Stacking Styles and Presets
You can apply or stack more than one Style (ie. Built-in Style or User Style) to an image (or group of images). Although stacking can be used to apply a bewildering combination of adjustments, it is perhaps best used with a number of custom User Styles or (User Presets) with fewer adjustment settings dedicated to certain steps in the editing workflow.
For example, you could have a User Style for a certain color-balance, a User Preset with certain IPTC metadata and keywords, and another User Preset for a specific sharpening routine. If you have several choices for each type, you can optimize the combination depending on the image, and even save those stacked-combinations as a new User Style.
Note stacking Styles and Presets is not an additive process. Each Style and Preset is compared and, where they adopt adjustments for the same tools, the last applied Style or Preset overrides the previously applied one. For example, when Style 1 applies a +1 EV exposure adjustment, and Style 2 applies a +1.5 EV exposure adjustment, the adjustment applied will be +1.5 EV.
Capture One allows you to stack Styles and Presets from either the dedicated Styles and Presets tool, or from the Adjustments menu. Note you must enable the Stack Styles option first before attempting to stack them, otherwise the previous one is replaced with the newer one.
For a clearer overview when stacking, it is recommended that the Style and Presets tool is adopted from the Adjustments Inspector instead of the Adjustments menu.
- Navigate to the Styles and Presets tool in the Adjustments Inspector and click on the Action menu icon (…). The Action menu dialog opens.
- Select Stack Styles, adding a checkmark in front.
- To apply the first Style, follow steps 1 through 6 above, listed under Applying a built-in Style or User Style.
- To add an additional Style, repeat steps 4 and 5 above. The image in the Viewer will be updated with the combined result of the applied Styles. (If you select the wrong Style or want to remove a Style, click on the active Style in the list to remove the checkmark. The image will be updated in the Viewer (without the previously applied Style).
- All Styles applied to the selected image will be displayed under the Applied folder (click on the disclosure triangle, if not displayed). The last applied in the group is listed first (and will, therefore, override the other adjustments for the same tools, where relevant).
- When more than three Styles are applied, scroll through the list to see the additional Styles.