A method of automatically creating and/or optimizing an optical proximity correction (OPC) rule set can include providing an initial OPC rule set and applying the initial OPC rule set to a layout data set to generate a corrected layout data set. The corrected data set can be simulated and optical rule checking (ORC) can be performed. Based on the simulation and ORC, it can be determined whether residual edge placement errors are present within the corrected layout data set and whether the residual errors lie outside specified limits. If residual edge placement errors are present within the corrected layout data set or lie outside of specified limits, existing OPC rules can be modified and/or new OPC rules can be added to the initial OPC rule set to correct the residual edge placement errors.