Gilded Canal: A Fujifilm X100V Film Recipe (In-Camera JPEG + Lightroom/RAW Guide)

Edward Leung

Oct 1

3 min read

Historic stone tower and facade under bright blue sky, overlaid with Gilded Canal and Fujifilm Recipe text. — Majestic architecture bathed in golden sunlight stands proudly against a vivid blue sky in a picturesque Portuguese riverside city.

Before/after split of a baroque church facade under blue sky, with scooters, overhead wires, and Gilded Canal text. — Baroque facade with overhead wires, transformed under hard light to reveal intricate details and rich textures.

Before-and-after split view of a gilded canal reflecting ornate buildings, blue water, and caption A reflecting pool doubles the skyline — Comparison of a canal scene before and after editing, highlighting enhanced reflections of historic architecture in the water, creating a mirror-like effect under a clear blue sky.

Side-by-side before/after of Porto’s ornate stone tower under blue sky, with Gilded Canal title and Porto text at bottom. — A stunning architectural transformation highlights the intricate details of a historic stone tower in Porto against a vibrant, deep blue sky, as presented in a before-and-after comparison.

Gilded Canal is a punchy, Velvia-based daylight recipe built around one idea: warm, gold-toned architecture set against a deep, saturated blue sky. Where a lot of the recipes in this archive lean into muted or crushed-shadow moods, this one keeps things bright, graphic, and vivid -- closer to how the light actually looked at midday than to a cinematic grade.

The look was inspired by a photo I came across of a gilded statue glowing gold under bright sun, with a vivid blue sky behind it and an ornate red-and-gold roofline in the midground. I translated that same warm/cool color split onto three frames from Porto: a Beaux-Arts clock tower, a riverside reflecting pool, and a Baroque church facade cut through by overhead tram wires.

The Story Behind the Look

Velvia/Vivid is the base here, which is unusual for this archive -- most recipes start from Classic Chrome or Eterna for their built-in restraint. Velvia pushes saturation and contrast hard by default, so the work in this recipe was mostly about control: keeping Highlight Tone at 0 instead of pulling it down (so the sky and sunlit stone don't go flat), and using Color Chrome FX Blue on Strong to deepen the sky without touching skin or stone tones. Shadow Tone only nudges to -1, deliberately stopping short of a full crush, so the texture in statues, wire clutter, and shaded archways stays readable.

The white balance shift (Daylight, R+4 / B-2) warms the gold and stone tones directly, while the vivid blue sky comes from Velvia's own punch plus Color Chrome FX Blue -- two separate mechanisms doing two separate jobs, rather than one WB shift trying to do everything.

In-Camera Fujifilm X100V Settings

Film Simulation: Velvia/Vivid
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight Tone: 0
Shadow Tone: -1
Color: +2
Sharpness: +1
Noise Reduction: -2
Grain Effect: Weak, Small
Color Chrome Effect: Strong
Color Chrome FX Blue: Strong
White Balance: Daylight, R: +4, B: -2
ISO: Auto (160-6400)
Exposure Compensation: 0 to +1/3

Lightroom / RAW Equivalent Settings

Profile: Adobe Color
Exposure: +0.15
Contrast: +20
Highlights: -25
Shadows: +10
Whites: +5
Blacks: -10
Temperature: +8
Tint: -3
Vibrance: +20
Saturation: +8
Clarity: +18
Dehaze: +12
Vignette: -12

Tone Curve

A punchy S-curve that keeps highlight detail while deepening shadows for graphic separation: Highlights slightly decreased, Lights increased, Darks decreased, Shadows slightly increased.

HSL / Color Mixer

Red Hue 0, Saturation +15
Orange Hue -5, Saturation +20
Yellow Hue -5, Saturation +15
Green Hue 0, Saturation +10
Aqua Hue -5, Saturation +10
Blue Hue -5, Saturation +25, Luminance -8
Purple Hue 0, Saturation 0
Magenta Hue 0, Saturation 0

Split Toning

Highlights: Hue 45, Saturation 8 (warm gold tint). Shadows: Hue 210, Saturation 10 (cool blue-teal tint). Balance: -5.

Detail & Calibration

Sharpening Amount 50, Radius 1.0, Detail 30, Masking 10. Noise Reduction: Luminance 8, Detail 55, Color 20, Color Detail 50, Smoothness 50. Calibration: Red Primary Hue +3 / Saturation +5, Green Primary Hue -8 / Saturation +5, Blue Primary Hue +5 / Saturation +10.

Where These Photos Were Shot

All three source photos are from Porto, Portugal: the Beaux-Arts clock tower of the city hall catching late-morning sun against a hard blue sky, a riverside reflecting pool doubling the skyline, and a Baroque church facade with tram wires cutting across the frame.

Swipe through the Instagram carousel for the full before/after on each frame, plus a settings card. The free Lightroom preset (.xmp, zipped) is available for download below.