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Organize your Catalogs and find your best assets in no time

Basically, a Capture One Pro 7 Catalog can be organized in two ways:

By using a simple folder structure at a system level (i.e. the organizational structure is handled using folders on your Mac or PC with images residing in the folders you’ve made).

By using a virtual organization in the User Collections area of the Capture One Library Tool.

How does virtual organization work?

A Collection is simply a ‘group’ of images gathered in one place for easy reference. I used the term ‘Virtual’, as placing images into a collection does not physically move them on disk. We simply update the Catalog database to reflect where you have organized images and in which collections.

Virtually organizing your images has a number of advantages over the traditional way of placing images in various physical folders on the system:

A single image can belong to several different collections and does not require a physical copy
Smart Albums can be used to automatically sort images with a variety of search terms
Projects (one of the four Capture One Pro 7 organizational items) can be intelligently used to enhance your organization and workflow.

The main benefit, of course, is that you should not be struggling to find your best assets in your Catalog… EVER!

Creating organizational items

All the virtual organizational items can be created in the User Collections area of the Library Tool. So for example, if we wished to create an Album in our Catalog, we would simply click on the Plus icon in the User Collections title bar:

Then you can choose one of the four organizational items, which I’ll go through now:

Albums

Albums are the most basic of organizational items. Simply create it and then drag and drop, whichever image(s) you want to appear in that album. Remember! You are not moving any image files on the disk, therefore an image can belong in several different albums.

Smart Albums

If you have never used a Smart Album before then I would recommend you to explore them. Smart Albums are quite versatile in helping you sort images with a minimum of effort.

A Smart Album populates itself with images based on a user defined search criteria. For example, you could have a Smart Album that:

Only contains images that you have given a specific rating. e.g. Five Stars
Only contains images that contain a certain keyword
Only contains images shot with a particular lens

… and so on!

Of course, all search terms can be combined to create complex queries with results being returned in a matter of milliseconds.

For example, a Smart Album could be set to only contain images shot within a certain time period, that are keyworded with a certain term, are rated five stars and, captured with a particular camera and lens combination. The only limit is your imagination really!

Using Smart Albums with Projects

The power of Smart Albums is best explained in combination with the ‘Project’ organizational item. As busy photographers we can all imagine that we could end up with a great number of Smart Albums and Albums in our Catalogs. This could get very untidy and confusing.

Because of this we can use Projects for some brilliant organizational options.

Basically a Project limits the search scope of a Smart Album, so remember these basic guidelines:

A Smart Album not contained within a Project will search the entire Catalog.
A Smart Album contained within a Project will only search the images within that Project.

Therefore you can use both ‘global’ Smart Albums outside of Projects to monitor your entire Catalog and Smart Albums inside Projects to monitor only images specific to that Project.

Example

In this small Catalog we have 477 images:

You can also see that three Projects already exist in the User Collections area, but let’s make a new Project from scratch to show you the process.

I’ll start by choosing Project from the menu described earlier, and naming it:

This creates a new, and empty, Project in the User Collections area:

As a Project cannot contain images itself, I will right-click on the Project and choose ‘New Inside…’ and create an Album.

If you expand out the Project, the empty Album will be ready to accept images, simply by dragging and dropping as we did before.

Alternatively, if you right-click on the album and choose ‘Set as Selects Collection’ we can use a handy shortcut to quickly move images into that album, if you prefer not to drag and drop.

Simply select any image(s) and hit Cmd (Mac) / Cntrl(PC)-J on the keyboard to populate the Album with the image.

After selecting our files, we have an Album that now contains 13 images. Circled in orange is the icon that designates this as the Selects Collection.

Now the magic starts with Smart Albums!

I’ll right-click on the Project once more, as we did to create the Album in the Project earlier, but this time I’ll choose to create a Smart Album. The following dialog box opens, which is where we set the parameters for the Smart Album’s search scope. I have used a Preset to automatically set the Search Criteria that the rating must equal five stars.

So any image in my Project that agrees with the criteria will be automatically added to the Smart Album. You can see that the Smart Album now only contains six five star rated images from that Project.

Finally, if I were to place a Smart Album outside of any Project in the User Collections area, then this Smart Album would search the entire Catalog. Here we have a returned result of 143 Images.

Using Groups

Our final organizational item is a Group. This is a free form item, which you can use pretty much the same way as a system folder. It places no limits on the scope of Smart Albums like a Project does.

For example, here I have just used a number of Groups to categorize my collections further.

I hope by reading this tip you can see there is a lot of scope for using virtual organization as a way to empower your Catalogs in an intelligent way. By careful addition of Projects, Albums and Smart Albums it will be easier and most importantly faster, to find the assets you need for any given assignment or task.

Best regards,

David

Let your clients approve your images anywhere in the world

Recently I had a very relevant question from a Capture One Pro 7 webinar participant.

The question was:

If you’re using the Capture Pilot web option could the client view the images remotely via the Internet, say if they were in their office on the other side of the world?

Capture Pilot is normally used as a great tool for assisting you in the studio. If you have YET to use it, I would recommend you take a look.

Capture Pilot is an iOS application, or as mentioned above, a simplified tool that can be used on any web-enabled device. The tool allows you to have an additional remote station where the selected contents of Capture One Pro 7 can be viewed, rated and color tagged. Additionally on the iOS application there is full remote control of a supported camera, if attached to Capture One software.

Capture Pilot has many uses for you as a photographer, for your assistants, your clients and even the stylists.

Normally, Capture Pilot is used in the same location as your host computer. For example, you could be shooting tethered in your studio with your DSLR with Capture Pilot running on an iPad, being viewed by your client comfortably sitting on set.

So what if you could also use Capture Pilot as a means to discuss a shoot with a client remotely? Perhaps show them adjustments on the fly and allow them to rate and tag images?
This got our team thinking and we decided to see if we could set this up. Not only to see how it would work but also how difficult it would be. It turns out for our investigation it was very simple!

Setting up

Network routers vary so it is impossible to provide a “one-size-fits-all” instruction. My personal router is an Apple Airport Extreme and configuring it for this task was easy. Remember, Phase One is not an IT support company, and I am merely suggesting one method to do this, and we do not offer official support connecting to Capture Pilot over the internet.

First, you need to know your IP address. This is easily found by typing ‘what’s my IP’ into Google. Your IP will simply be returned at the top of the search results. Or you can simply click here

You will see an IP number returned that looks something like this:

62.251.74.177

Make a note of this as you will need to give this to whomever wishes to access your Capture One session remotely via Capture Pilot.

In Capture One Pro 7, start the Capture Pilot image server by clicking here:

Click on the Mobile Tab and Web Tab, making a note of the Local IP and Port Numbers. Like so:

So we have 10.0.1.7:56004 for Capture Pilot on an iOS device and 10.0.1.7:80 for Capture Pilot on any web-enabled device.

The Local IP is the IP address of the computer running Capture One Pro 7. The port numbers describe how an external connection could access Capture One Pro 7.

Now you will need to access the administration portal of your network router. As I mentioned earlier, the terminology and interface will vary depending on manufacture but I hope this will be enough so you can explore further.

As mentioned my router at home is an Airport Extreme. It can be accessed by the Airport Utility application. Port Settings or Port Forwarding, as it might be described, are accessed in the Network tab.

In order to create a new Port setting, first click on the ‘+’ icon at the bottom of the “Port Settings” option.

In this case I will need to make two entries. One for Web and one for iOS as they use different ports.

First, I’ll create the entry for Capture Pilot Web.

Basically, make sure the information shown in Capture One Pro 7, is entered the same here – i.e. the Port number should be 80 and the Private IP address should be 10.0.1.7. Just as we found in the Capture Pilot Tool.

Now enter the same for Capture Pilot Mobile on iOS:

Once the router has been updated I am ready to give out my IP address.

For any web-enabled device it is very simple. The address your client should type in their web browser would be your IP address that you discovered from Google along with the port number from Capture Pilot. The address should be written in this syntax:

62.251.74.177:80

They will see a “webpage” similar to the one below and based on what you have allowed Capture Pilot to share. (This can be selected in the ‘Folder’ pull down menu in the Capture Pilot Tool in Capture One Pro 7)

Opening an image in this web mode will allow them to rate and color tag an image.

The great news is this will then be synchronized with Capture One Pro 7 on your machine. So you can now see exactly how your client has rated your images.

For Capture Pilot on iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPad Touch), they will need to setup a custom server.

Click on the plus icon in the home screen of Capture Pilot, as launched from the iOS device.

Then enter the details shown in the Capture Pilot Tool from Capture One Pro 7.

The server will connect and you will be able to browse and rate images.

ow that the iOS device is set, if you had a camera connected to the host computer, you could also remotely trigger it. Please let me know if you have an idea for using that! 😉

DHCP Reservations

Most network routers do not automatically reserve a unique IP address for your computer. In the above example, the local IP for my computer was 10.0.1.7. However, at the time of writing this, it is 10.0.1.18.

Therefore, to save having to reconfigure the Port Forwarding each time you want to allow remote access for Capture Pilot, it’s a good idea to reserve a static IP address for your computer. In the Airport Extreme setup it is here:

Your computer is identified by a MAC address. It is unique to the Wi-Fi card or Ethernet port in your computer. Therefore, you can permanently link an IP address to a MAC address, and not have to reconfigure the ports, if your IP address is not automatically ‘static’.

Further Help

It is important to state that Phase One is not an IT support company and this is just one example of how to set up Capture Pilot in this way with Apple network equipment. The language and terminology used will vary from router to router, so if you need assistance with setting up Port Mapping / Forwarding on your particular device, then please contact the specific manufacturer.

Phase One support cannot assist with network setup regarding Capture Pilot over the internet.

Best regards,

David

Link your aperture and studio lights

I recently had the opportunity to use the IQ260 digital back to test some new features, specifically the Profoto Air integration with Capture One Pro 7.

When shooting tethered, it is now possible to link the power output of Profoto Air enabled packs and heads with the aperture or ISO of selected cameras.

Easy to set up

I normally use a 645DF+ with a P30+ digital back and was surprised at how easy it was to set up the IQ260 and the Profoto Studio plug-in and USB controller. There is a video here on how to install and use the plug-in, but I’d like to provide readers with insight into what it is like to use.

I really like a lot of visual movement and depth when creating portraits or fashion images in the studio. In this test we had our model, Brooke Boerman, pose in front of a very reflective wall.

This particular shot involved two lights, the key light to the right of Brooke and another to raise the ambient light, with several assistants bouncing light with reflectors.

Focus on being creative instead of powering lights up and down

Instead of changing lenses and reframing to change the depth of our critical focus, I was able to easily shift between f-stops to find a desired look and the Profoto Air packs were powered up and or down automatically.

A feature I found very useful is an option to discharge the lights after every adjustment. This ensures all of the lights are correctly charged to give consistent output when powering down.

The entire crew and I were able to focus on the creative aspects of the shoot rather than powering lights up and down.

When using this feature and setting up the shot it is important to know the range of the flash packs. The Profoto D4 Packs I currently use have an 8 f-stop range, which means if I start at the pack’s lowest setting per head (3.0) and I can simultaneously power up and stop down up to eight stops from my current f-stop. It is possible to make an adjustment that exceeds the range of the packs, but a triple beep will sound as a warning if the beep function is enabled.

In this scenario, there are two heads on the D4 Packs that are 2 stops apart from each other, so with that lighting ratio I can make, at a maximum, a 4 stops adjustment. The higher the disparity of the power in the lighting ratio, the less flexibility there is to make automatic adjustments. Although 4 full stops is nothing to sneeze at.

Illustrated are my movements from f/2.8 to f/10

For this particular shot I like the clearer image at f/10 because it really takes advantage of the ability of the IQ260 incredible resolution, while at f/2.8 only the front of Brooke’s face is in focus – her ears and consequently her earrings fall out of focus.

This could be a problem if we were shooting for an actual client but could easily and quickly be adjusted with the flexibility of the Profoto and Capture One integration.

There a lot of advantages to using camera and digital back that integrate with Capture One Pro 7 and Profoto Air enabled packs and heads, but the one that stands out in my mind the most, is that it allows me to get to the image I want quicker and more effectively. I am really excited and look forward to continue using this in my work.

Best regards,

Ross

Special thanks to Jen Brown, a Make-up, Hair and SFX Artist based in Chicago, IL and Los Angeles, CA. More about her work here

Special thanks to Brooke Boerman, our model, also based in Chicago

To learn more about Profoto lighting control and other great tethering features in Capture One Pro 7, watch this recent j oint webinar with Phase One and Tether Tools.

How to do radical color changes in your images

In the Color Editor’s Basic Tool tab you’ll find a simple interface allowing you to do gentle but still quite effective color adjustments on your image.

Do radical color correction

In the Advanced Color Tab you have a much more powerful tool with more options – allowing you to do very specific color correction. For both the Basic and the Advanced Tool you can change a color in Hue, Saturation and Lightness, but in the Advanced Tool you can also make very narrow color selections and you are not restricted to work on only 6 colors as in the Basic Tool.

With the Advanced Color Tool you can really do radical color changes like turning a green able into a blue apple. So if you want to be creative with colors this is the tool you want to get to know.

Example: Changing an apple into any color

I will now show how I can change the sliced apple into any color by using the Advanced Tool in the Color Editor.

Setting the White Balance:

When doing color adjustments in the Color Editor it is important to adjust your White Balance first as all colors are defined from the White Balance. If you start doing color adjustments and then later change your White Balance, you risk having to redo all your corrections.

I start by making sure that the white plate is as neutral as possible. I pick the white balance from the edge of the plate using the white balance picker. I do this to make sure that the plate itself does not have any color. There will only be some green reflections near the apple giving a little greenish tint.

Masking the Apples:

As the brown color on the knife and the yellow/green color of the apple are close to each other on the color circle, I will make a mask that only contains the apple and the greenish reflection on the plate. I use the “+” to create a new adjustments layer. I make sure to use hardness 0 to ensure that my changes will blend as smoothly as possible into the background layer. The more drastic changes you make, the more important is it to use hardness 0.

Changing the Color:

In the Advanced tab of the Color Editor I select the Advanced Color Picker. I pick the color of the apple and the selected color now shows up in the list below the adjustments sliders. I now change the hue all the way to -30. You will notice that it doesn’t change the hue that much as the tool is optimized to do realistic color changes. So in order to change the hue from green to red I will have to add more Color picks on the apple.

For each of the color picks I have made I change the hue all the way. Once I am near my desired color, I use both Hue, Saturation and Lightness to achive the desired color.

In this example I have done a really drastic color change. I have had control of my colors and color transition as I have only the green color in my mask. But if you do your own creative color changes, you also have to make sure that your color transitions still look good. You may have to add more adjustments layers to achieve you goal.

All the best,

Niels