Anyone coming over from Lightroom to Capture One would be confused about the two terms used in Capture: Preset and Style.
What is the difference between Preset and Style in Capture One? Well it is different so here it is…
Preset – Capture One
Preset in Capture One is a Tool that can be saved in defined settings. These can be for example the Exposure tool where you adjust, Exposure, Contrast, Brightness and Saturation. You can modify these as you wish and can save them as Presets, there are several provided out of the box as well (as you see below).
Exposure compensation +1 fstop increases the exposure by +1 on any image you wish to apply this preset.
You can create you own Preset by adjusting the sliders to your liking and then saving these settings via the 
burger menu and Save Custom Preset. By ticking the Stack Presets option you can stack multiple Preset on top of each other.
Like the Color Balance wheel has multiple uses and you can create the different Presets to create unique colour grading looks that you like.
Style – Capture One
Now Style is a collection of Tools that have been edited to one’s liking and are used to combine & create a whole look that applies on your image so referring to Lightroom terms a Preset (in Lightroom) is equivalent to a Style in Capture One. Applying a Sytle will apply all the Tools and their predefined settings to the image, resulting in the look originally created and saved under a Style.
Style can also be stacked on top of each other in add then apply in a additive manner to your image. Once applied, you can see which Styles are applied to your image. For example in the image below you see two styles applied: Eterna Film 1 and After Light
Conclusion
So in conclusion – Preset is just one Tool with specific settings in Capture One while a Style is a collection of Tool(s) adjusted and applied to an image together. Hope this clears up the difference between the two.
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