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capture one raw photo editor express post by jakob boie sorensen feature image road between mountains

Capture One Express explained

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

Capture One Express is a free photo editing software for Sony and Fujifilm files – a simplified version of Capture One’s award-winning photo software Capture One Pro. It’s completely free to download and unlike a 30-day trial, doesn’t expire.

In this blog post, I’ll guide you through the basics of Capture One Express and also talk about the differences between the Express and Pro versions.

First, let’s start with why anyone would want to use a photo editor at all:

If you’ve got a Sony or Fujifilm camera, you’ve probably spent hours trying to nail that perfect, memorable shot from your holiday, birthday party – or anything else that you love to photograph. When you upload the photos to your computer and export them for printing or sharing online, you might be disappointed to find the moment doesn’t look as good as you remember it.

That’s because shooting with a camera is only half the battle – you need image editing software to make quick fixes to elements like brightness, shadows, colors or lighting and create a truly memorable photo.

It doesn’t have to be complicated – the auto adjustments and essential editing tools in Capture One Express can help you boost your photos in just a few clicks. Here’s a quick guide to using them:

Automatically boost photos

Want a fast way to improve your photos? You can automatically boost image elements like colors, white balance, contrast or brightness using Auto Adjustments in Capture One Express.

There are two ways to apply an Auto Adjustment:

1. Click the adjustments menu and select Auto Adjust.
2. Use the shortcut CMD + L on Mac or CTRL + L on Windows.

Then, select which image elements you wish to automatically adjust by selecting
Adjustments > Configure Auto Adjustments.

capture one raw photo editor express post by jakob boie sorensen adjustment tool screenshot

The other option it to click the A  symbol in the right corner of almost every Tool.  Capture One Express will then apply the tool in a way that fits your image as best as possible.

To undo an adjustment, select the single arrow or use the CMD + Z shortcut on Mac or CTRL + Z on Windows.

Capture One RAW photo editor express blogpost auto adjust tool screenThe red circle around A marks the Auto Adjustment setting in the specific tool – for example in the High Dynamic Range sliders shown here.

Instant color grading with Styles

Instantly transform the look of your photos with Styles – a layer of preset colors and adjustments that can be applied over any photo with just one click.

Capture One Express comes with some built-in Styles – scroll through and try them out on your photo to see which look you prefer. You will find them in the Styles and Presets Tool tab.

Capture One RAW photo editor express blogpost styles preset tool screen

Scroll through the different Styles and find one that fits your photo best. You can also find some built-in presets, which is an easy way to adjust specific elements of the photo.

Although you can apply Styles to JPEG files, you will get the best result with a RAW file – simply change your camera settings to shoot in RAW instead of JPEG. To learn more about the benefits of RAW files, read our Why shoot RAW blogpost.

capture one raw photo editor express post by jakob boie sorensen straight out of camera, before any adjustments road between mountainsThe photo straight out of camera, before any adjustments have been made.

capture one raw photo editor express post by jakob boie sorensen after Spring Style 05 applied, together with some applied Auto Adjustments road between mountainsThe same photo with the Spring Style 05 applied and some added Auto Adjustments

You can also save a series of adjustments and edits as your own personal Style, so you can use it again on a later photo. Simply click Adjustments > Styles > Save User Style.

For even more creative possibilities, visit the Capture One Styles store to browse the range of Style Packs inspired by different looks – from seasonal colors, to black-and-white and film photography.

Express vs. Pro

Capture One Express is a simplified version of Capture One Pro – with the same fast performance and high-quality image conversion as in the award-winning Pro version.

So what’s the difference between Express and Pro? With a full range of professional photo editing tools, the Pro version gives you complete creative control of your photo editing. For example, you can use Layers to adjust specific sections of an image without affecting the rest, apply advanced color grading, shoot directly into your computer with tethered capture, and customize your own workspace so you can quickly find the tools you need and edit big projects in a snap.

Check out the full list of Capture One Pro features.

Now you know all about Express, here’s how to get it:

Download Capture One Express (for Sony) or
Download Capture One Express Fujifilm

Launch the program, then follow these steps:


Capture One RAW photo editor express blogpost Fujifilm activation screen

You’re all set!

Want to learn more about creating great photos with Capture One Express? Visit the Capture One Learning Hub for free webinars and tutorials on the free photo software. Have fun!

 

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Editing on the road with Thomas Skou

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

As a photographer, I get inspired by freedom – being able to take the long way home and stop the car whenever I want. To be able to photograph cars, people, a battered road sign or a crooked house. I like being about to create photos out of  spontaneous situations, and it gives me a kick when I manage to create something truly unique.

It’s important to me to always incorporate my own touch into my photos, no matter who I work with. I have eyes on all my fingers and am constantly thinking about pictures, lights, angles and possibilities. This is also why I love travelling and meeting strangers.

Being able to conjure up something unique such as the light, the lines or even an untapped vulnerability – that makes me stay in the profession and keep pushing the limits of what I can achieve through my camera and beyond in the post production and editing process.

As a photojournalist in my teens, my biggest fear was approaching people to photograph them for a portrait. But today, my on-the-road portraits tend to be freestyle and jumping into new things is a big part of my persona as a photographer (although my fashion shoots are typically planned down to the smallest detail.)

Capture One Pro helps me work on the road

Seeing beyond the camera and editing images in photo editing software is a big part of creating the perfect final photo. I use Capture One Pro to edit my photos for lots of reasons – the Layers, all those lovely grain effects for amazing black and white photography, and most importantly, – my workflow is automatically so much faster in Capture One Pro. This is really important to me because the majority of my work is done on the go.

Here are some examples of my editing process:

Layers are definitely one of my must-have tools: in this example, I am creating a Mask in a new Layer because the model’s legs are ice pale, while her face is dark from the hat shade. I fixed this by raising the exposure and brightness, adjusting the highlights and shadows, and finally adjusting the opacity for the most natural blend.

That’s not something I could fix in-camera – you need photo editing software to fix it, and the ability to create Masks so you can focus edits in specific areas and get total creative freedom.

In Capture One Pro, you can control any aspect of the black and white conversion so it matches the look you want. By turning up the Exposure Slider, I can increase or decrease the light all over the image. If I use the Brightness Slider instead, it only affects the shadows and midtones, but preserves the highlight.

I sometimes find it very useful to use both sliders to create a certain mood – for example, by decreasing the exposure and increasing the brightness to see the difference.

There are a lot of ways to reach the same result, for example the Curve Slider can also be used to add light and contrast. Often, an S curve can be a good starting point in a black and white conversion.

Remember that it’s often the sum of the smaller adjustments that contributes to the final image.

Making a black and white conversion in Capture One Pro is quite simple. In the Tools Bar you will find a Black & White tool. Make a simple conversion by clicking “Enable Black & White”. But it’s the ability to control every color channel along with with Levels, Curves and Basic Adjustments that can really make an image stand out.

If you want to be inspired and need a good starting point, then you also have the option of using Styles. A Style is a color grading preset, that will give you a starting point which you can then also tweak to suit your preferences. There are some excellent built-in Styles with Capture One, or you can buy all kinds of Styles Packs inspired by different looks, from cinema and film to the great outdoors.

Like that analog feel? Try to add Grain and experiment with different types, impact and granularity.

This is another example of using the Mask tool in Layers. Creating extra contrast and toning down the lazy clouds and crispy snow makes all the difference. You can add several layers to take control of every little part of the image, and you can also change the opacity in order to change the layer’s impact in the image.

For new photographers, my main photo editing tip is to have fun, play around, drink coffee, watch a tutorial and dare to try out your own crazy ideas; do a clean version and then a messed up, raw and grainy one. Just test anything out and play the day away – or see if you can replicate the look of something in a magazine.

If you don’t already have Capture One, download a 30 day trial and try it out.

Eager to learn? Access webinars, tutorials and expert help in the Learning Hub – completely free.

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Capture One RAW photo editor blog Jesper Palermo feature image new york street through broken wire fence

Jesper Palermo gets creative with color

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

“Color is everything”

Color is everything. Coloring is what sets a mood and helps tell a story – it keeps the viewer intrigued, and good color processing via photo editing software is a huge part of being a good photographer.  For me, it’s about making an image come to life.

I often try to create a cinematic feel with my photography series – dark tones, moody vibes with contrast and popping colors, but with lightened and toned shadows. Photos where the white isn’t necessarily white and the tones can do the magic.

Capture One RAW photo editor montage of Jesper Palermo images

Of course, for bigger commercial jobs my “moody” color grading doesn’t always perfectly suit – but it’s important that I include a degree of my own look in the post processing. I try to blend my personal color grading with my more commercial, “correct” color grading and try to create my own vibe.

Must-have tools for color grading

To achieve my exact vision and vibe, a good RAW file is always necessary – and of course, good photo editing software! My toolkit of choice is Capture One Pro – since day one I have been very interested in coloring and expanding my color grading skillset, which is why I chose the software with the best possible color tools.

For example, I can’t live without the Advanced Color Editor, the Color Picker tool and the lovely sliders. I never finish an image without turning a knob or two in those tools. I love it!

Capture One Aw photo editor software screenshot color editing tools

The Linear Gradient Mask is another go-to. I almost always play around with it when working on the depth of an image. I often have the Linear Gradient Mask in mind when working on specific photos, and I use it to help me shape my vision of how it should look. I use it to darken or lighten the gradient, and it’s amazing every time – and the Linear Gradient Mask has really great possibilities.

capture one RAW photo editor get creative with color blogpost jesper palermo software screenshot color gradient mask

When it comes to preset adjustments in Styles – my advice would be to follow your own vision and start playing around with the color tools yourself! Get creative and try things out.  I love playing around with the Capture One Styles, but I always end up changing them up a little, making changes to opacity and color so you end up with a completely different look than the one you began with. It gets me inspired for the final look of my images.

My color grading process in
Capture One Pro

It’s a bit tricky to explain my work process as it is never quite the same every time – I’m still learning and having fun with the RAW editing software! But there are a few things I almost always do:

When I first import the image into Capture One Pro, I make basic adjustments to “correct” the image and then play around with sliders, tabs and color grading tools. I like to experiment with the different choices available in Capture One Pro to mix up the coloring in my images. I try to create a look in my head, and then execute it on-screen with the color grading tools.

Capture One RAW photo editor jesper palermo blogpost software screenshot adjustments

Sometimes I play around with Styles, but I never end up choosing just one – I always tweak them to fit the image or suit my style.

More reasons to edit in Capture One Pro

Besides the advanced color grading tools, there are tons of other reasons I prefer to edit my photos in Capture One Pro. Here’s just a few:

  • I can redesign the entire interface and personalize my workspace. It’s genius! I love being able to scale back to the tools I can’t live without and ditch the few that I barely use.
  • Floating tools for the win! It just makes it so easy and enjoyable to slide around in the editing. Plus being able to drag the tools out and pop them bigger for more precise editing is just perfect!

capture one RAW photo editor get creative with color blogpost jesper palermo software screenshot floating tools

  • I can export multiple files at once for different outputs, like print or Instagram. It’s a clever touch!

Capture One RAW photo editor jesper palermo blogpost software screenshot output

There are really a ton of reasons to choose Capture One Pro as your go-to photo editing toolbox, but I would say the main reason is: you simply get a cleaner and better file from your export – you will improve yourself as a photographer because your final photos simply look better.

In Capture One Pro, highlights and shadows are cleaner, while color gradients – they are simply beautiful. I was once a pro user of Lightroom, but after shooting tethered directly into my computer using Capture One Pro and switching to it as my go-to software, I have been so much happier with the final result.

The Advanced Color Editor is just beautiful and works like magic – once you get around to using it properly. Play around a bit and see for yourself – it won’t take long!

Stay true to yourself  

Whether working on my own series or commercial projects, I always try to be curious about new ways of editing images and be willing to experiment and explore – but of course, my mission is always to have my own personal touch, a subtle hint of Palermo. The most important thing as a photographer is to never stop – never settle. Open your eyes, be curious, be nerdy!  

If you don’t already have Capture One, you can download a day trial and try it out.

Eager to learn? Access webinars, tutorials and expert help in the Learning Hub – completely free.

capture one RAW photo editor get creative with color blogpost jesper palermo NYC street crossing from above

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Capturing the pulse of New York with black-and-white photography

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

Black and white street portraiture is a personal project I’ve been working on for over 10 years, but my journey there has not been a linear one.

My background in photography is largely news-based, as my father was a news photographer. Born in the UK, I moved to New York in 2000 after a brief spell in Los Angeles working for a celebrity news agency. The company relocated me to New York with a colleague to set up the New York bureau – at the time, this meant a tiny apartment on 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen.

Each week, we flew around the world on assignments that included tracking down convicted killers in the heart of Brazil, to shooting the latest celebrity on Caribbean beach. This was a golden age of celebrity photography, where magazines would pay anything for a shot. But after 5 years, I decided to go freelance. I wanted more control over my life and what I wanted to shoot, and I found myself uninspired by celebrity photography – which felt more like working as a private detective than a photographer.

 

How the streets of New York became my playground 

I bought a Leica M7 from a friend and quickly became hooked. The camera set up was a nice break from the Canon 600mm lenses I was used to shooting with. It allowed me to mentally separate my work from my personal vision and the things that inspired me to become a photographer in the first place.

With that camera in hand, the streets of New York became my playground. Now that I was no longer hunting celebrities at Starbucks, I found myself looking for people that interested me and a return to my old habit of shooting predominately black and white.

The motivation to shoot became so intense that I would get up at 4am and run out the door. If I knew a snowstorm was on the way, I would prepare my gear the night before. If I woke up at 2am and it was snowing, I would grab a coffee and walk around the streets of the city. They’re is something so magical about walking around in blizzard conditions in the city that never sleeps.

Most of the time the people I approach are shocked that I want to do a portrait of them. Some say no.  This is something I have to get used to – the fear of rejection.  However, in my experience people turn out to be mostly flattered or intrigued as to why you would want their portrait. And the most interesting conversations I’ve had with people have been while out documenting the streets.

 

All photographers need to edit their images

From my experience, I’ve found a lot of misconceptions exist out there that professional photographers just go out and shoot award winning images every day. This is not the case – professionals also crop and edit their images. I would love to say that I nail composition, lighting, subject matter, full frame every time, but I often need help from photo editing software.

I’ve gone through many kinds of image editing software  – Photoshop, Aperture, and then Lightroom. I found that I was not getting good black and white images through Lightroom, so I would export the images to black and white plugin Silver Efex.

The process was very long-winded. I would have to export to Silver Efex, then back into Lightroom to do the dodging, burning and any spot removal. Asset management was messy – my library was doubling up. I had the TIFF file from Silver EFX and then I would export the final as a TIFF as well.

When teaching a Leica Akademie class in New York recently, an attendee showed me Capture One and I decided to download the trial version. I’m still in the early stages but I am amazed by just how much more creative control I have over my photos.

I compared the two software by taking one of my old images created in Lightroom and Silver EFX and reproducing it in Capture One Pro – I was amazed to see that I could not only recreate the same look, but even go further.

 

“Capture One is Lightroom on Steroids”

Before shooting a street scene, I find it useful to visualize how I want the end result to look on a print. This becomes my vision for the final edit and end result. The next step is to maintain the integrity of the scene, especially when it’s a street photograph. When photo editing, I try to maintain the same techniques I used when I was in the darkroom. Dodging and burning, darkening the corners and playing with contrast. It’s great that Capture One allows me to copy and paste the adjustments to the next image. Again, this saves me a lot of time and enables me to create variants of the same image.

Capture One Pro can seem daunting when you first open the program, but I was able to quickly pick up the basics using the free Learning Hub online, and even create my own custom workspace with my preferred tools within a few hours. Every day I start up the software, I find out something new.

For example, If I want to create different looks and moods for the same image to be able to compare, I can easily do this in Capture One Pro without making more TIFF files.

I was also delighted to learn that I could keep my original workflow from Lightroom. In that program, I used to do all my editing and selecting in the Quick Access module using the B key to make selects. This served as a kind of mood board and images would often stay there for weeks at a time while I was editing them.

In Capture One, I could maintain this Quick Access folder and Keyboard Shortcuts, and therefore keep the same workflow I had before in Lightroom. I’m also able to maintain the same color-coding system and star ratings that I had used before.

Lightroom was good for using as a catalogue system but it just lacks a lot of tools. Capture One is Lightroom on steroids!  You have so many more tools to utilize and with Process Recipes, I can export my final images to multiple locations in one go.  For example, I could export one shoot consisting of high-resolution TIFF files and also a low-resolution folder for social media posts.

I’ve also created multiple workspaces in Capture One – one purely for editing black–and–white, and then another for client edits where more image manipulation is required to meet client needs.

The old process of exporting to Silver EFX and then back into Lightroom has now been cut down in time and my hard drives are thankful for it thanks to Capture One. And I know that this is just the beginning of my learning curve as I can see the possibilities are endless.

If you don’t already have Capture One, you can download a day trial and try it out.

March 19th 2015: Pictures taken of Steam clouds on 6th Avenue in New York City, USA.
Pictures by Phil Penman
WWW.PHILPENMAN.COM
Cellphone: 917 496 1644
penmanphoto@gmail.com
February 20th 2018: Pictures taken ion the Top of the Rock showing the Emire State Building , and Central Park in New York City, USA. WWW.PHILPENMAN.COM Cellphone: 917 496 1644
March 20th 2019: Picture taken of a New Yorker Billy Kane “The Drummer” in New York , USA. Picture by Phil Penman WWW.PHILPENMAN.COM Email: studio@philpenman.com Cellphone: 917 496 1644
May 16th 2019: Picture taken in midtown , New York City, USA. Picture by Phil Penman WWW.PHILPENMAN.COM Email: studio@philpenman.com Cellphone: 917 496 1644
January 17th 2012: People seen walking on a rainy day through the steam clouds in New York City, USA. Photography by Phil Penman www.philpenman.com Cellphone: 917 496 1644 Email: ppenman@me.com i

 

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