Color, Color Chrome Effect & FX Blue — the saturation/richness controls

These control how intense and how rich colours render. They sit on top of the film-sim base and the WB cast.

Color (manual p.131)

• Range −4 to +4. "Adjust color density", i.e. global saturation.
• Positive = more saturated; negative = more muted/pastel.
• It scales saturation uniformly, so it can't shift hues, that's the job of WB shift and the Chrome effects.

Reading it in a grade: a recipe with Color —/—wants vivid, punchy colour; —/—is natural; negative values (rare in these recipes) push toward desaturated/pastel.

Color Chrome Effect (CCE) (manual p.125)

• Options: STRONG / WEAK / OFF.
• Manual: "Increase the range of tones available for rendering colors that tend to be highly saturated, such as reds, yellows, and greens."
• What it actually does: adds tonal separation and depth to already-saturated warm/green colours that would otherwise clip into a flat block. Think of it as recovering gradation in a saturated flower, autumn leaf, or a red car, the colour looks richer and more three-dimensional rather than just brighter.
• STRONG = maximum richness/depth in those hues; OFF = flatter, more "digital" saturated colour.

Because it deepens reds/yellows/greens, CCE STRONG is common in recipes emulating rich film stocks (it stops saturated foliage and skies from looking plasticky).

Color Chrome FX Blue (CCFXB) (manual p.125)

• Options: STRONG / WEAK / OFF.
• Manual: "Increase the range of tones available for rendering blues."
• The blue-channel counterpart to CCE: it deepens and adds gradation to blues (skies, water), making them richer and darker rather than washed out.
• STRONG = deepest, most dramatic blues; — = lighter, flatter blues.

The X-Trans V blue caveat (critical for recipes)

X-Trans V sensors already render blue more deeply than X-Trans IV on several film sims (Classic Chrome, Classic Neg, Eterna, Eterna Bleach Bypass). So when an X-Trans IV recipe is ported to the X-T5, the CCFXB step is reduced by one notch to compensate:

This one-notch reduction is the most common IV→V conversion adjustment and appears throughout the recipes. See x-trans-v-and-conversion.md.

Monochromatic Color (manual p.124)

Only active on Acros and Monochrome bases. Two axes: - WARM ↔ COOL: adds a red/warm or blue/cool tone to the greys. - G (Green) ↔ M (Magenta): the tint's secondary direction.

Used to tone a black-and-white image (e.g. a subtle cool or warm cast) without turning it into full sepia. Most classic B&W recipes leave this at 0/0 (neutral) but it's available for split-toned looks.

Putting colour together

The colour identity of a grade is built in layers: 1. Film-sim base sets the fundamental hue rendering and how much it shifts colours. 2. WB + shift sets the overall cast (warm/cool, green/magenta). 3. Color (±) sets overall intensity. 4. CCE / CCFXB add richness/depth to warm colours and blues respectively.

Where Color Chrome Effect came from: and what it actually does (added 2026-07-20)

Fujifilm's own account (X Stories, GFX Technologies #6):

• It is modelled on FORTIA: Fujifilm's ultra-saturated reversal slide film. Reproducing its "higher contrast and more vivid colour" while maintaining tonality.
• The premise: "One of the characteristics of reversal colour film is that tonality remains even in high contrast range."
• The mechanism is gradation detection, not saturation: "By analysing the light and information received on the sensor surface, one can detect slight gradation. Color Chrome Effect uses this to create tonality while maintaining high contrast."

Why this matters practically: CCE does not make colours more saturated. It recovers and preserves gradation inside colours that are already saturated enough to be at risk of flattening into a solid patch. That is why:

• CCE Strong enriches wood, brass, terracotta, deep foliage, red fabric and skin in warm light. Areas where saturation is high and tonal separation is fragile.
• CCE does little on a low-saturation frame: a grey, overcast, muted scene has nothing for it to work on. Setting it Strong there costs you nothing but buys nothing either.
• Stacking CCE on Velvia goes plastic. Velvia applies a uniform gain across hues; CCE then runs a tonality-recovery pass over colour that has already been pushed past the point where gradation survives. On a Velvia base, prefer Weak/Off.

Historical note on speed: on the X-Processor Pro generation, CCE took "about 1.0 sec." to process and blocked continuous shooting and AF-C. The X-T5's X-Processor 5 carries no such documented restriction. Treat that figure as context for why the control was once used sparingly, not as current behaviour.

The capstone quote for base selection: "no matter what you do in Velvia mode, it will never turn into Fortia." Fujifilm states outright that no combination of settings converts one simulation into another. Choose the base first. Settings tune a look, they do not relocate it. See the blue/sky axis and per-sim curve table.

Last updated: 2026-07-21