Harman Phoenix Film - Free Preset for Lightroom
Harman Phoenix 200 Film - Free Lightroom Preset
When Harman announced one of the first new film stocks in years, people got very excited. The phoenix, a mythical bird reborn continuously from ashes, was a fitting name for the new film as it is a symbol of the rebirth from ruin. The film photography industry was lying in ruins up until a few years ago when it experienced rebirth of its own.
Harman released Phoenix 200 as an experimental film and as a limited addition. It was a test of what was possible, and perhaps what could be in the glorious film future. Upon its release, reviewers had mixed feelings. They were thrilled that Harman was doing something new, but the film stock wasn’t exactly producing Kodak Portra 400 colors. The images from Phoenix 200 were heavily saturated, very heavy on contrast, and showed a surprising amount of grain for what was supposed to be a 200 speed film. Some photographers experimented with the film and were eventually able to discover how to achieve nice results, while others gave up after their first roll.
Having looked at hundreds of sample photos from Harman Phoenix 200, I freely admit it isn’t my favorite film stock, but I also don’t hate it. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to shoot the real film (I live in Albania and there is no place to buy or develop film), so I wanted to create a digital twin that could mimic some of the film’s qualities.
Further down in the article, you’ll find a button where you can download my Phoenix 200 Lightroom Preset. I worked on it for several days this week and I believe I’ve captured the essential essence of the Phoenix. You’ll notice high saturation, high contrast, magenta in the highlights, and green in the shadows. If you look a Phoenix 200 sample images online, you’ll notice the results vary widely between photographers and film labs. The scanning process and which brand of scanner was used seemed to render drastically different colors. For this preset, I tried to take the best qualities from the sample photos I saw.
Color Palette
These small photos are meant to give you an overall feel for the color pallet created by the Harman Phoenix 200 preset. Larger versions of these photos can be viewed in the sample gallery. I always make sure to take photos in mixed lighting to give the end user an idea of what they can expect in various lighting conditions.
The downloadable file is in the “.xmp” file format. Please let me know if you encounter any problems.
