjustments of each channel, as well as overall
I appreciate it would be pretty tricky to do and retain the super fast frame rates and so on. Perhaps to begin with they could extend the existing shadow tone and highlight tone to each RGB channel.
That might be doable with the current technology I would think?
If they did manage to add adjustments of black, shadow, mid, highlight and white then it would add the ability to fade the blacks, as per your examples, which do look great.
Not only that, but also fade the whites, so they are not pure white, which can also give it more of a film like look.
And if implemented for each channel, it would give so much control.
you could colour cast the highlights, or shadows for example, or give an overall warm look, but balance it out with cooler whites, or shadows.
Come on FujiFilm, work your Magic! 😀
I think the challenge is to have enough options to satisfy those who like to customize their looks, but not too much that it becomes overwhelming or intimidating for those who aren’t sure what to do. It’s a fine line that has to be treaded carefully. To an extent, the more simple something can be implemented, the better (obviously, oversimplification is a thing, too). I appreciate the input!
Their are so many recipes, mostly daylight balanced. I should say that Fuji should bring back the rare Fujichrome 64T with halation effect. It would be a massive success. Ritchie, you are cordially invited to create new recipes how that 64T looks in ECN-2 or C41 process.
The Jeff Davenport Night Recipe is actually pretty similar to Fujichrome RTP II 64T, so maybe it’s beyond time for me to update that Recipe for the newer models. Thanks for the feedback!