In Capture One Pro it’s possible to fine-tune your images by using Local Adjustments layers.

With 10 layers at your disposal you can do quite a few of changes to an image, but you often find that you need just a few more layers.

In Capture One Pro 8.1, which is now available for download, the maximum number of Local Adjustments layers has been increased from 10 to 16.

The image to the left is straight out of the camera. The image to the right has been adjusted in Capture One Pro 8.1 using more than 10 Local Adjustments layers.

By using multiple Local Adjustments layers I have been able to control the color and brightness of different areas in the image in order to bring focus on the story of the cozy shopping street in the old center of Copenhagen on a late cold December afternoon.

Below is a step-by-step walkthrough of how I optimized this image in Capture One Pro 8.1

1) First level of tone adjustments:

As I had to lean out of a tower to capture this image, I used ISO 6400, which is about the upper limit for the camera in order to produce a fine result. The image has been exposed with a bit of clipping in the brightest areas of the street lamps in order to minimize noise in the rest of the image.

 

My first adjustments will be a first level of tone adjustments just to bring the image a little closer to where I want it. As I already know that I will be doing many other corrections to the image, this first level of adjustments doesn’t need to be that precise.

With the High Dynamic Range tool I open up the shadows and bring back some of the details in the highlights. On top of this I add a Curve to brighten the image in general.

2) Setting the overall color tone of the image by adjusting the White Balance in different areas of the image:

I would like to get a general more bluish tone to the image in order to focus more on the theme of a cold winter and cozy shopping. I will now divide the image into three major zones: the sky, the snow-covered rooftops and the lit shopping street.

In the Local Adjustments tool I create two new Adjustments layers one for the street lights and one for the rooftops. The sky will be controlled by the background layer. When drawing the masks I use a brush with hardness “0” to ensure that the different areas blend smoothly into each other.

 

 

              Background                                  The street lights                              The Rooftops

 

For drawing the masks for the rooftops I start drawing the edge of the mask and then use the “Fill Mask” option.

When using the “Fill Mask” option I only need to draw the edges of the mask.

Now it is time to set the overall color tone in the image by setting an individual White Balance for the three areas. I use the Kelvin and Tint sliders. I start with the Kelvin slider and fine-tune with the Tint slider.

The image with individual White Balance adjusted for the shopping street, the sky and snow-covered rooftops.

3) Adjusting individual buildings in the image

There are a number of buildings I would like to work on now. First of all the church at the end of the shopping street needs to be brightened up a bit in order for the viewer of the image to be attracted to this part of the image but a few other buildings need a little work too. I create Local Adjustments layers for each of them.

The five different buildings that need to be adjusted

With the five buildings adjusted

4) Getting rid of distracting elements

Now looking at the image above I find a number of distracting elements. First of all the three windows in the lower left corner are way to bright and draw unnecessary attention to them and therefore need to be fixed.

Close to the tower with lights in the background there is a very bright lamp that needs to be removed and finally I would like to draw more attention to the shopping street and the church tower by adding a mask that darkens everything but this path of the image. Right now the brightest part of the image is close to the light-covered tower.

For the three windows I make an adjustment mask and use a combination of the highlight slider in the High Dynamic Range tool and the Exposure tool.

The bright lamp in the background I remove by using a Clone layer and clone in a building close by.

The mask for drawing attention I create by using a very wide brush with hardness “0” painting over the area I want most attention to. I then invert the mask to darken the surroundings.

The attention mask before I invert it

                               Before                                                                         After

Before and after fixing the distracting elements in the image.

5) Fixing the red hearts in the street decoration

The last thing that needs to be fixed is the color of the red hearts hanging over the shopping street. If you look at the reflection on the street is obvious that the hearts were red, but because of the over-exposure of the highlights, the red hearts have turned yellow. To bring back the color of the hearts I create a mask for the hearts and use the Color Editor and the Highlight slider in the High Dynamic Range tool.

Before and after fixing the color of the red hearts in the street decoration.

The example above could only have been made with the same degree of optimizations by utilizing the extra number of Adjustments Layers now available in Capture One Pro 8.1

Download Capture One Pro 8.1 here

All the best,

Niels

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In Capture One Pro 8 it is also now possible to change the White Balance in a Local Adjustments layer.

The ability to change the White Balance locally in an image can be very useful for instance when shooting architecture images at dusk time. Here the difference in color temperature between the outdoor dusk light and the lighting in the buildings can be quite big, resulting in unnatural-looking colors.

New opportunities with your images

But even in landscape images it can be beneficial to work with different White Balances as there can be quite a big difference between shadow areas and areas with sunlight. Often if you open op some shadow areas in a landscape image, it becomes even more obvious that the shadows typically get their main light from the deep blue color of the sky. With the ability to change the White Balance individually between the areas with direct sun and the shadow areas you get entirely new opportunities with your images.

 

Straight from the camera                    Shadows opened                 Local White Balance applied

3 versions of the same image

Above you see three different versions of the same image. For all three images the White Balance for the background is the same. The image has been exposed to ensure details in the sunlit cliffs in the background leaving the foreground quite dark.

The left image is straight out of the camera. For the image in the middle the shadow areas of the foreground have been opened by using the shadow slider in the High Dynamic Range tool. It is quite obvious that the foreground gets very bluish because it is primarily lit by the deep blue sky. You first notice this after the shadows have recovered.

For the image to the right a local White Balance has been applied to a Local Adjustments mask covering the cliffs in the shadow areas. By doing this it is possible to balance the color of the foreground to match the colors of the background giving a much more realistic and pleasing image.

In the Local Adjustments tool you will by default see all the tools that can be used in a Local Adjustments layer and in Capture One Pro 8 you will also see the White Balance tool.

Let’s look at another example with an architecture image shot at dusk time. The image was shot using White Balance set for Tungsten. This is often a good starting point as the sky typically gets deep blue and the indoor light doesn’t get too far off.

Architecture image at dusk time captured using tungsten White Balance.

It is quite obvious that the indoor lighting looks quite ugly. The lights in the big central office areas have a green cast while the most other offices get a slightly orange cast.

Here the new feature of being able to change the White Balance locally can be a big help. I would like to preserve the nice deep blue sky but I would also like to change the color of the indoor lighting to a more pleasing warm tone.

I am actually quite satisfied with the color of the blue sky so I will leave the White Balance for the Background layer at Tungsten. I can at any time later fine-tune the White Balance for the background layer without changing the White Balance for any of the adjustments layers I make.

 Making an Adjustments Layer for a local White Balance

I start by adding a new adjustments layer by clicking on the + button at the button of the Local Adjustments tool. I create a layer for the central office in the building with the green cast and a mask for the other offices.

Press the “+” button to add a new adjustments layer

 

For both layers I draw a mask using hardness of 0 and opacity 100. Only if you use opacity set to 100, you can adjust the White Balance in an Adjustments Layer and the background layer independently of each other.

Layer 1                                                               Layer 2

With the brush cursor tool selected you can use “M” to toggle between showing the mask or not.

I start focusing on the mask for the center office with the green cast by selecting Layer 1. I will start using the White Balance picker to neutralize the light. I simply pick on the white office ceiling. Setting the Local White Balance this way immediately removes the green cast, but I would also like to add a warm yellow tone to the light. I will do so by dragging the Kelvin slider towards higher values until I get a tone I like.

Original value                         Picked White Balance                Changed Kelvin value

 

The images above show the steps for toning the light in the central office of the building. The first image is without a Local White Balance. In the center image I have used the White Balance picker and picked on the sealing of the center office. This neutralizes the light and gives me a good starting point for toning the light warmer. In the image to the right I have used the Kelvin slider to tone the light to a warm yellow tone.

Next I will tone the light for the rest of the offices in the building. I will simply repeat the steps I did for the Layer 1.

Layer 1 optimized                                           Layer 1 and 2 optimized

 

You may need to tweak both the Kelvin and the Tint slider in the White Balance tool to match the tone of the light in the center office to the rest of the offices.

Looking at the optimized image it becomes obvious that I also need to fix the tone of the light reflection in the water.

I could make another Adjustments Layer for the reflection but I will just add it to one of the masks. For the reflection it is just a matter of toning it away from the green/blue color into something warmer so it doesn’t matter, which adjustments layer I use. What is important though is that I only use an opacity of around 30 to 50 and a large brush with hardness 0. This gives me a nice warm tone that blends nicely into the blue reflections of the sky and the blue light on the ground floor of the building.

Wrong reflection in the water                        Reflection in the water fixed

 Finally let’s compare the original and the fixed image.

Original image                                                Fixed with Local White Balance

 The ability to work with different White Balances in the same image gives me in this example the possibilities to turn this image into a much more interesting image of a modern office building. Who would like to work in a building with green light ?

 

All the best,

Niels

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