Capture One

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Dodging & burning in Capture One Pro 8

In my last blog post I used some of the new features in Capture One Pro 8 to work on an image by David Goldman.

This time I have another really well executed action shot from Allan Mørch at animal-print.dk. Allan wrote in his email that as a sports photographer he doesn’t often get to choose the ideal place to photograph, and in this case it has resulted in the image being a little backlit.

Introducing lighting into the image

However, with dodging and burning techniques, much like that we did in the darkroom, we can introduce some lighting into the image to reverse that effect.

Fortunately the image is well focused and exposed, so no work to do here. Working with the RAW data in Capture One Pro 8, we will be able to enhance what Allan has captured in camera already.

Here is the image with no adjustments in Capture One Pro 8.

What I would like to try and do is make the horse and rider stand out a little more from the background and see if we can enhance the water spray as well. Finally I think I will try to remove the photographer in the background with the new Repair layers!

Enhancing the water droplets

As I mentioned in the introduction, I can make certain elements stand out more by using a dodging and burning technique with the Local Adjustment tool. But before getting onto that, I will do a couple of basic corrections to the overall image.

First, I will add some Natural Clarity to the image and some Structure. I am hoping the Structure will help to enhance the water droplets as well.

You can see the top image here has some Clarity and Structure applied and it has really helped enhance the water spray. I have used the new Natural method in order not affect the color saturation and to not overwork the image.

Incidentally, no changes have been made to the White Balance, it looks pretty good out of camera!

Make elements stand out more with dodging and burning

The next task is to begin dodging and burning. The first thing to do is to go to the Local Adjustment tool and make two new layers by clicking the ‘plus’ button and calling them Dodge and Burn respectively.

The Burn layer is set to -2 stops and the Dodge layer (not shown here) is set to +2 stops. This will allow us to selectively lighten and darken areas of the image.

The crucial part is how we use the Local Adjustment brush to do this, most importantly, the Opacity setting. Select the Draw Mask Brush by hitting ‘b’ on the keyboard or selecting it here.

Right-click anywhere on the image and drop the Opacity to less than 10. This will give us a really subtle effect to the dodging and burning.

Now, with repeated brush strokes, I can ‘burn-in’ the exposure around the horse and rider. By using a low opacity, the effect is much more subtle and allows you to vary the strength of our -2 stop correction. More brush strokes in the same area will have a greater effect and vice versa.

I also find using a large soft brush helps as well. So after a bit of time brushing, I can drop the exposure of the surroundings to a level I like. I also darkened the water a little below the horse, as there is a nice reflection there too.

A similar technique can be used for dodging. As the horse and rider is backlit slightly, I can make a few subtle brushes on the horse’s body to lighten it a little, not forgetting to switch to the dodge layer.

I have made the brush smaller too, to be more suitable for the horse’s body. Watch this short YouTube clip to see the effect of the dodge layer:

http://youtu.be/uC5URHfn2FA

To finish with Local Adjustments, I will add one more layer with a graduated filter on the bottom of the image to darken the foreground a little. I have chosen the Gradient Mask brush (hit ‘g’ on the keyboard) and draw a small gradient from the bottom of the screen.

Now I just need to darken this area a little by pulling the Exposure slider to the left.

Two final jobs remain: One, to remove the troublesome photographer in the background and secondly to tighten up the crop.

Click and hold on the ‘plus’ button in the Local Adjustments tool, to make a new Repair layer.

In this case Heal will be the best function.

To select the source for repairing a section of the image, hold down the ALT key and click…

and then mask over the area to be healed.

Our photographer has vanished leading to a cleaner background. Here is the final image, with a tighter crop.

and finally shown with the original image…

The effects are subtle but I think it enhanced an already good image.

Best regards,

David

Film Grain, the right photorealistic way

Capture One Pro 8 has introduced a new Film Grain tool. With this tool you can add film grain to your images in an extremely realistic way, giving the same look and feel you see in prints created from film (you remember film right?).

You can also use the tool to add texture to the surfaces in your images however you like without having any preconceived notion about emulating a film “look”.

Mimics the behavior of traditional silver halide films

The film grain options you can apply in Capture One Pro 8 are generated by an algorithm. This process mimics the behavior of different traditional silver halide films and maintains a natural feel rather than simply stamping a mask over the image as some softwares do.

The Capture One Film Grain will add texture to your images while still preserving the all-important detail and structure in the image, just like film does.

You can find the Film Grain tool in the Details Tool tab of Capture One 8.

The Film Grain tool in its default location of the Details Tool Tab. Here the type “Silver Rich” has been selected with an Impact of 100% and a Granularity of 80%.

There are three different controls for the Film Grain tool, Type, Impact and Granularity:

Type: When choosing ‘Type’ you are selecting the “technology” of the film you want to simulate. The Fine Grain option is not actually a film grain but the standard “grain” that you may have used in previous versions of Capture One. So to successfully emulate a film look you should choose among the following methods:

Silver Rich
Soft Grain
Cubic Grains
Tabular Grains
Harsh Grain

The Type that you choose will change the look of the grains by having different properties applied, which will change the shape, distribution and size of the grains.

Silver Rich is a very good starting Type when it comes to exploring the Film Grain tool.

Impact: With the Impact slider you can determine how strong you would like the effect of the film grain to show on your image. In a way it is similar to determining the opacity of the grain. If you want to simulate real film you should use maximum Impact of 100%.

Granularity: With the Granularity slider you determine the amount of grain per pixel. So to simulate a fine grain film, use low values of Granularity between 0 and 30. If you want a real strong visible effect, use values up to 100%. This adjustment can be thought of similar to the speed of the film used, when comparing the adjustment to the use of Film.

Viewing the grains:

The best way to see the Film Grain effect is to zoom into the image 100%. Only at these resolutions will you see the actual effect of the adjustment. If you zoom out, for instance, Capture One Pro 8 will simulate the grain look in an approximate manner but be aware that this is primarily used for you to see that grains have been added. You should not judge the film grain adjustment when zoomed to “Fit” as the results may not be 100% accurate to your final processed file.

100% zoom

Granularity =20 Granularity =30 Granularity =60

For all three images the Type “Silver Rich” with an Impact of 100 have been used.

Preserving details:

Full image 100% zoom – No Film Grains 100% – With Film Grains

In the third image above I’ve added a Film Grain with relatively strong Impact. Still you can easily see all the important details in the image that are present without the Film Grain adjustment.

The Film realistic look of the Phase One Film Grain

In the silver halide film process, a single grain would turn black after the film is developed, should it have been exposed to a proper amount of light. This means that the more light a film was exposed to, the more film grains would turn black after developing.

This kind of behavior can also be seen when using the Film Grain tool in Capture One Pro 8. Due of this film like behavior of the tool you will see pure blacks and pure whites without Grains and a super realistic tonality in between. Remember, fully exposed grains would be pure black on the negative and thus pure white on the print, and vice versa.

In this image I have clipped the histogram to ensure that I get real deep blacks and pure whites. The results meant to properly emulate a “film” look.

A 100% zoom into the deep black areas of the image. Notice that the clipped deep black appears without Grain. Just as film would.

A 100% zoom into the bright part of the image. Notice that the image goes totally white simulating that all the film grains have been exposed. Again, just as we would find in film.

The Film Grain in Capture One Pro 8 will adapt to any adjustment change you do to your image ensuring beautiful and realistic Film Grain effects.

Grain designed for print

The Film Grain tool is designed very cleverly to generate Film Grain that, in print, will give the same look whether you use an image from a high-resolution camera or a low-resolution camera, as long as you print the image at the same size. As a consequence a 100% zoom into for instance a 80M pixel Phase One IQ280 image with Film Grain added will look a little different compared to a 100% zoom into for instance a Canon 5DMKII image.

Determining the right Granularity for a print

How visible the grain will appear in the final printed image depends on how large you print your image – exactly like using real film. So it is strongly recommended that you do some test print at your normal print sizes with different values of Granularity, but with fixed Method and Impact.

Once you have a clear idea of what settings you prefer for different print sizes it’s a good idea to create your own Film Grain Presets for instance:

Medium Grain A3
Medium Grain A4
Medium Grain A5

Scaling an image with Film Grain:

The film grain in Capture One Pro 8 is added to the image at the full size of the images. So if you process the image to a size different from 100% you should be aware that the grain will be scaled accordingly and thus it will look different. As a rule of thumb you should increase the Granularity by approximately 30 points if you downsize the image by 50%. This should be followed in order to achieve the same size grain-look seen at 100% in Capture One.

100 % zoom

Size = 100 % Size = 50 % Size = 25 %
Granularity = 30 Granularity = 60 Granularity = 90

The same image is processed to different sizes using the Film Grain tool. To achieve the same visual effect of the Film Grain when viewed at a 100% zoom rate, I’ve compensated with an extra 30 points of Granularity every time I reduce the image size by 50%.

Adding Grain after retouching in Photoshop

If your workflow normally involves retouching in Photoshop, you can still use the Film Grain tool in Capture One Pro 8 as it works the same when applied to Tiff and Jpg files. In this case you start processing the RAW file without using the Film Grain tool and then add the Film Grain to the resulting Tiff file after you have finished the retouching.

All the best,

Niels

The enhanced B&W tool put to the test

As an assignment we were asked to portrait our friend Michael, one of the owners of Zurich’s L’Ei’Out design agency.

We had the unique opportunity to portrait him in the south of France, Provence Region. We were very lucky to find a cool spot, a unique piece of furniture – and to have a great guy in front of our Phase One camera. The rest was an easy job for Capture One Pro 8.

Tremendously improved conversion

First I started to import the image into a Capture One Pro 8 session and chose the Base Characteristics for our Phase One IQ260 and used a “Film Standard” Curve. See screenshot below.

Then I rotated the picture a bit by using the new “Rotate Freehand” tool: just pick the tool, click somewhere in the picture and rotate as you wish! See below.

The Black and White dialog box in Capture One Pro 8 is still the same as in the previous version – but the result of the conversion is tremendously improved! I turned yellow and green down to get a deeper and more dramatic appearance since I had a lot of foliage in the picture.

In the Exposure tab I opened the shadows a little bit in the HDR tool and applied a slight s-curve to add some more contrast. I have chosen the new Clarity method “Natural” and darkened the corners of the picture with the vignetting tool massively to get the picture more into a classic black and white look.

The new Film Grain tool is great, especially for black and white pictures. For this picture I used the grain type “Silver Rich” and have chosen the granularity to my taste. I also “misused” the Spot Removal tool to do some simple corrections in Michael’s face and also removed a bright and disturbing spot in the background!

Now… the fun part: With the improved Local Adjustment tools in Capture One Pro 8, it’s really easy to do some dodge & burn within Capture One.

I created two correction layers “lighten” & “darken” and drew the masks accordingly. Just use a soft brush with a low opacity! I lighted some minor parts in the face and darkened the background and parts of the jeans. With the massive performance increase in version 8, drawing a mask is really fast and easy now!

So this is the “lighten” part before:

So this is the “lighten” part before: And this is the version with the correction and the mask applied!

The same with the darken layer. Here is the version before:

This is what the mask looks like:

And this is the version with the correction layer applied!

Below is the final image out of Capture One! Please note that the whole process – including the dodge & burn part – took us less than five minutes! I hope you enjoyed that little trip to France!

Best regards,

Andreana and Alex
Scanderbeg Sauer

My favorite feature in Capture One Pro 8

This week you get another chance to go behind the scenes and meet the dedicated and passionate team behind Capture One Pro 8. Check out the video and get unique insights into the making of Capture One Pro 8. Enjoy!

All the best,

Niels