The Portra 400 look in Lightroom

“Hey Paul, I really like that film look, how can I get the same vibes”

I really love the film look (and I shot film for a long time prior to moving to digital), and it’s currently experiencing some sort of renaissance, especially with Zoomer’s, who are shunning the crispy digital side of modern cameras in favour of older early 00’s digital point-and-shoots. They seem to want the not perfect look that they can sometimes provide. As someone who shot with a Fuji XT-2 for a number of years (and I still take it on from time-to-time) I can attest to the SOC look to older sensors, but Fuji as a system is just a whole different level, which is for another time.

Kodak Portra 400

But let’s just forget those older sensors for a moment, and take a step further back into film itself, and the much loved Portra 400 film. Kodak Portra 400 is one of the world’s most popular colour negative films, and is perfect for a varied range of application. It is loved by experienced film shooters for its accurate skin tones, sharp focus, fine grain structure, and superior flexibility in exposure. There’s a certain honesty with Portra which compared with some other film offerings is clear.

I don’t think it’s just me, I think a great deal of people love that film look, regardless of age; in fact it’s probably one of the most sort after looks (less clinical, and more organic). The irony of that in a time when we’ve got the sharpest sensors ever made in digital cameras, is not lost on me.

Let’s dive in to how to get that look

Below you can see two images, the one of the left is the raw image, with no edits; and the one to the right is edited image giving it a somewhat Portra 400 look.

The changes are subtle, but there. I haven’t added any grain as yet, and you’ll need to do that based on what your ISO setting were, and how much you might have had to de-noise the raw file. The differences out the gate should be noticing the greens in the highlights, and some red in the mid-tones. There’s a tiny push in the highlights, with a very small fade of total blacks.

Exposing with the Portra look in mind

When I’m shooting, and I want the end result to be this look, I always ensure I protect the highlights in my shot, a lot. I’ll underexpose by at least a stop, if not more, and especially in harsh light. You can’t always have the perfect golden hour light, and despite what a lot of photographers say, shooting in harsh light is absolutely a thing. When we take photos we’re capturing a memory; and memories don’t stop before, or after golden hour. So for this look, the golden rule is protecting those highlights.

White balance & Portra Colours

It’s important to understand your white balance when editing raw images for a Portra look. Portra 400 is naturally a warm film stock, and of course unlike a digital camera, the white balance is baked in to the film itself with Kodak’s NC (natural colour) technology; and it favours oranges, and yellows. This means you can see the most vivid change in the greens (as with all of the Portra range), they’re somewhat minty to say the least. This means that you will most likely want to warm up your white balance a bit, or a lot. If you’re shooting portraits, then you’ll most likely want to move the tint towards the magenta end to pull back some of those skin tones into the Portra 400 look.

NEW FILM PRESETS ARE COMING

I’ve taken down my old Film-based Lightroom presets, and I’m currently in the **throws of making some new ones (this will be one of them). The old ones were great, but I wanted to build on them, and then compare the new ones to the old ones. If they’re sufficiently different, then I’ll re-instate them; otherwise they’ll supersede them.

**Unfortunately, I’ve been knocked off course by getting a Nothing Phone 3a, and they can take LUTs to create filters, so I’m lost in that for now! :)