Coral red and tropical turquoise for surf photos full of warm tropical island energy.
- XMP · Lightroom Classic, CC & Camera Raw
- .costyle · Capture One
- .cube · 3D LUT (DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro)
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Coral Bay
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Color rendering varies per monitor and camera model. Your photo is not saved.
Character and mood
Coral Bay sets the mood straight away. The preset carries tropical warmth without the heavy saturation you see everywhere online. Coral red pulls skin tones and golden hour light forward. The turquoise gives water and sky a depth that feels like standing at the shoreline. Together they turn an ordinary surf photo into something that feels like salt air and open water.
Technically, Coral Bay shifts the white balance slightly warm without pushing skin tones into orange territory. Highlights in water and foam receive a cool tint, making them stand out against the warmer midtones. Shadows are not crushed to black. They hold detail and carry a subtle blue undertone. Contrast is targeted: midtones are given body, the extremes stay open. Colors in the red, orange and yellow range are strengthened. Cyan and green are steered toward turquoise. The result is vivid and clear, but it stays grounded in what the scene actually looked like.
This preset works best with surf photography, beach sessions and travel portraits shot in full sun or golden hour. Action shots with spray, breaking waves or a silhouette against a bright sky all respond well. Lifestyle images on the beach, boats in a tropical harbor or close-ups of surfboards and gear fit naturally into this color palette. Scenes with a lot of blue and green in the water benefit most from the turquoise shift.
You reach for Coral Bay when you want a series that communicates a tropical feeling right away. Not as a filter, but as an extension of what you actually saw and felt at that location. The preset suits travel photography where the atmosphere of a place carries the story, and clients who want their surf trip or beach holiday to look the way they remember it.
One practical tip: adjust the exposure for each photo before applying the preset. Coral Bay is calibrated for an average exposure. If a photo is half a stop too dark, the turquoise disappears into the shadows. If it is too bright, the coral red flattens out. A small correction beforehand gets you the most out of the color palette.
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.
