The nostalgic charm of analog photography has grown even more popular over the last few years; though not surprising. Its effervescent tones, manual touch, and relatively simple approach spark a fresh kind of inspiration in artists around the world. While the tangible process of film is hard to replicate, the visual outcome is much easier to mimic. Softwares like Lightroom or VSCO makes it fun and super simple to edit photos with similar qualities to film. While this guide is simple in essence and relatively basic in terms of technicalities, the tips below are a beginner’s guide to understanding the steps needed to achieve a similar color profile to classic analoug 35mm and 120 film looks.
6 EASY Tricks To Edit Your Photos To Look Like Film
Simple tips and tricks to make your digital images look like analog, whether with a natural tone or a funky 70s aesthetic.
starts1. Recognizing The Various Film Stocks
To plot your specific edit, you should see which film stock(s) you’d like to mimic. I’ve combined some of the more popular film stocks below.
- Kodak Professional Portra 160 - The Versatile Light Range
- Kodak Professional Portra 400 - The One With Perfect Skin Tones
- Kodak Professional Portra 800 - The Low Light Compatible
- Kodak Professional Tri-X 400 - The Black and White Details
- Kodak Professional Ektar 100 - The Vibrant and Colorful
- Kodak Gold 200 - The Golden Warmth
- Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100 - The Experimental
- CineStill 50D - The Cinematic Tones and Dark Features
- CineStill 800 T - The Grain for Nighttime Street Action
- Fujifilm Superia X-TRA400 - The Purple-Tinted Majesty
- Ilford Delta 400 - The Finest of Detail for Panchromatic Images
- Ilford HP5 Plus - The Stark Contrast and Bright Highlighter
If you’re hungry for more, I wrote an example article on the best Kodak 35mm and 120 film stocks that features more information about each roll and additional visual examples from other photographers. There’s also a guide for FujiFilm and CineStill if you want to take a peek. I highly recommend reading these pieces if you want an in-depth analysis of the various stylizations per stock.
Ask yourself — Which colors best suit your subject? What stock might look best for your photo’s lighting condition? Do you want a funky hue or a desire for more natural skin tones?
Mimicking Kodak Portra Series
Start by making sure your skin tones are smooth and even, as Portra is well known for its flattering, true-to-life skin tones. Soften the skin texture slightly in your editing software and fine-tune the hues in the red and orange channels to enhance natural skin tones, paying attention to making sure the skin's lightest and darkest parts aren't too saturated or washed out.
For sharpening, maintain subtlety; Portra typically offers a softer appearance, so avoid excessive sharpening, which can detract from the film-like quality. Instead, aim for just enough to bring out details without upping the harshness (don't mark up that clarity; it'll look tacky!).
Regarding color adjustments, overcast your images with warmth by slightly increasing the temperature without making the image too "green." If it looks wonky, mediate the toggle back to the middle. Editing is constantly playing around with the toggles to meet your preference.
2. Clarity, Sharpness, and Grain
When editing digital images, the goal is to replicate the unique quirks and textures of vintage cameras. Unlike the clinical sharpness typical in modern digital camera bodies, traditional film often displays a softer, dreamier focus. To get this nostalgic look, gently reduce the clarity in your editing software. Don't make it obvious; just enough to lose that stark "edge", blending that background borer with your subject.
Another hallmark of film photography is its textured grain. Inside software like Adobe Lightroom, grain sliders allow you to introduce and control the amount of grain, enhancing the image with a tactile, organic feel. Slight texture adds visual interest and a touch of nostalgia to your digital images, making them feel more alive and otherworldly.
But seriously — too much clarity can make a digital image appear overly crisp and unnatural, detracting from a more natural film-like aesthetic. Aim for a balance where the image retains good definition without the harshness of digital sharpness. Experiment with slight reductions and observe how the changes affect various elements like backgrounds and facial details.
Using layer masks or adjustment brushes in your editing software, you can pinpoint areas that benefit from a bit of softening while keeping other areas relatively sharp to maintain depth and detail. For instance, you might choose to soften the background slightly more than the subject to create a subtle depth-of-field effect; this works especially well with images shot from tele lenses.
3. Play With Tonal Curves
Film photography is known for its unmistakable aesthetic, particularly how it renders shadows and highlights. Unlike the often crisp and vibrant shadows and highlights of digital photos, film images typically feature muted shadows and subdued highlights that form a smoother, velvet-like blend.
Start by manipulating the 'tone curves' in your software. Playing with the curve ever so slightly will add a ton more depth to the image than you think; this is where the editing becomes fun. There's no right or wrong way to do this; you just have to read the image and take note of where the contrast looks too distracting. Soften, always soften!
Similarly, you can tame the highlights by lowering the intensity of the "whites," which offer a more drastic pull from brightness than "highlights."
Tweaking individual color channels in the tone curve section can help emulate specific film stocks known for their unique color renditions, like Kodak Ektachrome's blues or Fuji Velvia's greens. For instance, I prefer my blues to run more turquoise-like and my reds more magenta-toned. Slide those curves up or down along the curve to see where it affects the image most.
Another effective technique is to introduce a subtle vignette to your images. This can be done by darkening the photo's edges, drawing attention to the subject at the center, and mimicking the light falloff commonly seen in vintage camera lenses. While I do typically add a vignette to my picture, this does look much more dynamic for up-close tele images or portraits where you want the viewer to focus on a concentrated center of the composition.
4. Warm It Up
Vintage cameras cast a warm, golden undertone on their photographs, showering them with that classic, quintessential charm of the analog era. It's by far my favorite quality of film photography, and it's why I continuously pick up my 35mm or medium format over my Fujifilm GFX or Canon DSLR.
The HSL sliders are among hte most effective ways to add this level of warmth. Start by adjusting the hue settings to shift colors towards warmer tones, such as yellow and orange. Next, reduce the luminance of these colors to prevent them from becoming overpoweringly bright, which helps maintain a softer feel. Then, up their saturation to deepen the richness of the warm tones, making the image more vibrant yet still naturally pleasing to the eye. Again — play, play, play.
A strategic warming of tones, especially with skin, makes them appear healthier and more luminous, which is especially flattering in portraits or lifestyle shots. This manipulation adds an inviting, cozy feel to the picture and lends them a hyper-realistic quality reminiscent of the more higher-quality film stocks, like Kodak Portra 400 or Portra 800.
5. Three Primary Colors
Mastering the primary colors — Red, Green, and Blue (RGB)— in photo editing is crucial for effectively recreating your favorite film stocks' distinct color balances and tonal subtleties.
Different film stocks have unique color signatures; some may have cooler tones with bluish hues, while others offer warmer reds and oranges. By fine-tuning each RGB channel, the edit will offer more control and nuance than broader adjustments like saturation or vibrance, which affect the entire image uniformly.
Film stocks vary in contrast, too — some have deep, stark contrasts with dense blacks and bright highlights, while others appear more subdued with lifted blacks and muted highlights. Personally, I like the richness of the Portra Series, whereas some monochrome film stocks have more crushed shadows. Softening the black levels in the blue channel introduces a more ethereal quality to the dark spots on a photo and is a hugely popular edit technique that easily mimics that classic film-like vibe.
You can read more about color theory and why particular combinations of color palettes reflect specific emotional responses here.
6. Grain
Film photography's unique character often comes from the presence of grain, which varies significantly across different film types and ISO settings. This grain results from the physical characteristics of the film itself, where larger particles in higher ISO films create a more pronounced texture. This texture can add a perceived depth and sharpness to photographs, giving them a distinct aesthetic that many enthusiasts cherish.
For digital photographers aiming to replicate this filmic grain, the key lies in subtlety and context. Digital grain can feel inauthentic if overdone or applied uniformly across various types of images; only use this sparingly.
When added judiciously, especially to darker or moodier shots where the texture naturally blends with the shadows, digital grain can enhance the image's atmospheric quality without completely overwhelming it.
7. Try Presets!
Our online library of digital presets is a perfect starting point for those who might feel intimidated to get crafty on their own. We have a range of presets handcrafted by creators who also love analog photography that you can easily plug and play in either Photoshop or Lightroom. You can achieve a look in seconds with minimal adjustments, and it also ensures you have a uniform style across a large body of work (also helpful for pros needing a consistent-looking portfolio or Instagram feed).
Fujifilm enthusiasts already know this one, but I deeply encourage trying out Fujifilm Simulations. While you can't use these simulations on RAW files, you can custom-set toggles within the camera to mimic popular Fujifilm film stocks straight onto your JPEG images. Ritchie from FujiXWeekly is a fantastic resource for those looking to craft their own digital JPEG recipes as well.
Check out 10 of our favorite Fujifilm simulation recipes!
