Nordic Styles for Capture One - First Impressions Review
A few weeks ago Capture One launched a new style pack for the software of the same name, called “Nordic Styles”. Available in two packs, each with two styles in two variations, the stated aim of the styles is to “channel nordic light and beauty” and to “achieve elegant colour grading inspired by Scandinavian editorials.” I had a chance to try out both style packs, and in this post, is my first impressions.
There are two packs in the Nordic Styles … styles? The first is the “Nordic Lifestyle” which consists of two styles in 3 variations. These are “Stockholm” and “Helsinki”. The second kit, called “Nordic Editorial” also comes in two styles “Oslo and Copenhagen”.
To try these out I went back into my archives and found some RAW files from when I visited Oslo back in 2012. To be honest, I was a little skeptical of these before starting, but I was pleasantly surprised. The very first image I tried these on, I was quite taken aback by how good it looked. Below is a before and after. This was using the “Copenhagen” style from the editorial pack.
Note - if you click on the images below, you can view them large and flip back and forth between the before and after - unfortunately squarespace doesn’t let me embed a before and after slider.
This style adds some warm rich tones to the colour palette as well as some subtle contrast. As each of the styles come in three variations, each variation includes a step up in terms of the overall contrast. It makes it easy to get a close match to what you want without having to do much else.
For the next few shots, I tried the “Stockholm” style from the Lifestyle kit. This adds a nice tint to blues and has a nice tonal adjustment which does bring up the light in the images, but you ned to use suitable images to start with.
The Oslo Styles add some blue to the shadows to create a cool tone and add some contrast, but the overall effect is a little subtle, depending on your image.
Helsinki creates a more muted effect, again with a bright contrast curve, and may be more useful for bright outdoor effects.
The one area that I can’t share, and which is why I’m labelling this as a “first impressions” review is for portraits. I was trying the styles on some sample images from DpReview and they work well on portrait shots, but I can’t share them as they are copyright. I don’t really have any portrait shots of my own, but I will try and get some so I can share how these styles look on portrait and lifestyle shoots.
Overall, I am more impressed than I was expecting to be with these styles. As with all presets or looks or styles (depending on the package) they really depend on what you feed them, and so they’re not going to work on every image. I tried them on some of my street photography from Dublin and city scapes from NewYork they weren’t a fit at all, but they worked perfectly on my Oslo shots, and some street photography shots from London. I think my favourite is the “Copenhagen” style from the Nordic Editorial pack.
As with any of the first party style packs from Capture One, the question of value inevitably comes up in comments when I review them. Each style pack is €29 for just two styles in a couple of variations. Some may see this as bad value, but it really depends on how much use you get from them, so it's really a personal call. I can’t determine if they’re good value for you or not, as it depends on your photography and how much you might use them. They are also available in a pack with the Beyond Film styles which may be better value to you. Personally, I think a smaller number of high quality styles is probably better than a folder full of dozens that you only ever use one or two of anyway, but again, it really depends on how you might use them, and I can see how some people would consider this overly expensive for what you get.
Please note that this is not a sponsored post, but I am on the Capture One affiliate programme, and get a small comission for purchases made through links, which helps pay for the running of this site
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