I recently purchased VSCO Film 01 for Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop. It’s not cheap, but I’ve been dying to try it. I like experimenting with different aesthetic presentations for my photos, and I’m not married to any particular “look.” Plus, I like to learn new things! There are some free actions out there that mimic VSCO, and I have used some of them, but they’re just not the real thing and the finished product is evidence of that. Because they are actions, rather than presets, they are run directly in Photoshop on an already compressed image, which gives one less control over the final outcome. Shooting in RAW (vs JPEG) is required to use VSCO with Photoshop and, much to my delight, it has vastly improved the quality of my photos with or without presets. It’s so great to be able to tweak things like exposure, highlights, and especially white balance, without permanently changing the file.
RAW // VSCO Film 01 // C-Kodak Portra 160++
