Fujicolor Pro 400H

Original (datasheet + video-comparison validated). See the notes and the Knowledge base.

The film

Fujifilm's flagship professional colour negative (discontinued 2021 in 35mm, 2022 in 120), for over a decade the default choice for wedding and portrait photographers wanting a cool, soft, "airy" look. The datasheet (archived: _reference-sources/datasheets/fujifilm/fujicolor-pro—h.pdf) specifies:

• Diffuse RMS granularity value: 4: the finest grain of any film in this bank (finer than Acros' RMS 7, finer than Portra's PGI 37, finer than Ektar's PGI <25).
• "Superb skin tones with smoothly continuous gradation from highlights to shadows."
• "Excellent three-dimensional appearance": clearer highlight colours, "appropriately controlled color saturation in the shadows", i.e. shadows are deliberately less saturated than highlights, which is what reads as the film's signature cool/blue-green shadow cast.
• Faithful reproduction of neutral grays with sharply improved fidelity across a wide exposure range, under to over.

Corroborating evidence: a direct film-vs-simulation study

Unlike most recipes in this bank, Pro 400H has an existing side-by-side video comparison of real Pro 400H scans against the PRO Neg. Hi in-camera simulation on an X-Pro3. Its findings, used directly in this derivation: - PRO Neg. Hi is the closest built-in match (contrast level, cool-neutral skin direction, highlight rolloff shape) but runs warmer and more saturated in greens/shadows than the real film. - The real film's cyan-green shadow cast comes from its emulsion layer balance. Something the simulation's LUT doesn't reproduce on its own, so it has to be added back via Color Chrome FX Blue and a cool WB shift. - Pro Neg. Hi was modelled on Fuji's NPS/NS 160 studio portrait film, not on Pro 400H directly. Explaining the gap.

The grade in one line

Cool, soft, extraordinarily fine-grained pro-portrait negative. Clean highlights, gently blue-green shadows, never punchy, "airy" wedding-photography colour.

How the settings embody it

PRO Neg. Hi supplies the reduced-contrast, cool-neutral skin foundation. CCFXB Weak (rather than Off) is the key correction the video comparison identified. It restores the shadow cyan-green depth the base sim lacks. The cool WB shift (—/—) pushes the whole image toward the real film's blue-green lean. — + Highlight —model the exceptionally long highlight shoulder. Shadow —keeps blacks lifted and soft. — + CCE — keep saturation "appropriately controlled," never vivid. RMS-4 grain means —/—, the finest grain setting used anywhere in this bank.

vs the rest of the bank

• Kodak Portra 400: both are "invisible grain, wide latitude, skin-first" pro negatives, but Portra 400 is warm (Classic Chrome, —/—) where Pro 400H is cool (PRO Neg. Hi, —/—), a useful warm/cool pairing for portrait work, the same relationship as Gold↔Superia for consumer negatives.
• Ektar 100: Ektar is vivid/punchy/landscape-first; Pro 400H is muted/soft/portrait-first. Opposite poles of Kodak-vs-Fuji pro colour negative philosophy (though Pro 400H is a Fuji stock, its market position mirrors Kodak's Portra rather than Ektar).

Validation status

Datasheet-validated (RMS 4, shadow-saturation control, wide latitude, archived PDF) + validated against a direct film-vs-simulation video study (stronger evidence than characteristic-only reviews, since it isolates exactly where the base sim needs correcting). Scan-validation (independent real scans beyond the video) pending. Drop into references/.