I’ve been working on Exposure X7 film-look settings for my Kodak Charmera photos. Who would have thought 40 or 50 years ago that adding simulated film grain to a photo and deliberately reducing clarity would be so popular in certain photographic quarters?

We’re nothing if not nostalgic – perhaps for a golden past that may exist only in desperately imagined and questionable memories. The so-called analog revival is, perhaps, a marker of our yearning for deeper connection in an increasingly fragmented world where we work from home, communicate online, develop relationships with AI partners, and are befuddled by the profit-driven machinations of big technology companies.

In the context of the Kodak Charmera’s low resolution, oversmoothed, and oversharpened photos, adding random noise in the form of film grain is about not only disguising aliased edges and digital harshness, but also providing more interesting visual textures for the eye and brain. When painting, varying brush stroke, texture, shape, line, and colour leads the eye around the canvas. I’m applying the same principle here.

My settings: film grain effect at 38 percent with low roughness setting, slight increase in push processing to add a bit of contrast, slight increase in warmth to simulate a daylight balanced film, -40 reduction in clarity to soften texture and lower mid-tone contrast, slight increase to vibrance to enhance the weaker colours.