I received an email the other day from Anders Lindborg with this subject title: A Different Approach. Anders created the Kodak Tri-X 400 film simulation recipe, which is my personal favorite for black-and-white photography. I was immediately intrigued, and I was not disappointed as I read his message. I’ll let Anders explain this new approach below as he described it to me.

“Doing professional work is tough. Since getting a Fujifilm X-T3 (and later an X-Pro3), I’ve come to rely totally on the straight-out-of-camera JPEGs. They look great and I get more jobs just because I can deliver good results fast. After diving deep into the Fujifilm film simulations, I’ve come to realize that you cannot create a single recipe that will always look great. Sometimes the sunlight is so strong that everything gets blown out and the next day the same recipe will make everything look murky and dull.”

“Coming from a film background, I’m reasonably used to pushing and pulling film as needed. With cheap consumer film stocks, you could sometimes get absolutely horrific (or ”creative” as some call them) results, but the professional films were often quite predictable. Some film stocks have become legendary because they really could take a good beating, no matter how you treated them. Also, the exposure latitude of film is insane compared to digital, which is something I really have missed since switching. Awhile back I started experimenting with recreating this, but I slowly realized that it would require several different variations of my settings. When I was finished, I had used up all seven slots! A lot of research and assumptions went into the process. For example, I totally assume that Fujifilm knows what they’re doing and that their stock simulations are good. I can honestly say after all this, that—yes—they do know their game!”

“The settings emulate a flexible film look. They serve as a base that can be modified as needed on the spot via the Q Menu (for example: changing film simulation, white balance, tint, dynamic range, etc.). The objective was to always have working settings for any scenario that emulates how professional film behaves when being pushed or pulled. They’re intended for professional use and come out of both a need and want for realistic film-like simulations that are guaranteed to work, no matter what task I’m currently challenged with. Of course it’s up to the end user to tune it to their specific preferences, but I strongly recommend you leave the highlight/shadow settings as-is. They are heavily tested with all standard film simulations and you will get a nice looking result with them. These settings took me a couple of years to develop, but this is what I actually use every day now.”

“Just step outside and try to come to a conclusion about what the current weather and light conditions are like. If the sun is harsh, you need to pull. If the sun is blindingly bright, pull two steps. The same goes for pushing. If you’re missing just a bit of light, push one step. If it’s dull, push two steps. The third and fourth push settings are perhaps a bit special as the contrast starts to increase. On a regular day, of course you use the box speed setting. Once you’ve selected your setting for the day, stick with it! This is the key to consistent results.”

“I recommend shooting RAW+JPEG and having the settings stored in X Raw Studio. RAWs are great to have if you aren’t happy with the results of your selected setting. The settings were created for the Fujifilm X-T3, but can be easily adapted to taste on any X-series camera. On my X-Pro3, I set Clarity to -3 and Grain to Weak & Large on all slots.”

Thank you, Anders Lindborg, for creating and sharing this new approach!

For those without a film background, let me briefly explain what pushing and pulling means in film photography. Film is rated at a certain ISO, for example ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, etc., which is a measurement of the film’s sensitivity to light (it’s pretty much just like on your digital camera). You can underexpose a roll of film and increase the development time to get correctly exposed pictures, and this is called push-processing or pushing the film. Also, you can overexpose a roll of film and decrease the development time to get correctly exposed pictures, and this is called pull-processing or pulling the film. Pushing the film increases the contrast, vibrancy (for color film), and grain, while pulling the film decreases the contrast, vibrancy (for color film), and grain. With film, you have to push or pull the entire roll and not just one or a few frames.

The genius of Anders’ method is that you can apply this film approach to your digital pictures, and you can do it with as few or as many frames as you wish. You can push one frame, pull the next, and shoot the third at “box speed” (nether pushed nor pulled) if you want. This type of flexibility was unimaginable in the film era!

In case you didn’t understand this approach, let me rephrase it. You have one recipe, but that recipe has push and pull variants. You can use any film simulation with the recipe, and Anders’ film simulation of choice is PRO Neg. Hi, but try any of them! The rest of the settings stay the same. His push and pull variants don’t necessarily represent stops of pushing or pulling, but more like half-stop increments (although Fujifilm lenses have 1/3 stop increments, but don’t worry about that). You can dedicate slots in your Custom Settings Menu for the recipe and variants, or you can have one Custom Settings slot set to the standard “box speed” recipe and adjust on-the-fly if you have the required changes memorized, or you can do it in X RAW Studio.

Anders actually sent me two recipes. The first, which you’ll find below, is called Fujicolor Pro 160NS. It wasn’t purposely intended to resemble that film, but it nonetheless does, more-or-less. The second, which you can find here), is called Fujicolor Pro 400H. The Pro 160NS recipe is the “standard” one, while the Pro 400H recipe is just a little more bold for when you need a bit more pizzaz.

There are seven versions of the Fujicolor Pro 160NS recipe: Pulled -2, Pulled -1, Box Speed, Pushed +1, Pushed +2, Pushed +3, and Pushed +4. You’ll find each of these below, although the Box Speed version is the only one included on the Fuji X Weekly app. My recommendation is to manually add the other versions into the notes section under the recipe in the app. These seven recipes are compatible with X-Trans III cameras plus the X-T3 and X-T30; for newer cameras Anders recommends setting Clarity to -3 and Grain to Weak & Large. As a reminder, these recipes are intended to look good no matter the film simulation used, despite it calling for PRO Neg. Hi. For Pushed +3 and Pushed +4, feel free to use Grain Strong if you’d like.

Fujicolor Pro 160NS Box Speed

PRO Neg. Hi
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Color: 0
Color Chrome Effect: Off
Grain: Weak
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpness: -3
White Balance: Daylight, 0 Red & 0 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 to +2/3 (typically)

Fujicolor Pro 160NS Pulled -1

PRO Neg. Hi
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: -1
Shadow: -1
Color: 0
Color Chrome Effect: Off
Grain: Weak
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpness: -3
White Balance: Daylight, 0 Red & 0 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 to +2/3 (typically)

If you are adding this recipe to the Notes in the app, consider using this abbreviation: Pulled -1: HL & SH -1.

Fujicolor Pro 160NS Pulled -2

PRO Neg. Hi
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: -2
Shadow: -1
Color: -1
Color Chrome Effect: Off
Grain: Weak
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpness: -3
White Balance: Daylight, 0 Red & 0 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 to +1 (typically)

If you are adding this recipe to the Notes in the app, consider using this abbreviation: Pulled -2: HL -2, SH -1, CLR -1.

Fujicolor Pro 160NS Pushed +1

PRO Neg. Hi
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: +1
Shadow: 0
Color: 0
Color Chrome Effect: Off
Grain: Weak
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpness: -3
White Balance: Daylight, 0 Red & 0 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 to +2/3 (typically)

If you are adding this recipe to the Notes in the app, consider using this abbreviation: Pushed +1: HL +1.

Fujicolor Pro 160NS Pushed +2

PRO Neg. Hi
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: +2
Shadow: 0
Color: +1
Color Chrome Effect: Off
Grain: Weak
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpness: -3
White Balance: Daylight, 0 Red & 0 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: -1/3 to +2/3 (typically)

If you are adding this recipe to the Notes in the app, consider using this abbreviation: Pushed +2: HL +2, CLR +1.

Fujicolor Pro 160NS Pushed +3

PRO Neg. Hi
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: +2
Shadow: +1
Color: +2
Color Chrome Effect: Off
Grain: Weak
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpness: -3
White Balance: Daylight, 0 Red & 0 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: -1/3 to +2/3 (typically)

If you are adding this recipe to the Notes in the app, consider using this abbreviation: Pushed +3: HL +2, SH +1, CLR +2.

Fujicolor Pro 160NS Pushed +4

PRO Neg. Hi
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: +3
Shadow: +2
Color: +3
Color Chrome Effect: Off
Grain: Weak
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpness: -4
White Balance: Daylight, 0 Red & 0 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: -1/3 to +2/3 (typically)

If you are adding this recipe to the Notes in the app, consider using this abbreviation: Pushed +4: HL +3, SH +2, CLR +3, SHARP -4.

Below are examples of using the Fujicolor Pro 160NS Box Speed recipe using other film simulations. You can do this with all of the pull and push variants, too, although I didn’t supply any examples of those because this article is already very long.

Find this film simulation recipe on the Fuji X Weekly — Film Recipes App!