Effect contours (.fcontour)

Use in the application

The contour selector saves the current curve as a named preset and imports or exports user libraries as .fcontour or .shc. Built-in entries are excluded from export. Catalogue edits do not change effects already applied.

File structure

Each presets entry has id, name, optional groupPath and curve. Points are [x, y] for a smooth point or [x, y, 1] for a corner. Native coordinates use the 0–1 range. Effect range and antialiasing stay with the layer style.

{
  "format": "focale-contour-presets",
  "version": 1,
  "presets": [
    {
      "id": "contour.user.cone",
      "name": "Cone",
      "groupPath": [
        "Studio"
      ],
      "curve": [
        [
          0,
          0
        ],
        [
          0.5,
          1,
          1
        ],
        [
          1,
          0
        ]
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Validation and limits

Maximum size: 16 MiB and 4,096 entries; names and identifiers: 4,096 UTF-16 units; groups: 32 segments. Stored curves have 2–256 finite points. The reader clamps and sorts coordinates, merges nearly equal x positions and supplies missing endpoints. Invalid entries or duplicate identifiers reject the library.

The curve must still fit 256 points after normalization and insertion of missing endpoints; otherwise the import is rejected.

Photoshop interchange

SHC imports and exports names, points and corners. Export rounds coordinates to the 0–255 grid and merges points at the same x. Use .fcontour to preserve native precision, identifiers and groups.

Complete format references

Download the full Markdown specifications in English, including schemas, validation rules and compatibility details.

• Download contour-presets.md