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Take Full Control of the Tone Mapping by Using a Linear Film Curve

It is in the Base Characteristics Tool that you set the Tone Curve and the ICC Color Profile for the file. Together these settings give the camera its overall look.

What does the curve do?
The curve describes the basic tone mapping of all pixels. By default the curve “Film Standard” is used. This curve is designed to give a similar tone mapping as when using transparency film. The curve has a slight S shape in order to achieve deep blacks while still maintaining details in the highlight, giving a gentle transition into overexposed areas.

The default ICC Color Profile is designed to work well together with the default curve “Film Standard” and should be used for classic photographic tasks like portrait, product or landscape photography.

For special photographic tasks or tricky images you can select other film curves like the “Film Extra Shadow”, “High Contrast” or “Linear”.

No Correction Hand tweaked tone curve

The image to the left is straight out of the camera. The image to the right reflects correction of the image in Capture One Pro 7. This is achieved by taking full control of the tone mapping by first using the Linear Curve, in the Base Characteristic Tool, and then applying a “hand tweaked” curve in the Curve Tool. When performing this adjustment I can add much more contrast in the highlight to really show the circular ice crystal “rainbow” cloud.

The effect of 4 different Tone Curves
In the example below I have made 4 variants of the same image and have applied different Tone Curves from the Base Characteristics Tool to show their effect. The image has a wide dynamic range, retaining details in highlights, mid-tones and the shadows. In the reflection on the light pole data is clipped to 255. Underneath the cars in the shadow we have really deep black.

The Base Characteristics Tool is, by default, placed in the Color Tool tab. In order to show the effect on the image’s different variants, however, I have added the tool as a floating tool.

A- Film standard B-Film Extra shadow

C- Film Extra Contrast D-Linear Curve

Image A: Using “Film Standard” shows a good compromise between highlight details, bright mid-tones and deep black shadows.

Image B: Using “Film Extra Shadow” has almost the same Tone Curve as the Film Standard but is more open in the shadows.

Image C: Using “Film High Contrast” has slightly deeper shadows and brighter highlights.

Image D: Using “Linear” looks underexposed and lacks contrast. Regardless the image has a full dynamic range and still shows clipped highlights on the light pole.

Why have the Linear Curve?

It is obvious that the Linear Curve makes the image look really dull so why do we have this option at all? There are two main reasons for having the Linear Curve:

Scientific photography: You can achieve a perfect linear reproduction of your scene. Scientific flat-art reproduction is also an area where it can be of advantage in combination with specially made color profiles. For true flat art you don’t have the large dynamic range of the 3D world.
Tricky images where you want to emphasize certain parts of the tone scale. By starting with a straight linear curve, it can be easier to take full manual control of the tone mapping in the Curves Tool. If you have the skills you may be able to achieve something you wouldn’t have been able to using the default curve.

The image on the left is using the default curve “Film Standard” in the Base Characteristics Tool and you don’t need to do anything to make the image look quite good. This normally gives you a very good starting point for further editing the image. The image to the right is using the curve “Linear” in the Base Characteristics tool. I have additionally made a curve in the Curve Tool to achieve almost the same effect as if I were using the “Film Standard” in the Base Characteristics tool. We can see the “S” shape of the curve, giving more solid blacks and a gentle transition into clipped data.

Let’s go back and look at the image of the old light house and select the Linear Curve in the Base Characteristics tool. We can then start playing with the Curve Tool from the Exposure Tool tab.

The left image is using the default curve “Film Standard” but the right image is using the Linear Curve. Already by simply loading the Linear Curve we get much better definition in the sky but it still needs work in the Curves Tool to get a useful image. If we look at the histogram we see 2 peak areas. The brightest are the tones in the sky; the darkest are the tones of the lighthouse and sand dunes. Because we have such a clear separation of tones, it will be possible to do quite a significant correction and still achieve an image that looks natural.

I start by increasing contrast to the sky. I do this by adding two curve points, done by simply clicking on the curve exactly over the histogram peak from the sky. To get contrast I need to make the curve steeper through this tone area. I simply drag the upper point until a get the desired amount of contrast.

Finally, I brighten the Lighthouse and the sand dunes. To do this I add a third point on the curve in the middle of the histogram peak associated with the lighthouse. By dragging this point up I brighten these tones.

I now have an image with much better balance between the “ring” sky and the details in the lighthouse.

All the best,

Niels

Recompose with Ease

These five items will help you precisely crop and compose with ease. Below, each of the items are explained.

Mask – An opacity mask, which dims the areas of the image that is cropped out
Frame – A thin white line around the cropped area of the image
Labels – Numerical tags on each axis of the crop showing the value in Pixels, Centimetres, Inches or Millimetres
Grid – A series of lines to assist with positioning when applying a crop
Guides – A vertical and horizontal line, which can be dragged into any position.

General points on cropping

To crop an image, choose the Crop cursor tool or press “C” on the keyboard. Click and drag a crop over the image. If you haven’t changed any of the Crop options in the Capture One 7 preferences, this is what you will see. When moving the crop, the image stays centered.

The labels at each edge show the size of the crop, as specified in the process recipe. The unit of the side lengths are configured here as well. To delete a crop quickly, you can click anywhere outside the current crop (in the Mask) once, or reset the crop tool. To create a new crop within a previous one, hold the shift key to and drag and drop the crop mask where you want it.

The labels, in the example above, are circled in orange and the grid, as well as the mask area is indicated with orange arrows. The behaviour of these elements can be changed in the Crop option on the Capture One 7 preferences.

So for example, with regard to the Mask, you can configure the Opacity and Brightness to your liking or even completely disabled.

The frame option will draw a thin white line around the crop edge as seen in the example below.

By default the grid will only show when you adjust the crop, but you can change this behaviour as well as add more lines to the grid and change their color.

Guides can be shown by clicking the icon in the toolbar or choosing View>Show Grid and Guides.

The guides are shown as a horizontal and vertical line centered in the crop frame. However, they can be moved to a location of your liking by hovering the cursor near to the lines and click-dragging.

This can be a very useful feature when capturing in a tethered workflow, assisting in a precise alignment. You can also change their position in the preferences and adjust the color.

All the best,

Niels

Import your Catalogs from Other Applications in No Time

NOTE: This article discusses an outdated version of Capture One. To learn more about our latest version, click here.

We understand that many of you are keen to try the outstanding RAW conversion available in Capture One 7, and would like to do this with images that may already be associated with other applications. We have therefore added a new import function in Capture One 7.1.3 for Mac OS X that helps you migrate your images in no time

It’s now possible to import your Lightroom 4 and/or Lightroom 5 Catalogs into Capture One 7, so you can get started straight away while keeping your Catalog structure intact.

While we have succeeded in reading much of the database within the Lightroom Catalog, we unfortunately cannot transform all adjustments. Some settings in Lightroom like color edits cannot be imported due to the sophisticated methods we use in Capture One’s color handling and RAW conversion. Currently we can move the following parameters from Lightroom to Capture One 7:

Collections
Crop, Rotation and Orientation
White Balance, Exposure, Saturation and Contrast
Metadata (IPTC, Rating, Color Label, Keywords)

Importing a Lightroom Catalog

Importing a Lightroom Catalog is easy and it only requires a couple of steps. First, you will need to create a new Catalog in Capture One 7 by choosing File>New Catalog, or you can use an existing Catalog if you would like to combine it with a Lightroom Catalog.

Next, choose File>Import Catalog>Another Catalog.

Next, browse to the location of the Lightroom .lrcat file…

The following dialog box will appear in Capture One 7, reminding you what parameters can be transferred.

Click Continue and Capture One 7 will read the contents of the Lightroom Catalog and duplicate the information in the database to Capture One. You will see the following Activity dialog boxes during the process. The first indicates how many items are to be imported and the second shows the progress of building preview images.

When the import has completed, you will see a summary of how many items have been imported and if there were any skipped items. Skipped items may include images that are “offline” in Lightroom. Should a file be offline, Capture One 7 will prompt you to provide/locate the Volume that the images are on during the import process, or allow you to skip each particular item.

The speed of the migration process depends on how many images you are importing into Capture One 7.

Finally in the User Collections area of the Library Tool, you will see your Lightroom collections. Click on these to view the contents.

The Folders area in the same tool shows you the actual path of the images – reflecting how they are organised on the system.

Points to Remember

Capture One 7 is a “read only” software and makes no changes whatsoever to the Lightroom .lrcat file. Capture One 7 simply reads the information contained in your Lightroom catalog file and is therefore a very safe operation. If you are at all concerned however, please work with a copy of the .lrcat file.
Close Lightroom before trying the import otherwise the .lrcat file will be unreadable.
Adjustments to Saturation, White Balance, Contrast and Exposure are approximate and your image may look slightly different compared to Lightroom. Try the full complement of Capture One 7 Tools to get an ever better look.
Smart Collections in Lightroom cannot be imported. So if you want to see them in Capture One 7, save them as Collections first in Lightroom.

We hope you enjoy seeing your images with the quality of Capture One’s Raw conversion.

To help you with your transition into Capture One 7, we have prepared the following material:

Quick Start Guide to get you up and running with Capture One Pro 7 in no time

Webinar below:

All the best,

Niels

Relocating Catalog Images in Capture One Pro 7

**An updated version of this blog post for Capture One 11 is available here**

The Capture One 7 Catalog database keeps track of where images are located, as well as maintaining adjustments, metadata and other elements. When managing images in a Catalog you can decide to store the files directly inside of a Capture One 7 Catalog or in a separate directory. In this tutorial we will refer to images inside the Catalog as ‘managed’ images and those in a separate directory as ‘referenced’ images.

Why relocating is useful

Within Capture One 7 Catalogs, you have the ability to change how managed or referenced images are handled in the Catalog. This can be useful, if your workflow requires mobility and you need to move some of your images from an external volume to a Catalog that is kept locally on your Laptop. Relocating files in this manner gives you full access to the RAW data while you are on the road. Features like processing, zooming or lens corrections will then be available that would otherwise be unavailable in offline mode.

Offline mode

When importing images to a Catalog, a preview is made and stored in the Catalog. This preview is used for displaying the image on your monitor. Capture One 7 previews are ‘smart’ previews, which means should a drive containing the RAWS be disconnected, you can still make most adjustments. However things like processing and zooming requires the RAW data to be available to the software.

How to relocate your Catalog images

On the Mac platform the Capture One 7 Catalog is one single file.

On the Windows platform the Catalog database and other necessary folders are stored within one folder.

If you want to change image locations from a managed workflow to a referenced workflow, it is critical that this is done within the Capture One Folders Tool. This ensures that the Capture One 7 Catalog remains up to date. However, if you accidentally fail to do this, links to images can be re-established within the Capture One 7 “Locate” option.

Changing Images from Managed to Referenced

Referenced files are shown in the Folders Tool (by default in the Library tool tab) in their current location.

If you can’t see the complete folder tree as shown above, right-click anywhere in the Folders Tool and choose ‘Show Folders Hierarchy’.

To move an image within the Catalog itself (managed) from an external location (referenced), simply select the images you wish to move and then drag and drop them onto the Catalog icon (also in the Folders Tool).

The image will be physically moved inside the Catalog from the external location.

The image is moved and not copied in order to prevent duplications of RAW files with two different sets of adjustments.

Changing Images from Referenced to Managed

If you want to move an image located within the Catalog to an external drive, this can be achieved by doing a simple reversal of the operation described above, i.e. just drag and drop the image from within the Catalog to the desired external location.

Re-establishing Broken Links

Links to the location of your images or folders in Capture One 7 have the potential to become “lost” should changes be made outside of Capture One. If you have made changes to the folder structure or location of images in the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer you will have to re-establish a link within Capture One 7. As mentioned above, it is always best practice to make changes within Capture One 7, so the catalog database is updated accordingly.

However, should a link be broken it is possible to correct the change so that images are accurately located in the Catalog.

The folder in the image above shows the “image count” value and an exclamation mark to notify you of the missing connection.

How to repair broken links for moved folders

Select the folder that has lost its link to the Catalog. Choose ‘Show Info’ from the Library Tool’s drop down menu.

The following dialog box will display at the bottom of the Library Tool. In the example below, I have moved the folder named ‘Food’ to a different location in the Mac Finder, therefore the ‘Where’ field text is in red to indicate the folder cannot be found at the previously specified path. A locate button is present to point Capture One 7 to the new location.

Click the ‘Locate’ button and browse to the correct, new location for the missing folder. Once located, click “Open” in the browser window to re-establish a link in Capture One. The Catalog will be updated accordingly and the folder will now appear in the correct location of the Folders tool.

How to repair broken links for individual images

A similar process can be done for individual images that may have been moved outside of Capture One from one folder to another. The image will show as ‘Offline’ with a question mark displayed in the Viewer and Browser.

Right-click on the image in the Browser and choose the ‘Locate…’ option.

A Finder window will appear. Browse to the correct location of the image and click “Open” in the browser window to re-establish a link in Capture One. The Capture One 7 Catalog will be updated accordingly.