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For the past seven years, I’ve always added a little extra to my Fujifilm recipes to give more oomph to the images straight out of the camera. Learn more about the finishing touches I apply right here!
It’s been over eight years since I fell in love with my Fujifilm X-T2 and the entire Fujifilm ecosystem. In 2018, I experimented while on a rooftop bar in Bali with Fujifilm recipes and JPEG images in hopes of reducing editing times and bringing consistency to my images. Seven years later, I’m a JPEG photographer through and through: all my images are JPEGs created using Fujifilm’s recipe system.
Now I’m writing this post to clear things up; I add finishing touches to my images before they hit this blog or social media (although I often post directly off-camera to my Instagram stories for speed). I’ve been doing this since 2018 and you can re-read my older article sharing my Fujifilm JPEG recipes, which shows that I’ve always added something a little extra to my images; Think of it as a sprinkle of something on top to give everything a little more life.
So, since I provided that disclaimer in every post I wrote about Fujifilm recipes, why am I here writing this? Well, I recently received a few comments asking if I have done any editing when sharing images and even one stating that what I do is not “pure” and is not what “Fujifilm” is about.
That being said, let’s dive into it, shall we?
FUJIFILM RECIPES: THE FINAL TOUCHES
I think it got under my skin a bit and I try not to let anything that is said online affect me as it is said that what I produce is not what Fujifilm is. I honestly thought who the hell is trying to control or tell how Fujifilm cameras should be used. To me, Fujifilm is just another camera brand that some love and others don’t. I’m still in the field of love and cameras just make me want to create, go out and photograph, capture fleeting moments with my family. That doesn’t mean all images should be “straight out of the camera”; it’s almost impossible to get it 100% right in camera. Do you want that straight horizon? Do you want to trim slightly? Apparently no, you can’t do that. Well, we can all do what we want and what makes us happy with what we create.
So here I want to show you exactly what edits I make to the images and show you what you can add to the Fujifilm recipes.
IN THE CAMERA
Since upgrading to the Fujifilm I also use it on a daily basis for moments at home, outings with the family and for eating and drinking. If you’re asking which recipe defines jamiechancetravels, it’s this one.
I also love using Acros Punch, Mono Gold and Nostalgic Negative, all of which you can find me. I now shoot in RAW + JPEG so I can capture my unique colors in Summer Negative and then convert the RAW to black and white after I have developed a preset to match, as closely as possible, the Acros Punch recipe.
So when I’m out and about, what do I do on camera to create the images you see? First of all, I want to say that most of what you see, at least 95%, is created in camera. The recipe does the hard work of removing shadows and adding beautiful colors, but I find that I’m always adjusting the exposure compensation before pressing the shutter. Then it’s all about composition (perhaps something for an entire blog post). This is not something that can be marked. It’s your eye, it’s what you see and how you frame it that turns a good photo into something spectacular. When I’m wandering around a new city, I know, for example, what will and won’t work for me, and my brain and photography style are such that I choose the same details/the same types of shots no matter where I am.
So at this point, for me, the image is pretty much finished. Some would choose to keep it that way, without any further editing. Sometimes I can’t crop well, meaning I may have something very distracting and I just need to crop or the horizon doesn’t look quite straight. I don’t do any other editing, dodging/recording, etc., it’s too complicated for me haha!
THE IMPORT PRESET
I’ve talked about my entire photography workflow before, so feel free to check that out too, but basically I still use Lightroom (at its original price of £9.98 per month) to manage my huge photo collection and the slight edits I apply. When importing my new images, I automatically apply a standard preset that adds:
+10 Contrast, +15 Clarity, a slight S-curve and -5 Vignette
From there I will go through the images picking out the ones that don’t work or I made a mistake and make final adjustments to the exposure (usually +1.00 but it depends entirely on the image) and crop if necessary.
That’s all.
Does that mean my images are not Fujifilm’s target? Not at all, Fujifilm works for me and I love the images I create. Now let’s put all that together and show the subtle differences between the images taken straight from the camera and those with my finishing touches applied.
IMAGE COMPARISON
JAPAN
MALTA
SICILY
COPENHAGEN
BENIDORM
A FEW MORE
There you have it, I’d love to know your opinion. I quite enjoyed writing this post and highlighting that, firstly, edits are completely normal in photography and secondly, even such subtle additions can enhance a photo. The most important thing about all this is that your photography is yours and you can do whatever you want; You can’t put a label on a brand and say that if you shoot with Fujifilm you will never be able to do any editing. I have no idea if this will be controversial or not, but I am very happy with the way I use JPEG images and even with slight modifications, it saves me a lot of time in the long run. Time I don’t have at all and would rather spend with my family!
If you have any ideas or would like to chat about photography in general or Fujifilm recipes, feel free to send me a comment below or email me and I’ll get back to you.
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