BewareMyVelvia (Bold) — Design Analysis & Derivation

Creative original, inspired-by. Not a film emulation and not Tom Baumgaertel's recipe: an original design in the spirit of his bold Velvia work. Attribution and the tuning path are below. See validation-methodology.md and the creative README. Settings in the notes.

Attribution, stated plainly

Tom Baumgaertel (@bewaremyfuji) is known for bold, saturated Velvia work, frequently using in-camera multiple exposure. This recipe is an inspired-by original design, built from Fujifilm's published Velvia behaviour toward that aesthetic. It is not his published settings, and no claim is made that it reproduces his images.

Per the bank's two-tier IP rule (CLAUDE.md), that is why this sits in originals/ rather than reference-recipes/: nothing was copied. If you want it tuned closer to his actual look, drop his posts into references/, the honest path is to match reference imagery, not to guess at someone's settings.

The design brief

Graphic, high-impact frames: deep punchy colour, inky blacks, — mid-tone drama. Built for compositions that work as shapes and colour blocks rather than as delicate tonal studies, and specifically compatible with multiple exposure, where layered frames need enough separation between elements to stay legible.

Three official Velvia facts that should govern any Velvia recipe

Fujifilm's published design notes (fujifilm-official-design-notes.md) contain three statements that change how this base should be handled, and most Velvia recipes ignore at least one.

1. Velvia's saturation gain is uniform: which makes Color Chrome Effect risky

Fujifilm: Velvia "maintains colour balance so that no colour is emphasised more than another." The saturation lift is a flat gain across all hues.

Color Chrome Effect does the opposite. It adds density only where colour is already saturated. Stacking a strong CCE onto a base that has already lifted everything uniformly is the fastest route to a plastic-looking frame, because the already-boosted colours get boosted again while everything else stays put.

This recipe runs CCE Strong anyway, and that is a deliberate, flagged risk. The brief is "bold and graphic," and CCE Strong is how you get colour blocks with internal density rather than flat poster colour. But Fujifilm's own guidance on this base is CCE Weak or Off, and if frames start reading synthetic that is the first setting to pull back. Before Color, before Clarity. Named here so the trade is visible rather than accidental.

2. Velvia is hard at both ends of the curve

Fujifilm: "deep shadows… bold impression." The base is already high-contrast at top and bottom.

Consequence: — / Shadow —on this base is a very aggressive curve. — is not neutral here. It is already hard. And Shadow —stacks additional hardness onto an already-hard shadow end.

The practical instruction that follows, and it is the opposite of the usual advice: expose for the shadows, not the highlights. Anything that falls into the bottom of this curve is gone for good. That is why EC sits at −1/3 to 0 rather than lower. Enough to protect Velvia's easily-clipped highlights, not so much that the shadow end swallows the frame. (Logged in TONE-CURVE-AUDIT.md.)

A corollary worth internalising for any Velvia work: negative Highlight/Shadow values on this base buy you normal contrast, not flatness. If you want a moderate Velvia, −1/−1 is roughly where other bases sit at 0/0.

3. Velvia's sky is magenta-lifted by design: and the fix is not what you'd expect

Velvia's design concept is "Memorized Colour". How people remember a scene rather than how it measured. Fujifilm's own justification: "if the colour is truly a reflection of reality, then people would often find that 'the photo is missing something.'" Concretely, a bit of magenta is added to sky blues to make them "more memorable."

Two consequences:

• Skies on this recipe render richer than reality, and they should. Don't correct it, that is the simulation working as designed.
• If blues start reading purple-ish, pull Blue up / Red down in the WB shift. Do not reduce Color, that would flatten everything else in the frame to fix one hue. This is the single most useful Velvia troubleshooting fact in the bank.

A footnote with practical value: real Velvia was ISO 50/100 only. The simulation has no such limit, so unlike a faithful film emulation this recipe can be driven at any ISO without breaking its premise. Hence the 6400 ceiling.

The settings

• Velvia base: the most saturated, highest-contrast simulation. Non-negotiable for the brief.
• Color —on top of Velvia: modest by the numbers, enormous in effect. Velvia's baseline is already the bank's highest; +2 here is roughly where +4 sits on Classic Chrome.
• CCFXB Weak: deep blues with tonal body. Works with the magenta lift rather than against it; Strong would risk tipping into the purple failure mode described above.
• WB Daylight — / —: a light warm lean so the frame doesn't go clinical under all that saturation. Deliberately mild: a strong warm shift on Velvia scorches (see Golden Hour Glow, which rejected Velvia for exactly this reason).
• —: narrow, because latitude is not the brief. Punch is.
• Clarity —: the deliberate deviation from the Clarity—default, and here purely aesthetic: graphic punch and mid-tone drama. One of three recipes in the bank at +2 or above, and the only one where the justification is neither a datasheet claim nor a physical process.
• Sharpness —, Grain —/—: crisp and clean. Grain would work against the poster-like graphic quality; this is a bold look, not a gritty one, which is the distinction from Bleach Bypass Noir.

The multiple-exposure connection

Baumgaertel's signature technique is in-camera multiple exposure, and this recipe suits it for a structural reason worth understanding.

The X-T5 offers Additive and Average blend modes. In multiple exposure, tonal separation is what keeps layered frames legible, if both exposures are mid-grey mush, the composite is mush. A recipe with inky blacks and saturated colour blocks gives each layer distinct territory: the dark areas of one frame let the other show through cleanly, and strongly saturated regions stay identifiable when overlaid.

A soft, matte, low-contrast recipe like Matte Editorial would produce grey soup under the same treatment. So the aggressive curve here is more than a bid for impact. It is a functional requirement of the technique the look is built around.

Where it sits

The comparison with Bleach Bypass Noir is instructive: identical Shadow and Clarity, opposite saturation, opposite grain. They are the bank's two "hard" creative looks, and what separates them is entirely colour and texture, not tonality.

Validation status

Creative design, inspired-by. No reference imagery has been matched. The three Velvia facts above are Fujifilm's own published statements and are solid; the parameter set built on them is not validated.

Drop Baumgaertel's posts, or any bold-Velvia reference you want matched, into references/. This is the recipe in the folder most likely to move once real reference imagery exists, because the CCE Strong decision is knowingly against Fujifilm's own guidance and needs an image to arbitrate it.

Test priority:

1. A saturated scene with CCE Strong vs CCE Weak, same frame. This is the recipe's one flagged risk and the comparison settles it directly. If Strong reads plastic, Weak is the answer and Fujifilm was right.
2. A blue sky. Tests the magenta-lift behaviour and whether CCFXB Weak tips it purple. If it does, the fix is the WB shift (+Blue / −Red), not Color.
3. A high-contrast scene with important shadow detail. The "expose for the shadows" instruction is the recipe's most consequential handling note, and this frame proves whether it is necessary.
4. A multiple exposure, since that is the use case the look was designed around and the one place its aggressive curve is functionally rather than aesthetically justified.

Documented: 2026-07-25