From Reference Photo to Shared Recipe: The Complete ToneChef Workflow

Three Ways to Generate a Recipe

Three starting points, same output: a complete set of in-camera settings tailored to your specific camera model.

From Reference Photos

This is the most common path. You upload one to four photos that have the look you want to recreate, pick your camera model, and ToneChef analyzes the pixel-level characteristics of those images to produce a matching recipe.

The photos do not need to be taken with your camera. They can come from anywhere: a photo you admire on the web, a scan of a film print, a screenshot from a video. What matters is that they share a consistent tonal quality. If you upload four photos that all have the same warm, desaturated look, ToneChef can zero in on that character. If the four photos look wildly different from each other, the results will be a compromise.

From a Text Description

If you do not have a reference photo but know the look you want, you can describe it in words. Something like "warm and slightly faded, like Kodak Gold in afternoon light" or "high contrast black and white with crushed shadows" gives ToneChef enough to work with.

Text descriptions work best when they focus on color, contrast, and mood rather than subject matter. "A photo of a sunset" tells ToneChef about the scene, not the recipe. "Warm highlights, lifted shadows, slightly desaturated greens" tells it exactly what tone to aim for.

From Someone Else's Shared Recipe

When someone shares a ToneChef recipe with you, the shared page includes a "Convert to My Camera" button. This takes their recipe (which may be for a different camera model) and re-generates it for your camera, translating the settings across different parameter systems.

This is useful when you find a recipe you like that was built for a Fujifilm X100VI but you shoot a Ricoh GRIIIx, or vice versa. The conversion preserves the intent of the original recipe while mapping it to the parameters your camera actually has.

Dialing It In on Your Camera

Once ToneChef generates a recipe, you get a card with every setting laid out: base mode or film simulation, individual tone parameters, white balance mode and fine-tuning values, and suggested exposure compensation.

Open your camera's custom settings or image control menu and enter the values one by one. On Fujifilm cameras, save the recipe to a Custom Settings slot (C1 through C7) so you can recall it instantly. On Ricoh GR cameras, save it to one of the User modes (MY1, MY2, MY3).

Take a few test shots in the kind of lighting you plan to shoot. The recipe should get you most of the way there on the first try, but every camera body renders slightly differently, and your taste may differ from what the analysis produced.

Refining When It's Close but Not Right

If the recipe is 80% of the way there but something feels off, use the Refine feature rather than starting from scratch. On the recipe page, tap "Refine Recipe" and you can:

• Upload photos you shot with the recipe so the AI can see the actual output and compare it to the intended look
• Describe what to adjust in plain language: "too cool, needs more warmth" or "shadows are too dark"
• Use quick-adjustment chips for common tweaks like "warmer," "more contrast," or "brighter shadows"

Refining costs one credit, just like generating a new recipe, but the results are better because the AI has context about what it already tried and what needs to change.

Saving Sample Photos

Every recipe has a "My Photos" section where you can attach up to six photos you shot with that recipe. These are not reference photos used to generate the recipe. They are results: photos you took using the recipe that you want to keep as a visual reminder of what it produces.

This is useful for a few reasons:

• Memory. After building a library of recipes, it is hard to remember what each one actually looks like on your camera. Sample photos solve that instantly.
• Comparison. When deciding which recipe to load before a shoot, you can flip through your samples and pick the one that matches the mood you are going for.
• Sharing. If you share the recipe, your sample photos can be included so viewers can see real-world results, not just a list of settings.

You can upload My Photos from both the iOS app and the web app. The photos are stored at up to 2048px on the long edge. Raw files (DNG, NEF, ARW, RAF, and others) are automatically converted to JPEG on upload, so you can attach files straight from your camera without converting them first.

Notes and Custom Names

Each recipe also has a notes section and a custom name field. These are small features that become valuable as your recipe collection grows.

Custom names let you replace the AI-generated recipe name with something that makes sense to you. "My Everyday Warm Look" is more useful than "Golden Hour Classic Chrome" when you are scrolling through a list of twenty recipes. Tap the pencil icon next to the recipe name to edit it.

Notes are a freeform text field where you can write anything you want to remember about the recipe. What lighting conditions it works best in, what exposure compensation you actually ended up using, which Custom Settings slot you saved it to on your camera, or anything else. Notes are private and never shared even if you create a public link for the recipe.

Sharing Your Recipe

When you have a recipe you are proud of, you can share it with a public link. Tap the share button on any recipe page and ToneChef creates a short URL that anyone can open without needing an account.

What Viewers See

The shared recipe page displays:

• The recipe name and your display name
• The camera model the recipe was built for
• All settings: base mode, tone parameters, white balance, and exposure compensation
• The "How It Works" explanation of what each setting contributes
• Reference photos and My Photos (if you have enabled photo sharing)
• A "Copy Settings" button so viewers can quickly grab the values
• A "Convert to My Camera" button that lets them re-generate the recipe for a different camera

The shared page has a distinct visual style so viewers know they are looking at a shared recipe rather than the main ToneChef app.

Controlling Photo Visibility

When you create a share link, there is a toggle called "Include photos when sharing." It is on by default. When enabled, both your reference photos and your My Photos are visible to anyone who opens the link.

If you want to share the settings but keep your photos private, turn this toggle off. You can change this setting at any time from the share menu without needing to create a new link.

Removing the share link entirely revokes access immediately. No one can view the recipe or photos after the link is removed.

Putting It All Together

Here is the full loop in practice:

1. Generate a recipe from reference photos, a description, or a shared recipe conversion
2. Dial in the settings on your camera and take some test shots
3. Refine if something is not right, uploading your test shots so the AI can see the gap
4. Rename the recipe to something memorable
5. Shoot with the recipe and save your favorite results to the My Photos section
6. Add notes about what conditions the recipe works best in
7. Share with a public link when you want others to try it

That is the whole loop. You can stop at any point. Not every recipe needs to be refined, named, documented, and shared. Sometimes you generate, dial in, and shoot. The rest is there when you want it.