Classic Negative film recipe for pales tones for city, landscape and nature
Melatonin
Here’s another wonderful guest recipe, designed by our contributor Grant Teng. You can see a number of his recipes in our user recipes section. I really love his style, capturing the tones and mood of the city with muted tones and balanced contrast.
For this recipe, Grant has used Classic Negative as the base simulation, a reduced saturation and a characterful combination of sharpening and negative clarity.
Grant says, “It’s a Classic Neg recipe for a dreamy urban look. Love it for neutral tones, but can produce some interesting muted-color results too. This probably requires a diffusion filter of some sort, but -5 clarity might work too (or you could combine both). It also turns into a nice clean street look once you pull out the filter.”
Grant shoots in Manila, capturing scenes from this busy city. On this occasion, I’ve added some of my own shots in the bottom section of the page, so you can see how the recipe looks out of the city too.
Grant’s images were taken with an XT4, 23F2, and a 1/4 K&F diffusion filter.
Melatonin Film Recipe Settings
| Film Simulation | Classic Negative |
| Grain Effect | Off |
| Col. Chr. Effect | Weak |
| Col. Chr. Blue | Weak |
| White Balance | Auto (Ambience Priority), +3 Red, +2 Blue |
| Dynamic Range | DR400 |
| Highlights | 1 |
| Shadows | 1 |
| Colour | ‑3 |
| Sharpness | 3 |
| ISO N.R. | ‑4 |
| Clarity | ‑5 |
| EV Comp. | +1/3 |
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Melatonin Film Recipe: Sample Photos
Using the Melatonin Film Recipe
Each film simulation recipe has its own character and style. These features mean recipes are more suited to certain situations, or when seeking a particular look. Here are the categories that Melatonin has been tagged with.
