# VSCO film-preset look

> Everyday phone pictures (coffee, windows, beaches, roads, skies, friends glancing away) graded to look like faded colour film: blacks lifted to a matte grey, contrast and saturation held back, highlights warm and shadows drifting green or teal, with fine added grain. The light is soft daylight, overcast or a low sun; compositions are simple, with open sky or wall; and the posts, square at first, sit in a calm, consistent grid. The look came from VSCO's film-emulation presets and its VSCO Cam app, made as a restrained alternative to heavy early Instagram filters.

- Period: 2012–present
- Kind: Digital & social
- Also called: VSCO look, VSCO Cam aesthetic, Faded matte look, Film-emulation preset look
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/vsco-film-preset/

## How the look is made

- Lift the blacks: raise the shadow end of the tone curve or use a Fade slider until the darkest tones are a matte grey.
- Hold colour back: lower saturation and contrast, warm the highlights and let the shadows drift towards green or teal, as film emulations do.
- Add fine grain and keep the image soft; never sharpen hard or tone-map.
- Photograph ordinary moments of the day in soft daylight (overcast, open shade, low sun) and keep compositions simple with open space.
- Use one preset family for the whole feed so the grid reads as a single mood.

## How it is lit

- Soft daylight: an overcast sky, open shade or a bright window.
- A low, warm sun late in the day, sometimes shot into the light.
- Whatever light the phone finds, flattened further by the grade.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: the open sky, all around and above, soft.

## Camera settings

28–50 mm · f/1.8–f/2.8 · 1/2000–1/60 s · ISO 32–400 (on phone), inferred. Mostly iPhones of 2012–16 on auto in soft daylight (iPhone 5: 33 mm eq., f/2.4; 6s: 29 mm, f/2.2; 7: 28 mm, f/1.8); VSCO Film presets also went on DSLR raw files from any lens. The look is the grade, so settings vary widely.

## Directing people

Rarely posed: friends sit or stand loosely, glance away past the camera or walk ahead with their backs turned, faces calm or half hidden by hair or a hat; often only the photographer's own hand appears, holding a cup, a flower or a pair of glasses up to the view; self-portraits are held at arm's length.

## Styling

Barely styled: everyday casual clothes (knitwear, denim, flannel, oversized tees, a hat), natural hair and light make-up, places as found (beaches, roads, cafés, windows), and at most a cup, a book or a plant set on a clean table with open space around it.

## Before you shoot it

Many VSCO feeds, and the 2019 'VSCO girl' trend, centre on teenagers: generate adults only, never imitate a real user's feed or face, and treat VSCO as a company's trademark rather than a free style label in products and captions.

## Photographs

- Startup Stock Photos / www.Pixel.la Free Stock Photos, Processed with VSCOcam, 2014. CC0, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. Shown on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VSCOcamStartup_Stock_PhotoProcessed_with_VSCOcam_(23698782144).jpg
- Startup Stock Photos / www.Pixel.la Free Stock Photos, Processed with VSCOcam. CC0, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. Shown on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PhotoProcessed_with_VSCOcam_(24327003775).jpg
- Startup Stock Photos / www.Pixel.la Free Stock Photos, Processed with VSCOcam. CC0, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. Shown on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VSCOcamStartup_Stock_PhotoProcessed_with_VSCOcam_(23959179619).jpg

## Sources

- VSCO, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSCO (founded in California in 2011 by Joel Flory and Greg Lutze; headquarters in Oakland; app launched 2012; fade, clarity and skin-tone tools)
- Visual Supply Co's VSCO Cam app offers image filters before compression, DPReview, 2 May 2012: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5373059683/vsco-cam-app/ (press release of 26 April 2012; iPhone app at $0.99 with ten filters and Grain, Fade, Contrast and Fill Light tools; built on the VSCO Film software; a 'minimally processed look' instead of 'overly processed filters')
- VSCO Takes On Instagram's Boomerang With Its New GIF Creation App DSCO, TechCrunch, 29 October 2015: https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/29/vsco-takes-on-instagrams-boomerang-with-its-new-gif-creation-app-dsco/ (founded 2011, Oakland; 83 percent of users outside the US)
- Franco Varriano, Hack To Start Ep. 122: Joel Flory, co-founder and CEO of VSCO, BetaKit, 9 November 2016: https://betakit.com/?p=75226 (Flory a professional photographer; company born in 2011; film emulation plugin before the phone app)
- Greg Lutze & Joel Flory, The Hypebeast Hundred 2013: https://hypebeast.com/the-hypebeast-hundred-2013/vsco (the fourth VSCO film pack mimics modern and discontinued Fuji and Kodak films; VSCO Grid)
- Thomas Fitzgerald, VSCO Cam and VSCO Grid, July 2014: https://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2014/07/vsco-cam-vsco-grid (film-inspired looks drawn from the VSCO Film presets for Lightroom; VSCO Grid as a minimalist sharing site; export to Instagram)
- Simon Hartmann, Easy-to-accomplish VSCO Cam effect in Photoshop, Go Media, 30 October 2013: https://gomedia.com/tutorials/easy-to-accomplish-vsco-cam-effect-in-photoshop/ (the faded look as the signature of the M4/M5 presets; cross-processed green in the shadows; grain; #VSCOgrid)
- Fade Images, VSCO: https://vsco.co/features/fade (the Fade tool mutes shadows, compresses the dynamic range and replicates the low-contrast look of old prints)
- Film Filters, VSCO: https://www.vsco.co/features/film-filters (film presets after Kodak, Fujifilm, Ilford and Agfa stocks; C1; grain, fade and vignette effects)
- Lightroom presets, VSCO: https://www.vsco.co/features/photo-filters/lightroom-presets (Film 01 after Fuji 160C, Pro 400H, 800Z and Kodak Portra 160–800; Film 02 after Portra NC/VC/UC, Superia and others)
- VSCO girl, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSCO_girl (Gen Z teenage subculture of mid-to-late 2019 named after the app)
- Visual Supply Co's VSCO Cam app offers image filters before compression, DPReview, 2 May 2012: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5373059683/vsco-cam-app/ (VSCO Cam an iPhone app built on the VSCO Film software)
- Apple iPhone 5 full specifications, GSMArena: https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_5-4910.php (main camera 8 MP, f/2.4, 33 mm equivalent; announced 12 September 2012)
- Apple iPhone 6s full specifications, GSMArena: https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_6s-7242.php (main camera 12 MP, f/2.2, 29 mm equivalent)
- Apple iPhone 7 full specifications, GSMArena: https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_7-8064.php (main camera 12 MP, f/1.8, 28 mm equivalent; announced 7 September 2016)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/vsco-film-preset/#sheet