Summer Sauce Contrast
Summer Sauce, with a floor.
Colour
- White BalanceAuto, +3 Red, −6 Blue
- Color+4
- Color Chrome EffectStrong
- Color Chrome FX BlueOff
Tone
- Dynamic RangeDR400
- Highlight−2
- Shadow0
Texture
- Grain EffectWeak, Large
- Clarity−4
- Sharpness−1
- High ISO NR−4
Exposure
- ISOAuto
- Exposure Comp.0 to +2/3
Why this recipe
Classic Chrome pairs medium high contrast with low saturation. That's why it reads as documentary rather than as a filter: earthy palette, deep shadows with detail, and a tolerance for bad weather most simulations don't have.
Summer Sauce takes most of that contrast out for hard summer sun. On a grey day, that same flat curve on flat light turns to mud.
Summer Sauce Contrast changes exactly one value. Shadow sits at 0 instead of −2, so the shadows keep the depth Classic Chrome gives them. Everything else stays: the warm shift, the flat highlights, the soft surface.
In one line: the same look with something to stand on.
It's for light that is flat to begin with. Overcast, shade, evening, anything where the scene brings no contrast of its own.
Every photo here is a JPEG straight out of my Fujifilm X-H2S. No editing, no Lightroom, no cropping. Shot in Scotland, Norway, Lofoten and the Alps.
Save it to one of the custom slots (C1 to C7). It takes about a minute to type in, and from then on the camera hands you a finished JPEG.
Shoot it in
Overcast, shade and evening. Anything where the scene brings no contrast of its own.
Skip it in
Hard midday sun with deep shadows, where the dark end closes up. That's what the original Summer Sauce is for.
Straight out of camera
No edits. Just the JPEG.
What each setting does
Built from the bottom up.
A recipe is easier to trust when you know why every value is there.
Film Simulation
Classic Chrome pairs medium high contrast with low saturation. Nothing else in the menu does that.
Earthy, muted colours, shadows that keep their detail, and a tolerance for bad weather. Everything in this recipe is built on top of it.
White Balance shift
Auto, +3 Red, −6 Blue, the same shift as Summer Sauce.
It lays warmth over the muted palette, so a grey day still has a little honey in it.
Shadow, Highlight, Dynamic Range
Shadow 0 instead of −2. That's the whole difference to Summer Sauce: the shadows keep the depth Classic Chrome gives them, so the frame has a floor.
Highlight −2 and DR400 still hold the bright end flat. DR400 needs four times the base ISO, which means ISO 640 or higher on the X-H2S.
Color
Color +4 lifts the muted palette. On flat light, that's what keeps greens and reds from going grey.
Color Chrome Effect
Strong. Adds depth to the strongest colours, so a green hillside or a red roof keeps its gradation instead of turning flat.
Clarity, Sharpness, Grain, Noise
Clarity −4 and High ISO NR −4 keep the surface soft, Sharpness −1 takes the digital edge off, and Grain Weak, Large adds a fine film texture. The contrast stays intact at the bottom.
The trade off: with Clarity on, the camera takes a moment longer to save each shot.
Quick start
- Put it on a custom slot (C1 to C7) next to Summer Sauce and leave ISO on Auto, so DR400 always works.
- Start at 0 exposure comp, go up to +2/3 on dark, grey days.
- Use it when the light is flat. Switch to Summer Sauce when the sun comes out.
Works on
- All X-Trans V bodies
- X-Pro3
- X-T4
- X100V
- X-S10
- X-E4
- X-T30 II
X-T3 and X-T30 miss Clarity and grain size, so treat it as a direction there.
Summer Sauce Contrast
Thanks for reading.
@danieljschwarzSave it · Tag me · Share it with a Fuji friend
If you try Summer Sauce Contrast, I'd love to see what it does with your grey days. Tag me on Instagram at @danieljschwarz, that's also where I post new recipes first.
Summer Sauce Contrast is recipe 11 in My Fuji Cookbook. The full book with twelve recipes is in my shop.
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