Howdy, I wanted to know if this is user error on my end, but the recipes never really worked or look good, at most it is the WB making the changes in video, and then it looks to green/purple. I recorded some mundane stuff with the Cinechrome recipe on my a7iv, while not unpleasant (aside from the bigly blue sky), it's looking very stock cam footage
Maybe you want to add a diffusion filter to soften the image, but besides the sharpness, not sure what you mean by 'not looking good'.
When you initially described the problem over the chat, I was expecting bad colors over the whole image, like predominantly green hues, bad skintones and so on.
But they look great to me in terms of color, yeah the light is pretty flat besides the last one, framing is boring, so the shots cannot be amazing in these conditions.
Good light is probably the most important factor in rendering amazing images.
Shoot in a flat, cloudy day and everything will look less appealing than it could've in the right conditions.
That's why I don't even bother shooting these days. Where I am from it's raining all the time, everything is grey here, and no matter what I do, the images will look bad if the conditions are not helping.
Check the Blog post about Cinechrome where I posted some sample images, it looks good to me.
It all depends what you are expecting from a Film Simulation.
https://www.veresdenialex.com/post/freshly-baked-series-the-cinechrome
All images posted on the Blog are Straight Out Of Camera JPEGs, no edit or retouching.
That's how the images should look like, and if I can get that kind of colors out of camera, then you can.
Each Sony Film Simulation has different characteristics, and of course the white balance will have most of the influence of how colors are being rendered.
You cannot use the same Kelvin on all Film Simulations and expect them to be totally different.
The Color Settings have been closely chosen to focus on different hues & tonalities.
For example Blue velvet/Cinestill50D is super contrasty and will have a Magenta Orange Color science, while Cinechrome will be super soft, with High Dynamic range and a Teal n Orange or blue and orange color science.
I am working on a 1:1 comparison between all profiles so everybody can see the main differences and how they should look like. Will post an article on the Blog when it's ready.
But till then, let me show you a quick comparison between standard style and the cinechrome, so you can clearly see the differences and how The Film Recipe improves the colors that is coming straight out of camera.
I've use a Printed Color Checker because it's Sunday and I am not at the Studio.
Sony Standard Colors
CineChrome Without Color Adjustments
Cinechrome with In Camera Color Adjustments Applied
Differences are harder to tell while taking a sterile picture with a flat printed color checker, but even like this you can notice the difference in Colors, Softness and Higher Dynamic range.
Standard Sony Colors have very pink Reds, which will render rather unnatural skintones, and has a magenta shift in the shadows as you can notice, while CineChrome is balancing out colors very nicely.
Tones of Violet being shifted towards Blue, Pink and Reds towards orange, and Blues being very deep. It also gives a Blue tint in the shadows which I personally like very much.
Depending on the Color Settings chosen from the website, you can also get a slight green tint in the highlights.
If you don't like how deep the blues are, just go in the Picture Profile>>Color Depth and lower the Blues a couple levels, maybe bring the blues at +2 or +1.
Overall this Sony Picture Profile will focus more on a Blue-Orange color palette.
As you are able to see in the Blog Article right Here, Skintones will be enhanced compared to the standard sony colors, giving a subtle and softer rendition of tones.
All Sony Film Simulations will offer Enhanced Colors out of camera, and most of them can be used straight out of the box without any further editing, but that doesn't mean you cannot take the next steps in post processing them.
Here I have a comparison between the initial 8 Film Simulations created a year ago.
https://youtu.be/z3eaWZwLoIE
Firsts couple seconds of the video I show the RAW Footage and the slight color grading modifications brought to it for the final image.
You can see the Color Grading is very subtle, just shifting the image towards green and adjusting exposure.
Later I show the main differences of colors using the same Kelvin and Color Filter for all Picture Profiles, so you can see each has their own color predominance and color palettes. And this without any Color adjustments applied in camera.
Sony Film Simulations do the heavy lifting for us, balancing colors and focusing on multiple Color Palettes offering an enhanced image or a great base to start from.
All of my videos are at least slightly edited, because I want to provide the best color possible, and I am using them all the time in my work.
So I am not sure, would you like something more extreme or obvious to the eye?
Maybe you want something more crunchy and saturated.
Try Kodak Gold, Kodak Ultra max vektro 100, Ektar 100, Kodachrome 64 and so on.
You can Use the Film Simulation Chart to Guide you in the process of choosing your Favourite Film Recipe depending on your personal preferences like Tonality & Saturation.
Download the Chart Right Here
I have made a variety of Film Simulations to ensure it meets the need of any user. From subtle gentle ones to very artistic quirky looking ones which are more powerful, and I am planning to add a couple more the following month.
You just need to experiment with them a little bit to see which one is on you liking.
Most important factor is lighting, framing and implementing your own personal style.
Take all these into consideration when shooting and you will get closer to what you want.
Hope this helped clear out some questions regarding Sony Film Simulation recipes.
If not, then please let me know by leaving your questions here, and that is applicable to anyone reading this.
Hope you're having a lovely day! :D