California Summer vs The Usual
The same photograph, developed by the camera in both recipes. Drag the divider.
Every image is rendered by the camera itself and verified from its metadata. How this works
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California SummerThe Usual
Same photo, two recipes. Drag the divider, or focus it and use ← →.
Portrait, photographed by Cody Blue
The gallery is just getting started.
7 reference scenes so far, each developed in-camera across the full recipe catalog, and we're still testing the pipeline. Contribute a photograph and every comparison ever made with it carries your name and your link, like the credit above.
The full recipe
13 settings differ, highlighted below.
| Setting | California Summer | The Usual |
|---|---|---|
| Film Simulation | Nostalgic Neg | Classic Chrome |
| Dynamic Range | 400 | 100 |
| Grain | Weak | Off |
| Grain Size | Small | Off |
| Color Chrome | Strong | Off |
| Color Chrome Blue | Weak | Off |
| White Balance | Kelvin | Auto |
| WB Shift | R-1 B-6 | R0 B0 |
| Highlights | -2 | -2 |
| Shadows | -1 | -2 |
| Color | +4 | 0 |
| Sharpness | -2 | 0 |
| Noise Reduction | -4 | 0 |
| Clarity | -4 | 0 |
What separates these two recipes
California Summer is built on Nostalgic Neg and The Usual on Classic Chrome: two different film simulations as the starting point. They differ in 13 settings: Film Simulation (Nostalgic Neg vs Classic Chrome), Dynamic Range (400 vs 100), Grain (Weak vs Off), Grain Size (Small vs Off), Color Chrome (Strong vs Off), Color Chrome Blue (Weak vs Off), and more.
The full settings sheet for both recipes is under the viewer above, differences highlighted. Every render is the photographer's single RAW file developed by a Fujifilm camera's own processor and verified against the camera's metadata. The pictures are the settings, nothing else.
California Summer is by Ritchie Roesch (Fuji X Weekly) (source). The Usual is by Andre Pel (source).
Photos shot with California Summer →·Photos shot with The Usual →
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How this works
A photographer submits a RAW file. We connect a real Fujifilm camera over USB and have its processor develop that one file in every recipe in the catalog, using the same in-camera engine that develops your photos when you shoot. Each render's settings are verified from the camera's own metadata before it's published.
Is this really the camera, or a software simulation?
Really the camera. Every image here is a JPEG developed by a Fujifilm camera's own processor. We send the photographer's RAW file to the camera over USB with a recipe's settings, and the camera develops it exactly as if it had been shot that way. No Lightroom, no presets, no emulation.
Is it the same photo in every recipe?
Yes. Each scene is one single RAW file, developed once per recipe. Everything that changes between two renders is the recipe: same light, same moment, same exposure.
How do you know a render actually matches the recipe?
Every developed JPEG carries the camera's own record of the settings used, written into its metadata. We read that back and verify it against the recipe before a render enters the gallery.
Why is a recipe missing on some scenes?
Physics, mostly. DR400 recipes need the shot to be taken at ISO 500 or higher, and DR200 at ISO 320 or higher; below that the camera refuses. A few recipes also use settings the USB conversion can't reproduce (like toned black-and-whites); those wait rather than render wrong.
This tool is part of Focal Click.
The place where Fujifilm recipes are proven: compared on the same scenes, read from real files, and shot by the photographers who bring them.
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