Recreate the super-saturated Fuji Velvia look in Photoshop

F uji Velvia film was only introduced in 1990, but with its super-saturated colours, fine-grain and sharpness it quickly changed the look of landscape and nature photography.

There were several films that could match some of these characteristics, but it soon became the film of choice for many landscape and nature photographers who wanted to give their shots maximum impact.

Here, we’ll show you how to recreate the look of this iconic film to improve a digital landscape shot.

Step 1: Raw settings
Find your original image and open it in Adobe Camera Raw.

Set White Balance to Daylight. To mimic the basic look of Velvia, set Clarity to +25 and Saturation to +20. Next, click on the Camera Calibration tab and select Camera Landscape from the drop-down menu before hitting Open Image.

Step 2: Adjust hue and saturation
In the main Photoshop Elements window, open a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and in the Master channel set the Saturation to +15 and the Hue to +2. Next, choose Yellows and set Hue to +3, Saturation to +4 and Lightness to -8. Choose Blues and set Hue to +12 and Saturation to -4.

Step 3: Reduce noise
To smooth out any noise in the image you now need to duplicate the Background layer by pressing Ctrl+J, and then go to Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise. In this window, set Strength to 4 to smooth out the tones, Preserve Details to 60% and Reduce Colour Noise to 35%.

Step 4: Sharpen up
To mimic the fine detail and clarity of Velvia, duplicate the layer you’ve just created (Ctrl+J)and then change Blending Mode to Overlay by clicking on the word Normal at the top of the Layers palette. Go to Filter>Other>High Pass and change Radius to 1.5 to boost the sharpness of the image. Click OK.

In camera
The Landscape Picture Control or Style presets available on many DSLRs will also create a similar look to Fuji Velvia, so check your manual. Or, simply boost the saturation and sharpening settings on your camera.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2012 at 7:00 am and is filed under Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.