Nostalgic monochrome film simulation recipe for a washed out soft look
I think black and white photography is hard. There’s an art to it, that I just can’t quite master. I think it comes from a different way of seeing things, and having trained my eye to hunt down colour shots, I don’t feel in tune with mono.
So, when it comes to making mono film recipes, I tend to look at ways to use a mono setting with the style of photography I am comfortable with. These are mono recipes for the rest of us!
In Mono 42, the look is a soft and faded one, with compressed tone and a gentle retro colour wash. It has a nostalgic feel, and with the lifted shadows, it feels like printed images from books and magazines, rather than the strong contrast B&W you’d find in a gallery.
Mono 42 Film Recipe
- Simulation: Acros Yellow Filter
- Grain Effect: Weak, Small
- Colour Chrome Effect: Weak
- Colour Chrome Blue: Weak
- White Balance: Auto
- WB Shift: 0 Red, 0 Blue
- Dynamic Range: DR400
- Highlights: -1.0
- Shadows: -1.0
- Mono Shift: WC +4, MG +2
- Sharpness: -2
- ISO Noise Reduction: -4
- Clarity: -4
- EV compensation: +1/3 or +2/3
More Mono for Colour Photographers
Here are a a few other monotone recipes that I’ve made that help colour photography natives like me.