> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.tonalphoto.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Phocus Is Becoming Optional in My Hasselblad Workflow - URL: https://blog.tonalphoto.com/phocus-optional-hasselblad-workflow/ - Published: 2026-11-14T10:25:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-14T10:24:59.000Z - Description: My X2D II workflow now skips Phocus by default: Palomino to Lightroom Classic with a Phocus-look profile, shooting two stops under. - Author: Konrad Michels I never expected to be writing this post. Most of what I have published here since November 2025 is about Phocus for Mac, and I sell a guide to it. The biggest change since [the workflow I published in July](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/complete-hasselblad-raw-workflow/) is that Phocus has dropped out of my default path. For the last eight to ten weeks I have worked almost entirely in Lightroom Classic. 💡 ****A note on support:** This post represents my personal exploration and testing, not official technical support or guidance from Hasselblad. If you need assistance with your Hasselblad equipment, please contact Hasselblad directly: [customersupport@hasselblad.com](mailto:customersupport@hasselblad.com) for global support, [support.us@hasselblad.com](mailto:support.us@hasselblad.com) for the Americas, or visit hasselblad.com/support for regional options. > **Key finding:** My X2D II workflow no longer runs through Phocus by default. I cull in Palomino, import the picks straight into Lightroom Classic and apply a custom profile that gets close to Phocus color. Shooting about two stops under at ISO 50 or 200 removed most of the frames that needed Phocus's highlight recovery or HNNR. ![Two workflow rows. In July 2026 every frame went through a Phocus pass before Lightroom Classic; now Palomino copies picks straight into Lightroom Classic, with a copy to the NAS and Phocus kept only for a badly overexposed frame](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f5/ac/f5aca107-db6c-464b-b8b7-7b834c3c955f/content/images/2026/11/fig1-pipeline-then-now-1.png) Figure 1\. The July workflow and the one I run now. ## What changed since the July workflow In July I moved my finishing from Capture One to Lightroom Classic. In my opinion its masking and object removal are far ahead of Capture One's for my landscape work. The July workflow still sent every frame through Phocus first, because Phocus was the only way to get Hasselblad's color out of a 3FR. Two things have since moved Phocus out of that path. I now shoot about two stops under the meter as a habit, and I have built a Lightroom profile that renders an X2D II file very close to the way Phocus does. In between I tried automating the Phocus pass with [the hot folder and a small script](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/phocus-hot-folder-batch-processing/), and spent my time on the profile instead. The app itself has not got any better at the jobs I needed it for. It is still completely unsuitable for culling a shoot, large or small, because it is just too slow. And [the list of bugs I have reported to Hasselblad](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/phocus-known-issues/) stands at 25 for Phocus for Mac 4.x, ten of which have been fixed. ## Why does shooting two stops under make Phocus optional? Because the frames that needed Phocus have mostly stopped coming off the card. Apart from color, Phocus held its place in my workflow for two jobs: recovering highlights on overexposed frames, and running HNNR on noisy ones. Shooting about two stops under has taken care of both. I shoot pretty much manually, with autofocus the only automation I leave on. HDR at capture is always off, because the raw file has the entire dynamic range anyway. ([The March metering post](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/hasselblad-x2d-ii-highlight-weighted-metering/) says I leave HDR on. That is no longer how I shoot.) Exposure follows [the ISO invariance post](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/iso-invariance-hasselblad-x2d-ii/): ISO 50 when there is enough light, ISO 200 when there isn't, and about two stops under what the meter asks for. That post said three stops under, and [the ETTR post](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/ettr-hasselblad-x2d-ii/) 2.5 to 3\. I have shot a lot of frames since, and two stops is about the sweet spot, where I can recover pretty much everything in Lightroom. With the 3FR going straight into Lightroom, Lightroom has the raw data to work from, and at two stops under I very seldom have a highlight it can't bring back. Noise went the same way. I am very, very seldom above ISO 200, so I haven't run HNNR in the last few weeks. When I am higher, Lightroom's Denoise gives great results on those frames. Adobe lists only raw formats as supported for Denoise, so it was never available for the 16-bit TIFFs that came out of Phocus.¹ Researching and writing the blog and page posts I produce takes up a lot of my time and costs me money for software subscriptions, tooling, and other incidentals related to running a business. Please consider a paid membership to help me keep the lights on and pay the bills - it is only a fraction of the cost of an X2D II and a lens. Click on the button to go to the membership page to see the options available. [Support the blog. ](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/membership/) ## From Palomino to Lightroom Classic, step by step There is no Phocus step at all now. A shoot goes like this: 1. **Cull in** [**Palomino**](https://palomino-app.com/hasselblad/?ref=blog.tonalphoto.com)**.** I go through the card and mark picks with the P key. I don't do a ton of rating. When I'm inspired enough to give a frame stars, I export the XMP sidecar with it so the rating reaches Lightroom, which is what that option is there for. 2. **Export the picks to a temporary folder.** Palomino's export writes untouched copies of the 3FRs, on local storage. 3. **Copy the picks to the NAS.** I kick that copy off by hand. On the NAS the raws go into a year folder, 2026 right now, with a few named folders for trips like Alaska and New Mexico. 4. **Import into Lightroom Classic with Copy, not Add.** Add leaves the files in the temporary folder and only links to them, so the moment they move, Lightroom loses track of them. Copy puts them into a folder structure Lightroom knows about and that I back up. Inside the catalog the folders are by import day. The NAS copy and the import can run at the same time. 5. **Clear out the temporary folder** once both copies are done, to get the disk space back. 6. **Apply the profile to the whole import** in one go, then start editing. For vignetting, a lot depends on the image. I tick Enable Profile Corrections in Lightroom's Lens Corrections panel, and if the result looks overcorrected I dial Vignetting down to 50\. On some images it's fine where it is, and sometimes the darker vignetting actually works well. ## The Lightroom profile is a work in progress The profile is what lets me skip Phocus for color. It is a custom camera profile for Lightroom Classic, built to render an X2D II raw file the way Phocus renders it, and it gets me incredibly close to HNCS colors. I'm still working on it. The current version scores a median of 0.94 dE2000 against Phocus 4.2.3\. That is measured on 57 XCD 90V frames shot after the profile was built, each exported from Lightroom and compared with Phocus's render of the same file. dE2000 is the standard measure of how far apart two colors are: 0 means identical, and lower is closer. That figure is for one lens on recent frames, and [the full measurements are written up here](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/lightroom-camera-profile-phocus-color/). ![The same frame rendered twice, side by side. On the left Phocus 4.2.3, on the right Lightroom Classic with the Phocus look profile. A backlit red maple leaf against a dark background, shot on the XCD 90V at ISO 50. The two renders look the same](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f5/ac/f5aca107-db6c-464b-b8b7-7b834c3c955f/content/images/2026/11/fig2-phocus-vs-lightroom-1.png) Figure 2\. One frame, rendered by Phocus 4.2.3 on the Standard response and by Lightroom Classic with the profile. XCD 90V at ISO 50, As Shot white balance, lens corrections off in both. The measured difference across 13,842 smooth, unclipped blocks in the center of the frame is 0.45 dE2000, with Lightroom 0.31 L\* darker. The limits I know about: - **Lens brightness.** Phocus brightens frames toward the edges by a different amount for each lens, even with lens correction switched off. A profile applies the same way to every lens, so it can't copy that, and XCD 90V frames come out slightly darker in Lightroom than in Phocus. A small exposure preset per lens should fix it. I haven't built that yet. - **Pushed frames.** On twelve frames pushed two stops in both apps, Lightroom came out slightly less saturated than Phocus. I don't know why yet. I have also only checked white balance between roughly 4,500 K and 8,000 K, and tones right at the edge of clipping still differ from Phocus. I am not handing the profile out yet. The version I use has not changed since late October, but there are kinds of frame I have not measured it on, and I want those done before anyone else builds a workflow on it. ## What this looks like without a profile The exposure half of this works on any X2D II today, whichever editor you finish in. Color is where you still choose. Open a 3FR straight in Lightroom and you get Adobe's rendering, which I [measured against Phocus and Capture One](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/phocus-capture-one-lightroom-hasselblad-measured/) in July. If you want Hasselblad's color in the final file, the July workflow still holds. [What you keep and lose when you skip Phocus](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/phocus-vs-lightroom-what-you-lose-skipping-hasselblad/) goes through that trade, and [the Phocus guide](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/phocus-guide/) covers the parts of Phocus that Lightroom does not replace. ## When I still open Phocus For a frame that is viciously overexposed. Phocus's highlight recovery is still better than Lightroom's, and that is the main job it still has in my workflow. Shooting two stops under, that frame almost never turns up. When it does, I don't import into Phocus. Since Phocus 4.2, [Import changes metadata in the raw file itself](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/dxo-pureraw-3fr-phocus-4-2-import/), so I copy the raws into a folder and open that folder in Phocus without running Import. I leave the frame on the camera's embedded settings and don't apply the Standard preset, which moves the Vignetting slider to 100 and changes the whole image. Hasselblad told me [both renders are HNCS](https://blog.tonalphoto.com/what-hncs-actually-is/). So I leave lens corrections on, leave Vignetting alone, recover the highlights, export the 16-bit TIFF, and do the vignetting in Lightroom afterwards. HNNR is there if I need it. I have run it with Prioritise Detail on frames as low as ISO 400, and it worked really well, so the ISO 1600 floor I gave in July is not a hard one. ## Where to start If you want to try this before there is a profile to share, start with the exposure. Shoot your next outing about two stops under at ISO 50 or 200, open the 3FRs straight in Lightroom, and see how many frames you would still send to Phocus for highlights or noise. For me it is almost none. ## Sign up for The Tech Behind the Frame - Hasselblad edition Practical Hasselblad knowledge the official docs don't cover. Workflows, file behaviour, and real-world insights for Phocus and X2D II users. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## References 1. [Adobe, "Enhance fine details in raw images", Lightroom Classic help](https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/desktop/process-and-develop-photos/enhance-details.html?ref=blog.tonalphoto.com), section "Supported image formats for Denoise". Every entry is a raw format (Bayer and X-Trans mosaic raw, linear DNG, and others); TIFF and JPEG are not listed. Read 2026-10-30.