Presets and camera calibration for Capture One

Creating and Using Presets in Capture One: Best Practices

Developing presets in Capture One is a powerful way to streamline your workflow and achieve consistent, high-quality results. Presets help you get the most accurate color rendering from your camera files—especially when aiming to replicate specific looks, such as the distinctive Leica M color profile. While these presets are designed to stay true to the original camera colors, you can always tweak them later to suit your creative vision or specific project needs.

What These Presets Do

These presets apply a base colour correction tailored to your camera’s sensor characteristics when importing and processing RAW files (such as DNGs) in Capture One. The goal is to provide a faithful starting point that reflects the natural colour output of your camera, particularly useful for Leica users who want to preserve the signature Leica tones.

How to Use Presets in Capture One

1. Importing Presets:

• Alternatively, after downloading the presets, place them in the appropriate folder. Capture One will also select this automatically.
  • On macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Capture One/Presets60/
  • On Windows: C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Local\CaptureOne\Presets60\
• Restart Capture One to load the new presets if they do not appear at once.

2. Applying Presets: Double-clicking each preset, keeping Capture One open, and the preset should then appear in the presets menu automatically.

3. Applying Presets manually:

   • You can apply presets manually in the Adjustments Tool Tab under the Styles and Presets section.
   • Alternatively, set Capture One to automatically apply a preset during import:
     • Go to the Import Images dialogue.
     • Under Adjustments, choose your desired preset from the Styles dropdown.

4. Non-Destructive Workflow:

   • Like Lightroom, Capture One applies presets non-destructively. You can always modify or remove them later without affecting the original RAW file.

Best Practices

• Use Camera-Specific Presets: Make sure the preset matches your camera model for optimal results.
• Lens correction. Set up the specific lens to adjust vignetting and more.
• Adjust for Lighting Conditions: Presets are a starting point. Fine-tune white balance, exposure, and contrast based on the lighting of each shoot.
• Save Custom Variants: If you make adjustments you like, save them as a new preset for future use.
• Stay Updated: Presets may need to be updated when Capture One releases new versions or adds support for new cameras.

Compatibility Note

These presets are designed for Capture One Pro and are not guaranteed to work identically across different versions or with other software. If you’re transitioning from Lightroom, some adjustments may need to be manually recreated due to differences in how the two programs interpret RAW data.