The Kodachrome look on iPhone: classic slide colour from RAW

26 October 2026 · By Abu Ashraf Masnun

Kodachrome is the film people mean when they say a photo has "that old colour". Deep shadows, warm golden light, reds that glow and blues that stay blue: half a century of National Geographic covers and family slide shows. It's been gone since 2010, which hasn't stopped anyone wanting it. Here's what made the look, and how to get it on an iPhone from RAW.

The Kodachrome look is rich, contrasty slide colour: deep shadows, strong reds and greens, golden highlights and dense blues, on very fine grain. On an iPhone you can get it by shooting RAW and developing it with a film modelled on Kodachrome; in Chobial that's Heritage, built from the published datasheets of Kodachrome 64.

A short history of Kodachrome

Kodachrome was introduced by Kodak in 1935, invented by Leopold Godowsky Jr. and Leopold Mannes, two musicians who did chemistry on the side, which is the most 1930s sentence ever written. It was a colour reversal film: the processed film is the picture itself, a slide for the projector.

• 1935: Kodachrome arrives, first for cine film, then for stills.
• 1973: Paul Simon releases a song about it, and promptly gets the whole world humming the name.
• 1974: Kodachrome 64 and the final K-14 process arrive. K64 becomes the version most people picture.
• 1984: Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl portrait for National Geographic, on Kodachrome.
• 2009: Kodak stops making it on 22 June.
• 2010: McCurry shoots the last roll ever made. Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, the last lab that could process it, develops its final rolls on 30 December.

What makes the Kodachrome look

Kodachrome was strange inside. Unlike nearly every other colour film, it had no colour dye couplers in the emulsion; the dyes were added during processing, one layer at a time. That made it a nightmare to develop and gave it unusually sharp, fine-grained images and dyes that last: stored in the dark, Kodachrome slides have kept their colour for decades. Take the look apart and you get:

• Contrast and deep shadows. It's a slide film, so the contrast is built in. Shadows go dark, and the picture feels solid.
• Warm, golden highlights. Sunlight looks like late afternoon, even at noon.
• Strong reds, rich greens and magentas. Red is the Kodachrome colour: buses, phone boxes, lipstick, a red jumper in a grey street.
• Blues that stay deep. Skies go dense and dark rather than pale cyan.
• Very fine grain. Kodachrome 64 is a slow film, and its grain is barely there.
• Elegance, not volume. McCurry said it had "poetry in it, a softness, an elegance" next to films that looked garish. It's punchy, but it isn't a saturation slider at 100.

Why a Kodachrome filter falls short

Most "Kodachrome" filters warm up and saturate a finished HEIF. That turns everything orange and loud, including the colours Kodachrome would have kept calm, and it clips skies the iPhone had already tone-mapped. The look depends on how each colour moves differently, and on contrast that a slide film builds in from the RAW up. It's the same problem as with Velvia filters, and the general version is in film simulation on iPhone.

Getting the Kodachrome look in Chobial

Chobial has a few slide films that cover the Kodachrome territory, each described in the app:

Heritage is the one to start with. We ran Kodachrome 64's published datasheets (how the film sees each colour of light, how dense each layer develops) through a simulation of exposing and developing the film, then fitted the result as a Chobial film you can open and change. How the films are made has the details.

1. Load Heritage. Tap the film's badge beside the island, or swipe across the picture until it says Heritage.
2. Shoot RAW in good light. Kodachrome 64 was a slow film that loved sun. Look for low, warm light and something red.
3. Expose for the highlights. It's a slide look, so a blown sky stays blown. Turn on Controls › Guides › Zebras and drag down on the picture until the sky is just clear of them. The film deepens the shadows for you. More in film camera settings on iPhone.
4. Keep the ISO low. Tap ISO in the exposure line and set it low. Push it high and the film's grain grows like a pushed roll, which isn't very K64.
5. Adjust afterwards. Open the photo, tap Edit, choose the Film tool and lower Strength if it's too much, or tap Postcard or Clear to compare. The photo develops again from the RAW each time.
6. Make it the slide you remember. Start a new film from Heritage in the film editor and push the reds or warm the highlights: make your own film.

Heritage is a Pro film: shoot and develop with it as much as you like, and saving a photo in it takes Chobial Pro. Clear and Landscape save free if you want a slide look without the subscription.

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

Kodachrome isn't coming back; it's too hard to make and too hard to develop. But the look was always about light and colour more than chemistry, and a RAW file has more of both than any slide ever did. Find some warm light, a red door and a deep blue sky, and you'll get the idea.

Kodak, Kodachrome and Ektachrome are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company. Fujifilm and Velvia are trademarks of FUJIFILM Corporation. National Geographic is a trademark of National Geographic Society. Chobial's films are its own, and Chobial is not affiliated with Kodak or Fujifilm.

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