What is a Fujifilm recipe?

A list of JPEG settings for a Fujifilm X or GFX camera: a film simulation plus white balance and its shift, dynamic range, the highlight and shadow tone curve, color, grain effect, the color chrome effects, sharpness, noise reduction and clarity. Saved to a custom settings bank, it makes the camera produce a finished look straight out of camera, with no editing.

Where do Fujifilm recipes come from?

Mostly from photographers who share them. The biggest library is Fuji X Weekly, which sorts its recipes by sensor generation and has a free recipe app for iPhone and Android.

Do Fujifilm recipes work on every Fujifilm camera?

Not all of them. A recipe is written for a sensor generation, and it can need a menu an older camera lacks: Classic Negative first came on the X-Pro3 in 2019, so a recipe built on it needs a camera that has it.

How many recipes can a Fujifilm camera hold?

As many custom settings banks as it has; the X100VI has seven, C1 to C7. Exposure compensation is not part of a bank, so a recipe’s suggested compensation is set by hand.

Guide · Updated 30 October 2026

Fujifilm recipes

What a recipe sets, and the film behind the name.

A Fujifilm recipe, or film simulation recipe, is a list of JPEG settings for a Fujifilm X or GFX camera: a film simulation such as Classic Chrome, with white balance and its shift, dynamic range, highlight and shadow tone, color, grain effect, the color chrome effects, sharpness, noise reduction and clarity. Saved to one of the camera’s custom settings banks, it makes a finished, often film-like JPEG straight out of the camera. Photographers share them by the hundred, sorted by sensor generation, and many are named after a film, “Portra 400” or “Kodachrome 64”, a look matched by eye on Fujifilm’s processor.

Below: what a recipe sets, how to use one, which ones work on your camera, what the film in a recipe’s name really was, and what is left of the idea without a Fujifilm.

01 · Settings

What is in a Fujifilm recipe

A recipe sets the items of the camera’s image quality menu. On the X100VI they are these, with Fujifilm’s own words where it gives them:

Setting	Options	What it does
Film simulation	Provia, Velvia, Astia, Classic Chrome, Reala Ace, Pro Neg. Hi and Std, Classic Neg., Nostalgic Neg., Eterna, Eterna Bleach Bypass, Acros, Monochrome, Sepia	The base look: tone curve and color together.
Grain effect	Roughness Off, Weak, Strong; size Small, Large	Adds grain to the JPEG.
Color chrome effect	Off, Weak, Strong	“Increase the range of tones available for rendering colors that tend to be highly saturated.”
Color chrome FX blue	Off, Weak, Strong	The same, for blues.
White balance	Auto, presets, Kelvin (2,500 to 10,000 K), custom; plus a shift	The light’s color, then a nudge on a red–blue grid.
Dynamic range	Auto, 100 %, 200 %, 400 %	“Wide dynamic ranges reduce loss of detail in highlights.”
D range priority	Auto, Weak, Strong, Off	“Reduce loss of detail in highlights and shadows … when photographing high-contrast scenes.”
Tone curve	Highlights −2 to +4, shadows −2 to +4	Highlights and shadows “harsher or softer”.
Color	−4 to +4	Saturation.
Sharpness	−4 to +4	The processor’s sharpening.
High ISO NR	−4 to +4	The processor’s noise reduction.
Clarity	−5 to +5	“Increase definition while altering tones in highlights and shadows as little as possible.”

From the X100VI’s manual. Older cameras have fewer items and fewer simulations; the menu also has smooth skin, and a warm–cool, green–magenta tint for black and white.

02 · How

How to use a Fujifilm recipe

Find your sensor. Recipes are written for a sensor generation (X-Trans I to V, Bayer, GFX). Your camera’s generation is in its specifications, or in the lists on Fuji X Weekly’s recipes page.
Pick a recipe for it. One written for your generation, or for one whose menus your camera has: a recipe on Classic Negative needs a camera that offers it.
Save it to a custom setting. In the shooting menu, Image quality setting, Edit/save custom setting: pick a bank (the X100VI has seven, C1 to C7), set each item to the recipe’s values and save.
Set what the bank does not hold. Recipes usually suggest an exposure compensation, often +⅓ to +1. It is a dial, not part of the bank, so set it as you shoot.
Shoot JPEG. The recipe shapes the camera’s JPEG. Shoot RAW beside it if you want the frame back: the camera’s own RAW conversion can develop it again with another recipe.

03 · Sensors

Which recipes work on your camera

Fuji X Weekly, the largest recipe library, sorts its recipes by sensor: X-Trans V, IV, III, II and I, the EXR-CMOS and Bayer cameras, and GFX. The same numbers can look different on another generation, and a newer recipe can call for a menu an older camera lacks. Classic Negative, for one, first came on the X-Pro3 in 2019. A recipe for your own generation is the one that looks as its pictures do.

04 · Film names

Portra 400, Kodachrome and Gold 200 recipes: what the film was

A recipe named after a film is a Fujifilm simulation tuned until its pictures resemble that film’s. That can be close, and it is how most of the popular ones were made, but nothing in it comes from the film: Fujifilm says its own Classic Chrome “is not designed to reproduce an existing film”. The one simulation Fujifilm ties to a film is Classic Negative, modeled, in its words, on “a photograph taken with SUPERIA film and its print”.

The film	What it was	In Clack
Portra 400	Kodak’s portrait color negative: soft contrast, made to print on Kodak’s Portra, Supra and Ultra Endura papers.	Portrait 400
Kodachrome 64	Kodak’s color slide, discontinued: there was no print, the film was the picture.	Chroma 64
Gold 200	Kodak’s consumer color negative: warm, saturated drugstore prints.	Golden 200
Superia	Fujifilm’s consumer negative. Fujifilm says Classic Negative is modeled on “SUPERIA film and its print”.	Minilab 400
CineStill 800T	Kodak Vision3 500T cinema film with its rem-jet backing removed: red halation round lights.	Cinema 500T

One thing no recipe reaches: there is no Fujifilm setting for halation, the red glow round lights that CineStill 800T is bought for (see what is halation).

05 · On film

Recipe settings and what film does by itself

Fujifilm’s menu is a processor’s: abstract numbers (highlight −2 to +4, color −4 to +4) and independent knobs, several of which move the same highlights. That is why recipes are copied more than reasoned about. On film, most of those knobs have a physical cause, and some are not knobs at all: the film does them by itself.

Fujifilm setting	On film	Clack’s control
Film simulation	The film: its curves, its dyes, its paper.	The film, one of six, based on a real one
White balance and its shift	Daylight film is fixed at daylight; a lab corrects the print with filters.	White balance (Auto, presets, Custom measured); Shift, the printer’s filtration
Tone curve, highlights and shadows	Development: a push is harder, a pull softer.	Contrast: Soft, Normal, Hard, Harder (pulled one to pushed two)
Color	The paper: Kodak’s three Portra papers run softer to richer.	Color: Soft, Standard, Vivid
Grain effect	The grain follows the light: a dim room, a faster film or a push makes it coarser.	Grain: Fine, Normal, Coarse, and it grows with ISO and a push
Color chrome FX blue	A polarizer on the lens darkens blue sky.	Polarizer: Off, Half, Full
Acros or Monochrome with a filter	A colored filter on the lens.	Filter: Yellow, Orange, Red, Green
Color chrome effect	Dyes: a more saturated color is already darker.	None: the film does it
Dynamic range, D range priority	The shoulder of the curve holds highlights.	None: the film does it
Sharpness, noise reduction, clarity	Nothing: these tune a processor.	None
(no setting)	A mist filter on the lens.	Glow: Off, Faint, Soft, Strong
(no setting)	Halation, light back off the film’s base.	Halation: Normal, Strong

The grain is the clearest case. Fujifilm’s grain effect is a fixed roughness and size whatever the ISO; film’s grain follows the light, coarser when the room was dim or the film was pushed. More on that in what is film grain.

06 · Without

Fujifilm recipes without a Fujifilm

A recipe’s numbers are settings of Fujifilm’s processor, so on any other camera or a phone they mean nothing. What travels is the idea: a base look plus a few changes, applied as you shoot, and written down so someone else can shoot it too. On a phone that leaves three routes:

Edit afterwards. A preset in an editor, starting from RAW for the most room. It works, one photo at a time; how to make photos look like film has the steps.
The phone’s own filters. Quick, and laid over the phone’s finished, processed frame.
A camera app with its own recipes. The look is in the finder and in the photo as you shoot, as on a Fujifilm. Clack is one, on Android.

If you shoot a Fujifilm and an Android phone, Fuji X Weekly’s free app keeps its recipe library on the phone for the camera.

07 · Clack

A film recipe on an Android phone

Clack is a film camera app for Android, and a Clack recipe works like a Fujifilm one: a base and a few changes, seen live in the finder and baked into the JPEG. The base is a film, not a simulation: six, each based on a real one and modeled on its published data, Portrait 400 (based on Kodak Portra 400), Minilab 400 (based on Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400), Chroma 64 (based on Kodak Kodachrome 64), Golden 200 (based on Kodak Gold 200), Cinema 500T (based on Kodak Vision3 500T) and Press 400 (based on Ilford HP5 Plus 400). The changes are few, each named for what it does to the picture with the real process in a line under it, in the order light travels: Light (white balance, shift), Lens (polarizer, glow, and a filter on black and white), Film (contrast, color, grain, halation). Steps, not numbers, and no control for what the film does by itself.

A recipe is written in one line, naming only what differs from the film as it comes, so it can be passed on as a Fujifilm recipe is. The ten Clack starts with:

Recipe	Film	The recipe
Warm Skin	Portrait 400	The film as it comes
Golden Hour	Portrait 400	Daylight
Postcard 64	Chroma 64	The film as it comes
Snapshot 400	Minilab 400	The film as it comes
Havana	Minilab 400	Daylight · Polarizer half · Glow soft · Color vivid
Summer	Golden 200	Shift A3 M3
Streetlight	Cinema 500T	The film as it comes
Cine Blue	Cinema 500T	Tungsten
Available light	Press 400	Contrast harder · Grain coarse
Dark Sky	Press 400	Red filter

Havana is a Fujifilm-style favorite reached on film: Minilab 400 (based on Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400) at daylight, through half a polarizer and a soft glow, printed vivid.

The film base: On Android phones whose camera offers a contrast curve, Clack takes the frame flat, with the phone’s local tone mapping and color enhancement off, before the film. On other phones the films run on the phone’s own frame.
Grain: Drawn before the film’s curve, sized as 35 mm film’s, and stronger the higher the ISO the camera needed.
Your own: Clack comes with the ten. Making your own, as many as you like, is part of Clack Pro; for the first seven days everything is open, and the free tier keeps Minilab 400 and Press 400 with their recipes.

Clack is not a Fujifilm and does not copy Fujifilm’s simulations or settings. Tested mostly on the CMF Phone 2 Pro.

AndroidComing soon to Google Play. More about Clack

Questions

What is a Fujifilm recipe?: A list of JPEG settings for a Fujifilm X or GFX camera: a film simulation plus white balance and its shift, dynamic range, the highlight and shadow tone curve, color, grain effect, the color chrome effects, sharpness, noise reduction and clarity. Saved to a custom settings bank, it makes the camera produce a finished look straight out of camera, with no editing.
Where do Fujifilm recipes come from?: Mostly from photographers who share them. The biggest library is Fuji X Weekly, which sorts its recipes by sensor generation and has a free recipe app for iPhone and Android.
Do Fujifilm recipes work on every Fujifilm camera?: Not all of them. A recipe is written for a sensor generation, and it can need a menu an older camera lacks: Classic Negative first came on the X-Pro3 in 2019, so a recipe built on it needs a camera that has it.
How many recipes can a Fujifilm camera hold?: As many custom settings banks as it has; the X100VI has seven, C1 to C7. Exposure compensation is not part of a bank, so a recipe’s suggested compensation is set by hand.
Is a Portra 400 Fujifilm recipe the same as Portra 400?: No. It is a Fujifilm film simulation with settings chosen by eye to resemble the film’s pictures. Fujifilm says its own Classic Chrome “is not designed to reproduce an existing film”. A recipe can be close in feel, but nothing in it comes from the film’s published curves or dyes.
Can I use Fujifilm recipes on an Android phone?: Not as written: the numbers are settings of Fujifilm’s own processor, and mean nothing to a phone’s camera. What travels is the idea, a base look plus a few changes, written down so it can be shared. A camera app with its own recipes, like Clack on Android, works that way.

Sources

Fujifilm, X-Trans, Classic Chrome, Classic Negative and the other simulation names are Fujifilm’s; Portra, Kodachrome, Gold and Vision3 are Kodak’s; CineStill is CineStill’s. Clack is not affiliated with any of them.