Fujifilm Film Recipes for the X-M5: Two Custom Profiles I Created

If you've read my X-M5 review, you'll know the film simulations are the reason I picked up a Fujifilm in the first place. The promise of a photo with real character straight out of camera, no Lightroom session waiting at the other end, is what pulled me away from chasing specs. It's also what eventually led me to build X-Alchemy, a community library of custom film recipes.

A film recipe is just a saved set of in-camera settings, a film simulation paired with white balance, tone, colour and grain choices, that gives your JPEGs a consistent look the moment you press the shutter. I've created a fair few of my own over the years, and two of them come back more than any others. I created both of these recipes on my X-M5, and they still shape how I read a scene before I press the shutter. Here's what each one does and the exact settings, so you can load them into your own camera.

VersaTone Daily

This is the recipe I created for everyday shooting, the one that lives in my first custom slot and handles most of what I point the camera at. It's warm without being orange, punchy without being loud, and forgiving enough to carry across changing light. I created it to stay out of the way.

The part I like most is that it isn't tied to a single film simulation. Classic Chrome gives it a clean, slightly documentary look. Astia softens things for people. Classic Negative and Pro Neg Standard are where I land most often, especially for skin tones. The rest of the settings hold the character together whichever base I pick.

• Film simulation: Classic Chrome (Classic Negative and Pro Neg Standard are my usual picks)
• Dynamic range: DR200, D-Range Priority off
• White balance: 5400K, +2 red and -1 blue
• Highlight -1, Shadow 0
• Colour +3
• Colour Chrome Effect strong, Colour Chrome FX Blue weak
• Sharpness -1, High ISO NR -2, Clarity 0
• Grain weak, small

The warmth comes from that 5400K white balance with a small push towards red, and the colour sits at +3 with a strong Colour Chrome effect so the deeper tones don't flatten out. Sharpness drops a notch so it reads less digital. Sample shots and the full breakdown live on its X-Alchemy page.

Crosswalk Monochrome

When the light turns contrasty and I want to stop second-guessing colour, I switch to this. It's a high-contrast black and white I created using Acros and a green filter, made for the street, where the light shifts fast and the moment won't wait.

The character is all in the tone curve. Both highlights and shadows are pushed to +4, which gives the frame real structure and bite straight out of camera. Sharpness and noise reduction come down to soften the digital edge, and the grain stays light so it adds texture without becoming the subject.

• Film simulation: Acros and Green Filter
• Dynamic range: Auto
• White balance: Auto
• Highlight +4, Shadow +4
• Colour Chrome Effect weak, Colour Chrome FX Blue weak
• Sharpness -2, High ISO NR -2, Clarity 0
• Grain weak, small
• Long-exposure NR on

Acros is the best black and white Fujifilm has ever made, and the green filter deepens skin and foliage just enough. The full recipe and samples are on its X-Alchemy page.

How I Use Them

Both recipes live in the X-M5's custom settings slots, so moving between a warm everyday colour look and a hard black and white is a couple of clicks rather than a menu dive. I shoot RAW and JPEG together, which gives me a finished file to share straightaway while the RAW stays in my pocket for the rare frame that needs more work. Most of the time it never does, and that's the whole point.

What I like about working this way is that it pushes the decisions back to where they belong, in front of the scene rather than in front of a screen. Choosing the recipe is part of reading the light.

Make Your Own

These two are my own, dialled in over a lot of walks with the X-M5. The fun of recipes is that they're personal, and the only way to find yours is to keep tweaking. If you want somewhere to start, or somewhere to share what you land on, that's exactly why I built X-Alchemy. Browse a few, copy the settings into a custom slot, and go shoot.