Muted Chrome

Start from Classic Chrome, then flatten the light

The base is Fujifilm’s Classic Chrome camera profile — already muted and documentary-flavored before a single slider moves. The tonal work does the flattening: highlights pulled to −48 and shadows lifted to +42 compress the photo into the midtones, while +20 contrast and a custom point curve put punch back exactly where it’s wanted. The result keeps detail in the squirrel’s backlit fur without letting the sunlit pavement blow out.

The color is subtraction, not grading

Almost every HSL move drains color instead of adding it: greens at −75, yellows at −59, blues at −47 saturation. What survives is orange — barely touched at −12 — so the squirrel’s rust-red coat becomes the only warm thing in the frame. A single color-grade move, hue 210 at 14% saturation in the shadows, cools the asphalt toward blue and sets up the warm-subject, cold-world contrast.

Grain sells the film illusion

Grain at amount 30, size 30, roughness 50 breaks up the digital smoothness of the dark pavement, which occupies most of the frame. On a muted, shadow-heavy image like this one, grain reads as texture rather than noise — it’s the detail that makes the edit feel printed instead of processed.

Where this preset works

Built for hard side-light and dark grounds: autumn street scenes, backlit subjects, overcast wildlife. It will fight you on pastel scenes — the green and yellow desaturation turns foliage grey by design. Pair it with slight underexposure to protect the highlights it depends on.