Refined and perfect — showroom-white backgrounds and pure colours for competition-ready cars.
- XMP · Lightroom Classic, CC & Camera Raw
- .costyle · Capture One
- .cube · 3D LUT (DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro)
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Concours
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Character and mood
Concours is built for cars that are ready to be judged. The name says it all. This preset gives your photos the look that belongs to detailing competitions, press launches, and high-end dealerships: clean, controlled, with no colour noise or unwanted warmth creeping into the shadows.
Technically, Concours works by lifting the midtones and carefully calibrating the white balance to stay neutral. Backgrounds shift toward white without blowing out. Reflections on paintwork stay sharp and legible. Body colours read exactly as they should: red stays red, blue stays blue, silver gets a cool metallic edge instead of turning muddy. Contrast is present but never heavy-handed. No crushed blacks, no clipped highlights. Everything holds together.
This preset works best on cars photographed against a white or neutral background, in a studio or under soft, diffused daylight. Concours events, car dealerships, detailing shoots, product photography for automotive magazines or commercial websites, and portfolio work for collectors, these are the situations this preset was made for. If the car has a special paint colour or a level of detail worth showcasing, Concours lets those qualities come through clearly without adding anything that pulls focus away from them.
You choose Concours when you want nothing to compete with the car itself. No mood, no story, no location stealing the frame. Just the subject, rendered accurately and with presence. That demands a preset that stays out of the way while sharpening everything that matters. Concours does exactly that. It also works well as a base style for a full shoot or event, keeping every image in the series consistent without extra effort.
One practical tip: Concours performs best when your base exposure is already close to correct. If you are shooting outdoors under overcast light, check the white balance manually after applying the preset. A small shift toward cooler tones, somewhere between 5000 and 5500 Kelvin, gives the preset room to keep the background clean and the paint colour accurate.
Installation
Lightroom Classic & CC (desktop)
Unzip the downloaded file on your computer. Open Lightroom Classic and go to the Develop module. Right-click the Presets panel, choose 'Import Presets', and select the .xmp file. The preset appears in your list immediately and can be applied to any photo straight away.
Lightroom Mobile
Lightroom Mobile syncs presets via the cloud. Import the .xmp file into Lightroom CC on your desktop first. Once cloud sync completes, the preset is automatically available on your phone or tablet. An Adobe CC subscription is required for this sync feature.
Capture One
Unzip the file. Open Capture One and navigate to the Styles panel. Click the arrow next to 'Styles' and choose 'Import Style'. Select the .costyle file. The style is available in your library immediately. Works with Capture One version 21 and later.
DaVinci Resolve / Premiere Pro (3D LUT)
Copy the .cube file to your application's LUT folder. In DaVinci Resolve via Project Settings → Color Management → LUT folders. In Premiere Pro via the Lumetri Color panel → Creative tab → Look → Browse. The LUT works on both LOG and standard exposed video footage.
