Since VSCO ended support I decided to try and make my own profiles.

An Exception

An Exception

An Exception

Soldato
Joined
8 Aug 2010
Posts
6,453
Location
Oxfordshire
I used to like using VSCO's Portra 800 and a few other profiles of theirs, but hacking the DCP files every time I got a new camera sucked. Tried Mastin Labs and a couple of others but skin tones and saturation etc. would sometimes go way oversaturated.
So I decided to create my own profiles that will work with pretty much any camera that Lightroom supports.

I tried to achieve the following:
Maximum dynamic range out of the RAW files as possible with just the profile applied. (before messing with the sliders etc.)
Decent amount of contrast.
Limit oversaturation.
Smooth skin tones - Soft roll-off in the highlights to specular highlights (also smooths bokeh).
Even skin chroma - If skin is too magenta it's shifted to green slightly, or if skin is too green it's shifted to magenta slightly.
Lastly I wanted a filmic look, without straying too far from a 'natural' look.

It would be great if you guys can take a look at them, and let me know if you see any areas of improvement.

Below is adobe color.
Profiles-1.jpg


Below is my profile.
Profiles-2.jpg


For comparison below is VSCO Portra 800
Profiles-3.jpg


One thing I like is the sliders are all zero'd, so I can recover more highlight details etc. if I want, without looking too unnatural.

Screenshot-2023-12-11-at-8-08-49-PM.png
 
If you have teh VSCO presets still in LR then you still have access to the general VSCO presets to regain shadows/highlights etc, so well worth keeping those.

I tweaked the VSCO presets I liked many years ago and evolved them into my own presets which have since been unique to my specific lenses and style, if I got a new camera say a Sony or whatever then I can easily revise a few areas like highlight or shadow range and update the presets to become the new look for the new camera. You can do the same with your old ones too as the differences should generally be minor and you can then tweak and update with the new camera's RAW files.

The ones you have posted seem fine, are the adobe color ones the direct RAW captures (captured in adobe rgb in-camera)? Or is adobe color a preset that you use to baseline images? In the 2nd shot too is the sky completely blown out or has the D810 retained hidden detail? A quick gradient mask then highlight slider drop would show what's what under there I reckon. I've seen many instances where my RAWs look like the sky is overblown, but doing the above and then some tweaks to the other sliders brings much cloud definition that gives some body to the sky:

Interesting though, was curious, so here's how your first one looks on my preset, at least as far as can be using a jpg as the source :p

7qzKaxf.jpg


For that shot, the VSCO version appears to retain slightly more shadow detail than your version, especially by the blazer pocket area and lower waistcoat^
 
Hey mrk, long time no see.

Yeh I switched to Sony now, so in order for VSCO to work, I have to edit the DCP profiles to get them to work. The Newer Sony's also seem to quite different in terms of the actual raw data compared to the older ones.

Regarding the sky. I was overcast to the point there wasn't much, if any definition to the sky.
As for the shadows, yes I crushed the blacks a little to compensate for reduced contrast in mid/highlights. I also figured shadow detail is easy to boost if needed.

Here is another, I also included a link to a DNG file so you can test also.

Edit:
What I meant by adobe color. Was it's just adobe's default color profile they apply to the raw data. i.e. SOOC
 
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