How to use the X-T4 Bleach Bypass film simulation on X-T2 with Capture One Pro

Fujifilm cameras include what they call film simulations: a stylized way to render the raw photo information into a final image the deviates from the real look. Fujfilm cameras have many different film simulations the produce muted tones, saturated colors, B&W and others. The Fujifilm X-T4 camera shipped earlier this year with an exclusive new film simulation: ETERNA Bleach Bypass, with a distinctive high-contrast, low color saturation look. The exclusivity means that this film simulation is not available in the X-T3, X-T2, or X-T1 cameras.

Capture One Pro and Fujfilm X-T4 ETERNA Bleach Bypass

Capture One, the photo editing software, includes film simulations that accurately mimic those produced by the camera. The latest version of Capture One makes the ETERNA Bleach Bypass film simulation exclusively available for RAF files—the raw files created by the Fujifilm cameras—produced by the X-T4 camera.

It is in Capture One where we’ll be able to use the ETERNA Bleach Bypass film simulation in our RAF files produced by the X-T2. The photos in this page have been shot with X-T2 and use the ETERNA Bleach Bypass simulation in Capture One Pro.

While I haven’t tested this in RAF files produced by X-T3 and X-T1 because I don’t own one of those cameras, I’m confident this will work for files produced by those cameras as well. If you try it, please let me know how it works in the comments below.

Modifying the X-T2 RAF file to use X-T4’s ETERNA Bleach Bypass

What we need to do is to modify the EXIF information in the RAF file. The EXIF data is what tells Capture One how to interpret this file, particularly, it tells the model of camera that produced this RAF file. You guessed it: we’re going to change the camera model so Capture One enables the film simulations available for a RAF produced by the X-T4. You’ll not only have the ETERNA Bleach Bypass available, but also Classic Negative film simulation that shipped with the X-T3 camera.

To update the EXIF data, we’re going to use the free EXIFtool command line utility that can be downloaded from https://exiftool.org. Please note that this tutorial covers the macOS system, although this tool is also available for Windows and the commands to work with it will be similar.

For the installation, please refer to this previous post where I showed how to use X-T3’s Classic Negative film simulation in X-T2 RAF files using the same technique.

You first need to open the Terminal app. Hold ⌘ and press the space bar to launch Spotlight in Mac. Now type Terminal and hit enter to open it. Once it’s open, we need to navigate to the directory where you have the RAF files that you want to edit. For example, I’ll type this and hit enter:

cd ~/Pictures/USA/Nashville/CaptureNashville

Once I’m in the directory, I’m going to make a copy of the RAF file where I want to use the ETERNA Bleach Bypass. There are two reasons for this:

1. to preserve the previous file, just in case
2. in my case, Capture One already indexed the files in this folder as produced by X-T2, so even if I change the EXIF data, Capture One will still read this as a file produced by the X-T2.

Type the following command and hit enter. Make sure you replace the RAF file name with the real name of your RAF file:

cp _DSF1234.RAF _DSF1234-xt4.RAF && exiftool _DSF1234-xt4.RAF -model=X-T4

Please note that these are two commands:

1. the cp command will copy the _DSF1234.RAF into _DSF1234-xt4.RAF
2. the exiftool will update the camera model in the file

Why are we doing this in a single step? This will make the duplication and modification fast enough so that Capture doesn’t index the new file created in the first step as one created with X-T2 before we update the camera model in the second step.

You can also execute the commands one by one so you can check the correct duplication in the first step:

cp _DSF1234.RAF _DSF1234-xt4.RAF

exiftool _DSF1234-xt4.RAF -model=X-T4

If you prefer this, you’ll have to close Capture One while you duplicate and update the file and then reopen it.

Using ETERNA Bleach Bypass in X-T2 files in Capture One

Now you can load Capture One Pro and go to the collection stored in the folder that includes the file you updated. If you go to the Info tab, you’ll see the camera model is set to X-T4 for the duplicated RAF. The software is still set to X-T2 and it can be also changed using EXIFtool but it’s not necessary for our purposes:

If you now go to the Color tab, you’ll see under ICC Profile that it’s using an X-T4 profile and what we were looking for will be in the Curve setting:

Success! You can see above that as we mentioned before, you also have the Classic Negative film simulation available. Double success!

Now it’s time to edit, let me know in the comments if this was useful and how you’re planning to use it. If you try this for RAFs created by other X-series cameras, let me know how it works for you.

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