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Useful Photography Tip

Useful Photography Tip #197: The Fujifilm Pastel Look in 4 Steps

Chris Gampat
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11/13/2019
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Fujifilm Pro 400H medium format review image samples 2

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Getting that beautiful Pastel look is great, but would you believe us if we told you there is an easier way to do it than to work with presets? In fact, it doesn’t require a lot of work. Best of all, it can be done in-camera. For the benefit of everyone, we’re going to quickly talk about getting this look in-camera with Fujifilm cameras and with any other camera out there as well. However, due to the way that their colors work, Fujifilm is typically the best at this.

In-Camera

Even this image is too well exposed. It’s not embracing the pastel look.

If you’re using a Fujifilm camera, then make sure you’re using the Pro Negative High Contrast Mode. With your subject being backlit, simply overexpose from one to two and a half stops. For even better results, set your white balance to a warmer tone or 5300K. Ensure that the shadows aren’t very deep.

In Post-Production

If you’re working in Capture One, where this process is far better than other alternatives, start off with a backlit subject. To make this most effective, start with a normalized/proper exposure. The scene needs to be high contrast, so raise the exposure by one to two and a half stops, and add in contrast and saturation. Then white balance the photo to be warmer. That’s it. You’ll get that pastel look very easily. No need to work on color channels or anything else. This look is very popular with PRO400H film users. When those films were overexposed, the images became pastel.

Now, here are the big differences! With film, the highlight retention is far better. Digital can retain highlights, but nowhere as well as color film can. With digital, it looks gray after a while when you try to recover the images. With film, it’s just really muted. But for what it’s worth, those muted details are probably not important.

 

camera capture one contrast fujifilm overexposure pastel post-production pro400h saturation
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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