Lightroom tone curve settings

[ianmarsh]

I was just watching a YouTube video and the photographer hit the Point Curve button in the Tone Curve panel. Up popped what I usually see - a choice of linear, Medium Contrast or Strong Contrast - but he also had a load of what looked like film tone curve settings below. The list started with Fuji FP - 100c with lots of variants for each film. Anyone know where they come from?

I find tone curve settings to be very powerful but they are all a bit random when I do them by had. Some replicable settings would be very helpful.

The photographer is an Aussie (Andrew Marr) so given he is hopefully relaxing with a cold beer right now I thought I'd ask here before I try him.

 

[Alastair]

Sounds like he has some VSCO presets installed.

 

[ianmarsh]

Ah, and they load into the Tone Curve panel?? I thought it might have been those but then figured that presets would load into the Presets panel on the left.

Excellent, problem solved, many thanks Alastair

 

[Alastair]

The magic sauce in the VSCO presets are a suite of custom tone curves. When your select a VSCO preset it applies the relevant tone curve alongside more obvious settings in the Develop panel.

 

[Alastair]

I realise I over-simplified, the presets are provided in Standard and manufacturer-specific versions (e.g. Fuji). You choose which manufacturer specific versions you install (and can go back and change/add more later). Other than the Standard versions, the tone curves are manufacturer specific to match the manufacturers typical sensor output bias. For supported models there's then a camera model specific calibration applied as well. This should mean that regardless of the camera used (provided it's a supported model) the end result in terms of how the image is graded should be the same. As significant new camera models are released VSCO provides updates to include the relevant calibration (the natives are getting restless waiting on the 5Div update). I can see there's a lot of work goes into these products. It's amusing when they're written off as "just another preset" by folk that have never tried them. I have a few packs and there are several of their presets that I like and that I'd really struggle to replicate the look of if I went the hair shirt route.