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The secret, yet powerful color editing tool

The green in fluorescent light, the red of the sunset at the beach, or the colored light at your big birthday party last year can spoil the fun when the images are ready.

Back to Levels & Curve

In this third blog post on Levels & Curves I am going to make advanced color adjustments with both the Levels and Curve Tools by using one or more of the Red, Green, or Blue color channels. I call this kind of use for channel mode.

Note that this feature is only available in Capture One Pro and DB 7, and not in Express 7.

When you are serious about using channel mode, I have a power user tip first: create a workspace with four Levels Tools shown, one for each color channel.

Level your power

Let’s start with Levels in channel mode. You will discover that it is an extremely powerful color editing tool. It allows you to add or remove color. All the markers of the tool are at your disposal.

In the screenshot below I made comments on how to add a color. By using the opposite marker you remove color.

If you want to read more about how Curves and Levels Tools work and the distinction between input and output Levels, click here.

The markers at the left (top & bottom) affect the dark tones in your image, the ones at the right affect the highlights and the marker in the middle affects the mid tones. This way you can easily adjust a color based on its brightness!

Sunset Boulevard

For demonstration I use a sunset image with the obvious reddish/purple cast and low contrast. Thanks to a low camera position I get the maximum reflection of the sky in the water and in the wet sand.

I like the sky but the foreground is too colored (purple). I also need to improve the tonal scale with black and white point. I need to take the purple color out but in the dark tones only. That is exactly what I am going to do with the Levels Tool’s Red and Blue channels.

I raise the dark tone marker at the bottom left to remove the color in both the Red and Blue channel. This removes the purple cast in the shadow.

This is basically the same as setting a black point in the RGB mode of your Levels Tool as I discussed in an earlier blog post. You remove the gray cast to make it black.

Next, I like to weaken the overall red cast with the mid tone marker (move it to the right) of the Red channel. This is the result:

Now I have the right color at the right places in my image and I have emphasized the romantic mood.

Ease your Levels, enter the Curve

Right, you thought we were done now? Not completely. The Levels red mid tone slider did a nice job, but if you read my previous post on Curves you know that the Curve Tool can do a better job. The warm tones of the sunset can create more of an impact if there are parts that do NOT have that color to increase color contrast.

Also, the general contrast needs a boost too. I use the Curve Tool for both, one curve in the general RGB tab, one curve in the Red tab. Note that I first placed the mid tone marker of the Red channel in the neutral position because the Curve is taking care of that now.

This is the end result I like most:

And here are my Curve settings:

Tips

Two final tips to wrap up this blog post: tool reset and workspace.

1) Reset all Levels or Curve Tool modes
You know the tool reset: the curved arrow icon at the top. It will reset only the adjustments on the selected tab (channel or RGB mode). To reset ALL adjustments of the tool (all tabs: RGB, R, G, and B) at once use Cmd+click (Mac) or Ctrl+click (Windows) with the reset icon.

2) Workspace
To work with all channels in Levels and Curve, you might want to see them all at the same time. Create multiple Levels or Curve Tools as floating tools or create a tool tab for them. Set each to each channel. Save your workspace for future use.

I hope you enjoyed it and will get more out of your images with the Capture One Pro 7 tools Levels and Curve!

Best regards,

Paul Steunebrink

Save time when uploading images to social media

Social Media sites often have very specific requirements for image upload, or at least the quality results can be much better if you adhere to their specific recommendations.

For example, Facebook has various dimensions for the Cover Photo, Profile Photo and Shared Image not to mention various other sizing for Highlighted, Milestone images and more! It is quite a minefield.

You need recipes

Luckily there are some good resources online to discover these sizes and incorporate them into a Capture One Pro 7 recipe so it is possible to export any image to fit perfectly with such requirements.

I have made a few examples based on Facebook, and one for Pinterest, which uses a slightly different way to display images compared to Facebook. Google+ has less restrictions on image sizing, which is why it is not included.

At the end of the blog you can also download these recipes for your own use on Mac or PC.

Creating and Using a Recipe

I will use the example of the Facebook Cover photo, which has the following image dimensions: 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall.

First of all, I’d like to define a Process Recipe, which restricts the output file to the pixel dimensions needed. If you haven’t used a Process Recipe before, first navigate to the Output tool tab. By default there is one Process Recipe called ‘Untitled Recipe’.

You can either modify that Recipe or create a new one by clicking on the ‘+’ icon in the bottom right of the Process Recipes Tool.

Make sure you name the Recipe so you can recognize it later. This Recipe will be for the Facebook Cover Photo, so I’ll name it accordingly.

Next, I’ll set the parameters for this Recipe in the ‘Process Recipe’ Tool.

I have changed the format to JPEG, the ICC Profile to sRGB (best for web), and the scale to Dimensions, entering the pixel dimensions as described earlier. It’s really important that you set scale to ‘Dimensions’ as this will have an influence on how the Crop Tool works when cropping images to this format.

If you wish you can explore the other options in the Recipe by clicking through the additional tabs – File, Adjustments, Metadata and Watermark.

Now that I have my Process Recipe set, I can crop an image to this format. Before this step, make sure you have the Recipe highlighted in the Process Recipes Tool, as we will need to constrain to these dimensions when we crop.

Select the ‘Output’ option by clicking and holding onto the Cropping Cursor Tool. This option does just as described, it will constrain your Crop Aspect Ratio to match whatever is set in the currently highlighted recipe.

Now I can crop an image I want to use for a Facebook cover Photo. You can see in the following short clip, that as soon as I begin to crop, the image is constrained to our Recipe pixel dimensions. This way you are guaranteed of the right dimensions when exporting.

http://youtu.be/QwQ1KPgE6n4

If you don’t see the pixel dimensions on your crop lines (Top and Left), you can turn this option on in the Capture One Preferences.

To export the image, make sure the Recipe is selected by marking the check box.

Before processing the image, make sure the ‘Ouput Location’ Tool is set correctly to the folder you want the resulting image to reside.

If you are working in a Session – By default processed images will be sent to the Session Output folder.

If you are working in a Catalog – You may wish to set the output location by clicking on the ‘Store Files’ drop-down menu and choosing your preferred location.

To process the image, click on the ‘Process’ button in the ‘Process Summary’ Tool, or you can use the Keyboard Shortcut Cmd-D (Mac) / Ctrl-D (Win). This tool also shows a breakdown “Summary” of your currently highlighted Recipe.

The processed image will fit just nicely for a Facebook cover photo.

Duplicating and Modifying a Recipe

Now that the bare bones of the Recipe are set, it’s easy to duplicate it to work with other social media sizes. Click on the small triangle in the ‘Process Recipes’ Tool and choose ‘Duplicate Recipe’. The benefit of this step is that you will probably only need to change the Scale settings if you want to keep the same JPEG parameters.

I will create one for a Facebook ‘Highlighted’ image, which is designed to span the whole Timeline and are therefore wider. The recommended upload size is 1200 wide x 717 pixels tall.

It will be the same workflow as before: crop and process the image.

Here is a good opportunity to point out some smart behaviour of the cropping labels and ‘Process Summary’ Tool. As I have selected the new Recipe I have just made, the crop on the image, which was set when I had the cover photo Recipe selected, indicates that the height is incompatible with the Process Recipe, by displaying it in red.

However, as soon as I go to adjust the crop, it will snap to the correct dimensions, as you can see in this second short clip…

http://youtu.be/JKl-nbE-8vc

Setting one Dimension Only

Pinterest is a good example where only one image dimension needs to be set for optimal upload. When a Pin is opened, the image will scale to 736 pixels wide and the necessary length for that particular image. Therefore it doesn’t make sense to upload anything larger to Pinterest. The same goes for Tumblr but the maximum width is 1280 pixels.

I’ll duplicate the last Process Recipe again but change the ‘Scale’ to Width and set this to 736 Pixels.

Now when I change the crop, the width will always be output to 736 pixels and the height can be arbitrary. See an example in this final short clip…

http://youtu.be/N5KOxa5KSKY

This workflow of constraining crop sizes doesn’t need to only relate to social media, and could easily be adapted for many other disciplines where output sizes are crucial, or perhaps have been dictated to you by the client. It may save you a step in the workflow chain if you can output correctly from Capture One Pro 7 in the first place.

Remember, the crucial step is choosing ‘Output’ in the Crop Tool, to make sure you are automatically constraining to your Process Recipe output size.

Adding these Recipes to Capture One Pro 7

The three recipes shown here can be downloaded here.

On Mac:

To install them on a Mac, navigate to [USER]>Library>Application Support>Capture One>Recipes and copy the recipes into that folder. Restart Capture One Pro 7 and then they will be visible.

By default the Library folder is hidden on the Mac. The easiest way to reveal it is to hold down the Alt key and click on the GO menu in the finder.

On PC:

To install on a PC, navigate to C:>Users>[USER]>AppData>Local>Capture One>Recipes70 and copy the Recipes into that folder. Restart Capture One Pro 7 and then they will be visible.

By default the AppData folder is hidden on the PC.

Go to Control Panel > Appearance and Settings > Folder Options

Select the View Tab from the pop up menu and then Select ‘Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives’.

Best regards,

David

Create your Atmosphere with Curves

You can have a great scene, the right expression or the ultimate moment in your shot. However, it is the mood or atmosphere in an image that makes all the difference between success and failure.

Telling your story and transferring emotions is a secret of finding the right tonal scale. Just like the French say: “C’est le ton qui fait la musique” (It is the tone that makes the music). The tool you need for this is the Curve Tool.

Why use the Curve Tool?

The Curve Tool differentiates itself from the Levels Tool in that it allows you to control how tonal values of the original image are translated in the end result. With the Curve Tool you have control over shadows, mid tones, and highlights (darker or lighter) separately and independently.

Where the Levels Tool mainly controls the endpoints of your tonal scale, the Curve Tool gives you control over the tonal distribution of the entire tonal scale between these endpoint. Only the mid tone marker of the Levels Tool gives you ‘Curve-like’ control, but the Curve Tool gives much greater flexibility in control and much better contrast control.

Before using the Curve Tool

As with the Levels Tool I suggest you first make adjustments with the Exposure and High Dynamic Range Tools if necessary. Do not use the Brightness slider in the Exposure Tool.

With this image, I didn’t change the exposure or the High Dynamic Range, but I began by first cropping and rotating the image to get the composition I wanted. I then set the black and white points using the Levels Tool, but didn’t touch the mid tones. I also prefer to adjust the clarity and add a vignette at this stage in my workflow. This is my image before I start using the curves.

You are now ready to start with the Curve Tool because all mentioned adjustments affect the histogram you set the curve on (that is the histogram in the Curve Tool).

Preset for speed

A reason why users often skip the Curve Tool is because it seems time consuming or looks too complex. Speed improves with experience (as always) but the predefined presets in Capture One Pro 7 give you a quick start. Note that you can easily apply a preset on a selection of images. You can also copy/apply a curve on similar images. After applying the built-in preset “Mid tones – darker”, I get the following result.

How does it work?

The Curve Tool is an “input-output” kind of game. Take a look at the example below.

I added some green text and arrows for explanation.

The horizontal axis represents 256 levels on the input side of the image. Input means what the Curve Tool receives. Without a curve (straight line) these input levels are translated unchanged to output levels with the same value (0 to 0, 128 to 128 and 255 to 255). Output levels are represented on the vertical axis.

In this example the input level of 53 (see orange vertical line) is lowered to an output of 33. Level 53 is a shadow or dark tone. Because the curve now translates it to 33 it will become darker. You can move any point on the curve line up or down, and left or right. Whatever you do, you constantly create a new input-output translation for that point and (to a lesser extended) adjacent levels.

Manual approach

Lesson one in using the Curve Tool manually is dragging the diagonal line up (to lighten) or down (to darken the image). Next, step two, you can give the quarter and three quarter tones an extra push in the same or reverse direction if needed.

If you like to affect a particular brightness level in the image, use the Pick Curve Point Cursor Tool.

Select the Picker Tool, select a brightness point in your image and that point will be selected in the tool. You can drag the curve point with the mouse or select it and use the cursor keys on your keyboard (the latter is Mac only).

After moving the shadow curve point downwards, I get a darker background which increases the dramatic impact of this low contrast image.

Results

In term of results nothing beats the art of a good curve. Curves give you much more control about how an image looks in terms of brightness and contrast. You can open up shadows and darken highlights. You can make a more natural look or let your creativity go all the way. After the last adjustment mentioned, I got this result.

More Help

Exclusively available for our dear blog readers, I provide you an entire set of Curve Presets. The set contains 23 presets for adjusting Contrast, Highlights, Mid tones, and Shadows.

Place the presets in the curve preset folder and start Capture One. Locations are:
<user name>/Library/Application Support/Capture One/Presets60/Curve (for Mac)
C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\CaptureOne\Presets60\Curve (for Windows)

Tip

When you start working with curves, clone variants are a great help to compare different adjustments.

Summary

With a proper curve you can create the exact atmosphere in your image. First, make your adjustments with Exposure, HDR, and Levels. Just start with Curve, then start with a preset. Adjust the curve if necessary or try another preset.

Best regards,

Paul

New Forensic+ Enhancements in Capture One Pro 7

You may be aware that Phase One manufactures hardware for the industrial segment, specifically for Aerial photography and the Cultural Heritage segments.

Our software department has been inspired by this and developed new tools in Capture One Pro 7 to specifically deal with forensic applications, in cooperation with the top scientists within Forensic Science.

We have used our expertise in RAW conversion to go one stage further in pulling out detail from images, even those that aren’t visible to the naked eye, or on the image itself.

Therefore we are proud to present Forensic+!

What is Forensic+?

Forensic+ is new technology developed by the Image Quality and Algorithms team at Phase One.

We have had many requests from certain intelligence agencies and criminal investigation agencies around the world who have seen examples on popular crime television series, to bring such features to ‘real life’. Forensic+ will help you to discover unseen detail in images with the eventual goal of solving that all-important case!

“We really wanted to turn our expertise to aid those at the forefront of forensic technology. I am pleased to say we have achieved this with Forensic+. The results are truly unbelievable!” – Olaf Pilor, head of Image Quality and Algorithms team at Phase One.

The new tools in Forensic+ are:

Pixel Amplify, Reflection Enhance and Uncrop Image. Pixel Amplify and Reflection Enhance are found in the new Forensic+ tool tab.

Uncrop image is a an additional feature to the cursor tool.

Using a combination of these tools will liberate extra information from any scene, thus expediting the crime investigation process.

Example:

Below is a scene with a number of unseen details that will be aided by the use of Forensic+.

First we can use Uncrop Image to liberate additional areas of the image. The advanced algorithms in Forensic+ are a business secret, but Olaf reveals that uncropping an image is possible due to the fact that most cameras can actually capture more pixels than advertised, normally displaying a cropped image. This is standard practice by manufacturers to cut costs by only ever producing one sensor and simply limiting the properties by changing the firmware on camera models.

Olaf and his team have managed to extract the additional captured information and reveal extra data present in image captures.

For example, if we use Uncrop Image in this case, we can see a huge area of previously hidden image data.

By revealing this, we can then go onto exercise the remaining tools of Forensic+. In this particular scene the white car to the upper right of the picture was suspected to be stolen and involved in a more serious crime. The details of the crime are held hidden for the benefit of the affected families.

Using Pixel Amplify we can easily enhance the pixel structure to make sense of the licence plate.

Use the Amount slider to control the strength of the amplification. Carefully adjust the Radius, depending on how much detail there is in the image. Low-resolution images will need a greater radius to sample a wider range of pixels.

With careful use of Pixel Amplify we can liberate the following detail. (Please note the result has been partially blurred to protect the involved parties).

The jewel in the crown

Reflection Enhance is really the jewel in the crown of the new Forensic+ features. Quite often crucial forensic detail can be hidden in many reflections present in an image.

“With our expertise in lens design and knowledge of optical behaviour and refraction we can build these seemingly completely useless elements of the image into useable forensic material.” Olaf Pilor says.

Again, in the same image, it was believed a possible perpetrator in the related case was also photographed but the person’s face wasn’t visible.

Reflection Enhance here can easily rebuild the various light paths to reconstruct the face of the criminal. Start by using the simple select pointer to pick both elements in the image. i.e. the actual body and then the reflection.

*Not admissible in court

In the Reflection Enhance Tool, our Angle would be set to ‘0’ as the reflection and actual object is at the same vertical level. Moving the Aspect slider allows us to virtually rotate around the reconstructed object. We can also use the ‘Flip’ Tool‘ to flip the image in the horizontal or vertical perspective.

In this case, careful use of the tool creates a variant containing the reconstructed object.
You can see we have a quite clear image of the perpetrator now.

With these new features in Capture One Pro 7 we hope that we can contribute to making the world a better place, not just in imaging, but in peace as well!

Best regards,

David