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How to Correct Perspective with the Keystone Tool

Capture One Pro 7 has a remarkable tool for correcting perspective errors. In addition to complete manual control, Capture One Pro 7 gives you a unique and convenient tool that you can use to rectify the keystone error of an image. Keystone corrections in Capture One simulate a true optical keystone correction, similar to what you can achieve with a technical camera. Once the tool is applied in Capture One Pro 7, perspective errors will be corrected perfectly.

Both vertical and horizontal keystone can be corrected. These corrections can be applied at the same time or independently from one another.

Using the Keystone Tool in Capture One

By default, the Keystone Tool is located in the Composition Tool tab.

By dragging the Vertical, Horizontal, Amount and Aspect sliders you can control the keystone effects in an image. While dragging any slider, a grid is automatically placed over the image to help you align horizontal and vertical aspects.

However, for a faster and extremely accurate correction it makes sense to use the Keystone Cursor tools. These can be selected at the bottom of the Keystone Tool, or from the cursor toolbar. When using the Keystone Cursor Tools we not only correct the keystone but we also correct for any horizontal misalignments of the camera.

The Keystone Tool can correct either vertical keystone, horizontal keystone or a combination of both. On our sample image we need to correct only for vertical keystone, but the principle is the same for images requiring horizontal keystone too.

Begin by selecting the appropriate keystone cursor. You will see vertical lines, horizontal lines or a combination of both imposed over the image depending on which cursor you choose. As I am correcting only for vertical keystone in the example below, we see only vertical lines.

Once selected, simply align the two lines against the sides of the object to be corrected. Like this:

Notice that the ‘Apply’ button has appeared in the centre of the screen. Click this to complete the correction.

In a snap, we have an excellent correction of the vertical keystone.

If we examine the Keystone Tool once more, we can see that values have been calculated for the Vertical and Horizontal fields. By default the ‘Amount’ field is always set to 80% when using the Keystone Cursor Tool for vertical corrections as this gives a more natural looking correction than the ‘perfect’ 100% correction. However, you can adjust this amount to your taste.

If you think the correction has changed the appearance of the aspect ratio a little too much, you can use the Aspect slider to edit the effects.

If the correction needs to be quite strong, you may find the option ‘Crop Outside Image’ useful in the Crop Tool. This will allow you to drag the crop beyond the boundaries of the image area, in case you want to use something like Content Aware in Photoshop to add more to the image.

All the best,

Niels

Share Your Catalogs with Others in Capture One Pro 7

Sometimes it is helpful to have more than one person access a Catalog for collaborative sharing. This sharing process is very easily achieved within Capture One Pro 7.

A simple feature exists within Capture One Pro 7 to keep the Catalog structure safe and to avoid the need for duplicating the Catalog itself or the images within.

Capture One Pro 7 Catalogs can either be in a Locked or Unlocked state. In the Locked state, multiple people can open and view the Catalog, but not make changes. In the Unlocked state the Catalog can only be open by one user at a time. That “admin” user will be able to make full changes and edits to the Catalog.

Sharing Catalogs in Capture One Pro 7

When you create a Catalog in Capture One 7, a .cocatalog file bearing the name you specified is created and on an Apple system it looks like this in the Finder.

This is the one Catalog file that contains everything Capture One 7 needs to open and display your images with the Catalog information. Double-clicking the .cocatalog file opens it in Capture One 7 on your computer.

The Catalog structure is a little different in Windows. A folder is created with the name of your Catalog and contains a few items that Capture One 7 needs to open and display the images with the Catalog information. The file circled in orange (below) is the equivalent to a .cocatalog file as seen above on the Mac platform.
You need to double-click this file to open the Catalog in Capture One 7 on your computer. You can of course also access Catalog files via the File>Open command (on Mac or Windows) within Capture One 7 and browse to the Catalog location. Catalogs are compatible between Mac and Windows, so you are not limited to one platform.

Locking and Unlocking Catalogs

When a user has a Catalog open in Capture One 7 it is by default locked and unable to access for other users.

If you try to open an already open Catalog you will see a warning message like the one above.

This behaviour prevents two or more people editing a Catalog at the same time. In order to edit the contents of a Catalog one user must first close it before another user can open it. If you wish for multiple people to open a Catalog at the same time it must first be Locked. To lock a Catalog go to File>Lock Catalog in Capture One.

When locking a Catalog, the following warning appears.

After clicking Lock, the Catalog will reload in a locked state. Multiple users can now access the ‘Read Only’ Catalog. To return it to its unlocked state, simply choose File>Unlock Catalog.

Please note, that if sharing a Catalog on a network, network speed may affect the performance of browsing and editing the Catalog. Optimize your network to have the best experience sharing Capture One Catalogs. Use the fastest network speed possible and store your images on high speed hard drives.

All the best,
Niels

How to Process Multiple File Formats at Once

Quite often we would like to export more than one file type at a time, for example a full sized TIFF and a smaller JPEG for email or other web applications.

Many imaging applications require you to enter a separate dialog screen each time you want to process a new file. With Capture One 7 you have the option to build multiple recipes, each containing the specific parameters of how you would like your images processed.

Once the Process Recipes are created it is a simple matter of deciding which recipe you want to use to export your images. Processing is easily achieved by one click or using a keyboard shortcut.

Alternatively you can make an immediate ad-hoc Export for a single image or group of images. This is achieved by simply choosing File>Export Variants.

Saving time with Batch Processing

Building Process Recipes in Capture One is easy. Once created, you can use these recipes in all of your Sessions or Catalogs.

The Process Recipes Tool shows an overview of what recipes have already been created and indicates if they are enabled (checkbox to the left of the name). It also shows the currently selected recipe (highlighted name).

Creating a Recipe

To create a Process Recipe click on the ‘+’ icon in the Process Recipe Tool and name your new recipe.

Once named, define the parameters for the recipe in the Process Recipe Tool. In the Basic tab, set the criteria for the File Format, Resolution, Color Profile and Scale. The further tabs contain other options, for example the option to include Metadata in the file as well as the option to apply a Watermark. Work through the tabs to decide what settings work best for you.

Once processed, your images will be saved to the location defined in the Ouput Location Tool. This tool is also in the Output Tab. Change the location by changing the ‘Store Files’ drop down menu. This is specific to the Session or Catalog as a whole.

The File tab, back in the Process Recipe Tool, has some advanced options that can be rather important. The Root Folder describes where the files will be saved when processed. This can be set specific to each Process Recipe so that each will save the file to a specific and separate location of your choosing. You can see in the example below that the Root Folder is designated as Output Folder, as previously mentioned this is its default setting.

The benefit of setting your Root Folder is that your Process Recipes are independent of the “global” Output Location. However if you do not want to set specific Root Folders for your recipes you can always change the output folder in the Output Location Tool without having to edit each recipe.

The use of the Subfolder option is also useful. This option will automatically create a subfolder in your output location, reflecting the name of your choice. This option makes it is easy to separate each image by its different process recipe.

Processing Images

Select a number of images in the Capture One 7 browser and decide what Process Recipes you want to use by enabling each of their check boxes.

The Process Summary Tool describes the currently selected recipe and if you have additional recipes selected as well.

Next, simply click on the Process button.

Alternatively, at any point during your shoot or editing process, simply select any image and choose File>Process or, as a faster workflow option use the Keyboard shortcut Cmd-D (Mac), or Ctrl-D (Win).

Processing images on the fly is a great workflow option during the editing process. On completion of editing an image, just use the keyboard shortcut to process and move on to the next image. When the editing is complete, we only need to wait for the last image to finish processing before beginning the next workflow step.

The status of the processing can be seen at any time in the Batch Tool in the Batch Tool tab.

Finally, a quick look in the Finder shows our Processed images, located neatly inside the automatically created subfolders as defined in the recipe. This workflow lends itself well to efficiency and organization.

All the best,

Niels

Find the Best Focused Images in No Time

If you shoot a large quantity of images in a short period of time, for example with portrait or fashion work, it can often be time consuming to select the images with the correct focus point.

Fortunately in Capture One Pro 7, the Focus Mask function can take on the hard work of finding the images that have the most accurate focus. The Focus Mask works by analyzing each individual image and determining the sharpest areas. If you are used to features like focus ‘peaking’ with video capture, then the functionality is similar.

Once analyzed the sharpest areas of the image are overlaid with a coloured mask.

How to use the Focus Mask

The Focus Mask can be activated by choosing either View>Show Focus Mask, or clicking on the Focus Mask icon in the toolbar.

Any image in the Viewer (as well as the Browser) is then analyzed for the sharpest areas, represented with the coloured mask as seen in the introduction. In the Capture One preferences, you can change the mask colour and behaviour.

The Threshold controls how sensitive the mask is. A low number will show the sharpest areas of the image and also the near-sharp areas. A high number will show only the sharpest areas of an image. The analysis will sometimes misrepresent sharpness for noisy images, or branches from a tree out of focus. I do not recommended using the Focus Mask with images taken with a pocket-sized camera with a small pixel size at high ISO values, unless you tune the threshold to a high number.

The colour and opacity of the mask can also be changed to your choosing in the same dialog box.

Using Focus Mask and the Loupe Together

It’s a good idea to use the Focus Mask in combination with the Loupe Tool to zoom in and review at 100 % full detail enabling you to select the most accurately focused images, since the Focus Mask and the Loupe Tool can operate in the Browser as well as the Viewer.

Hide the Viewer by choosing View>Hide Viewer from the main menu. You will then be left with thumbnails only. Just as before you can turn on the Focus Mask, waiting a few seconds for the analysis to take place and the Focus Mask to appear.

Choose the Loupe tool by hitting “p” on the keyboard or selecting it from the cursor tools.

Click and hold on the sharper images indicated by the Focus Mask to verify.

This method gives you a rapid workflow to verify and choose the images with the most accurate focus. Additionally you could use the Star Rating tags OR colour tags to mark those that you have selected.

– Use 1 -5 on the keyboard for a rating of 1 to 5 stars.

– Use the ‘+’ key to tag an image as Green.

All the best,

Niels