Acros black & white preset for Lightroom & Sony Alpha
Acros is Fujifilm's black and white profile, named after the film stock: exceptionally fine grain, strong micro-contrast and clean gradation from deep blacks through to open highlights. It holds detail in the shadows better than most digital monochrome conversions.
How to shoot and edit it
- Compose for tone, not colour. Shapes and light separation carry the frame.
- Micro-contrast is the point — favour textured subjects over flat ones.
- On the Sony side, BW as the base look plus a slight sharpness bump gets you close in camera.
The measured values
Decoded from the genuine Acros B&W profile. These are the slider equivalent — what it takes to reach this look without a colour profile. The .xmp you generate in the tool embeds the measured profile itself, so it needs far less on top.
Lightroom Classic
Light
Color
Presence
HSL / Color mixer
Tone curve
Color grading
Detail & effects
Grain
Sony Alpha — Creative Look
Adjustments
D-Range Optimizer
BW base with Saturation -9 (maximum desaturation). The Acros LUT has distinct luminance weights: blue channels render much brighter than standard B&W, giving Acros its unique sky/skin tonality.
Sony Alpha — Picture Profile
Main Settings
Black Gamma
Knee
Color
Color Depth
Detail
Still gamma (NOT S-Log2 — that is a video log format that looks flat/grey as a JPEG). Black level -3 + narrow black gamma -3 give deep blacks WITHOUT killing Acros's famed shadow gradation (LUT Blacks only -5, not a hard crush). In B&W mode Color Depth acts as channel filter weights: B+4 reflects Acros's measured blue luminance weight of 27% (vs ~7% normal B&W) — blue skies render brighter, the Acros signature. Y+2 = mild yellow-filter lift. Detail +4 for Acros's defining micro-contrast.
Related looks
Bleach bypass comes from skipping the bleach step in film processing, leaving silver in the emulsion: contrast climbs, saturation collapses toward monochrome, and the whole frame takes on a metallic sheen. Harsh, gritty and unmistakably cinematic.
Dark, desaturated and contrasty: the look that dominates urban photography feeds. Shadows go deep and cool, colour is pulled back to near-neutral, and grain keeps it from feeling digitally clean. Light separation matters more than colour.
The fashion-magazine grade: crushed shadows, cold highlights, restrained colour and enough contrast to sculpt rather than flatten. Skin is kept slightly cool and matte. Everything serves the shape of the light.
Make your own version of Acros black & white preset
Adjust the description, add a reference photo, or import a preset you already own — Preset Lab returns the Lightroom values and the in-camera settings together.
Open the generator