Italian Timeless Black and White — a wedding photograph edited with the preset

Lightroom preset

Black and white
that keeps
the skin.

Italian Timeless Black & White · One XMP file

Get the preset — $37 Sold and delivered through Payhip

A conversion, not a filter. Contrast that stays where a print would put it, skin that keeps its separation instead of going chalk, and no grey mud in the middle of the frame. Built on the same body of work as the colour preset and used on the same weddings.

Before and after Drag the line · 8 frames

A red staircase, which is the hardest case — before the preset — A red staircase, which is the hardest case

A red staircase, which is the hardest case — after the preset — A red staircase, which is the hardest case

A boutonniere against a dark jacket — before the preset — A boutonniere against a dark jacket

A boutonniere against a dark jacket — after the preset — A boutonniere against a dark jacket

A veil, in open shade — before the preset — A veil, in open shade

A veil, in open shade — after the preset — A veil, in open shade

Backlit, at the water — before the preset — Backlit, at the water

Backlit, at the water — after the preset — Backlit, at the water

White on white, outdoors — before the preset — White on white, outdoors

White on white, outdoors — after the preset — White on white, outdoors

Two people, indoors — before the preset — Two people, indoors

Two people, indoors — after the preset — Two people, indoors

A hand, and a ring — before the preset — A hand, and a ring

A hand, and a ring — after the preset — A hand, and a ring

Movement, in a dark room — before the preset — Movement, in a dark room

Movement, in a dark room — after the preset — Movement, in a dark room

Two films,
and what
survives
a wedding.

Fuji 400H is the reference: the way it holds green and keeps highlights open is most of what people mean when they say a photograph looks like film. What it does not give you is warmth, so the colour is pushed back towards Kodak Portra 400.

Neither is imitated frame for frame. What is here is the half of each that survives a real wedding, then years of correcting it against thousands of photographs — a frescoed room at noon, a garden at five, a dance floor at eleven — until it stopped needing to be argued with.

See the work it was built on

What you get $37 · Payhip

One preset: A single XMP file. Not a pack of forty variations with names like Warm 03 — one starting point, the one I use.
A starting point: Exposure and white balance still belong to you. The preset does the part that has to be consistent across two thousand photographs of the same day.
The same file I use: Not a version made to sell. It is what sits on my own catalogue, which is why the portfolio on this site is the sample.

The black and white in the portfolio. Delivered work · 2021 onwards

Every monochrome frame on this site went through this conversion. They are delivered photographs, not samples made for a sales page.