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Capture One Pro 10: All New Features Review

Recently, Capture One released Capture One Pro 10 with a bunch of surprising features.

Starting from version 6, Capture One boarded a high-speed train rolling out breakthrough editing tools with every new release. This year, developers decided to enhance some features which were missed in previous updates.

Capture One 10 brings completely new image sharpening, amazing output proofing, snappier performance and a mass of other useful improvements. Let’s find out what the new version can do to boost our workflows.

Main features

Output Proofing

Output Proofing, the first novelty of Capture One 10, is dedicated to showing you how exactly the RAW-file would look after the processing.

When you are working with RAW, there are many options to convert it to the final JPG or TIFF. For different purposes, you may need a particular color profile, size or sharpening settings.

Previously, at times it was quite difficult to predict the final image’s look. Now, you can turn on Output Proofing and you would immediately see the prepared image with applied preferences from the selected recipe.

Output Proofing is especially useful when you’re processing images for web.

“Proofing” sign shows that Output Proofing is turned on and you see the image with applied settings from selected recipe.

With Output Proofing, you can set the best Sharpening for your image depending on processing size. Hence, Proofing allows you to check your image to look good with selected color profile. You can even simulate JPEG compression artifacts.

New sharpening

Capture One 10 brings entirely new sharpening workflow called “3-phase sharpening”. Now, you can separately apply sharpening settings to three different editing stages:

Input sharpening

A sharpening process starts with “Diffraction correction” check box in Lens tool. That feature automatically corrects basic problems with sharpness related to your lens.

Creative sharpening

At this stage, you can manually add sharpness to your image, as it was in previous versions of Capture One. At the same time, Sharpening Tool has got two handy improvements in Capture One 10:

1. There is a new Halo Suppression slider to remove specific «halo» effect, which often appears during sharpening.

Above: Image before and after Halo Suppression

2. All the sharpening sliders are now able to work in layers. That means you can locally apply various sharpening settings to different parts of the image.

Output sharpening

Furthermore, you can now adjust sharpening right in recipe’s settings for different purposes. For example, it allows you to set specific sharpness for web and print recipes.

Output Proofing will show you how it looks on the final image. For prints you can also specify the distance you want to view the image from.

New sharpening and Output Proofing allows you to prepare the image for web or print in all the details.

Improved performance for faster viewing experience

With almost every new Capture One release, developers continue to increase app’s speed and stability. This year, they focused on refining viewing and working with images’ performance.
As a result, caching speed, drawing latency and framerates for adjustments were significantly improved. It’s quite difficult to measure, but try to work with layers in Capture One 10, and you’ll immediately notice the performance boost.

By the way, make sure to upgrade your RAW files engine to the 10th version to get all the features of Capture One 10.

Camera Focus tool

The tethered shooting was always one of the main features of Capture One, and in the 10-th version, it has got a new Camera Focus tool.

The new tool allows you to automatically and manually adjust focus during the shooting. And the best news is that Camera Focus tool works with Sony, Nikon, and Canon cameras as well as with Phase One IQ/XF.

Due to some hardware specifics, Camera Focus tool with Nikon and Canon cameras work in Live View mode only. It’s also worth to point out that the Auto Focus indicator isn’t available with Canon cameras and Manual Focus Adjustment Buttons – with Sony cameras.

Even with these restrictions, it’s a great tool for interior, food and product photographers.

Tangent devices support

Another significant update is Tangent hardware support. All the previous versions miss support for editing devices, which professional retouchers often use.

You can now connect Tangent devices with Capture One and gain an amazing analog control over color correction and processing.

Other improvements

Compressed RAW Support

In previous versions, some useful features like Lens Correction, Chromatic Aberration Analysis and LCC weren’t available for compressed RAW files.

However, all these tools now work great with Canon mRAW/sRAW and Nikon RAW M (and RAW S for D5 and D500).

Auto Masking

There is good news for Fuji camera owners as well: Auto Masking has been updated to support any editable file type, including Xtrans.

Filter for orientation of images

One more annoying issue of previous releases was fixed, and now you can filter images by orientation: landscape, portrait, and square. Note that the filter considers applied crop.

Move folders in Catalogs

Talking about small, but useful improvements: In Capture One 10 you’re now able to move folders inside Catalog’s “Folders”, and they will also move on your hard drive.

Consequently, if you wish to relocate the folder with your images, you can just drag it to a new place in Capture One, and it will automatically move on your HDD as well.

New workspaces

In Capture One 10, the default workspace is updated; Now, the browser is on the right side of the screen, and Composition tab tools are merged into the Lens tab. Developers have also added the new “Migration” workspace that provides more familiar UI for former Lightroom users.

At any moment you can switch to the classical Capture One 9 workspace or fully customize the workspace to your personal preferences.

Here is a video to show you how it works:

More Apple Script properties

Apple Script is one of the most underestimated features by Capture One users. It allows you to create an action sequence which is performed automatically as you run the script.

With previous releases, Phase One significantly expanded the amount of Capture One properties to work with Apple Script.

In the new version, they also have added some new features. Now, you can use commands to Pack/Unpack EIP, sync metadata and select variants; You can target Exif properties (R/O) and IPTC (R/W) fields using scripting for metadata change.

Optimization in Capture One 10

JPEG creation algorithms are optimized to provide the best quality at the smallest possible size.
LCC speed generation is increased by 20%.
OpenCL, graphics acceleration technology, is now enabled by default in Capture One settings.

New Cameras Support

• Sony a99 M2 support
• Sony RX100M5 support
• Sony a6500 support
• Sony a3500 support
• Olympus E-M1 mkll Support

New Lenses Support

• Mamiya Sekor Fisheye ULD C 24mm 1:4
• Sony 70-200mm F2.8 G (SAL70200G)
• Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS
• Sony E 18–200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS
• Sony E PZ 18-105mm F4 G OSS (SELP18105G)
• Sony E 55-210mm F4.5-6.3 OSS (SEL55210)
• Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS (SEL1018)
• Sony E 20mm F2.8 (SEL20F28)
• Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70 mm F4 ZA OSS (SEL1670Z)
• Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55 mm F1.8 ZA (SEL55F18Z)
• Sony DT 50mm F1.8 SAM (SAL50F18)
• Sony DT 35mm F1.8 SAM (SAL35F18)
• Sony DT 30mm F2.8 Macro SAM (SAL30M28)
• Sony 16mm F2.8 Fisheye (SAL16F28)
• Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 25mm f/1.2 PRO
• Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-100mm f/4 IS PRO
• Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40-150mm 1:4.0-5.6 R

That was my tips for Capture One Pro 10. Feel free to leave a comment or a question.

Best regards,

Alexander Svet

2016 Review: Top 5 Capture One Pro Tips

A great Capture One year is about to come to an end, and we’re celebrating it by dedicating 2016’s absolutely last post to no less than the best posts of the year.

Lean back and go through an overview of 2016’s Top 5 Tips with us – maybe you missed it the first time?

(Ordered by date)

1) 5 easy steps to save your low contrast images

– By The Image Quality Professor

Whether it is a grey and rainy day or a day with lots of scattering light that makes an image appear with low contrast, you can easily fix the problem with the histogram and the Levels sliders in the Levels tool.

Image straight out of the camera and image after being optimized in Capture One Pro.

Pictures with low contrast hardly ever look interesting. Even if an image was shot in very low contrast, you should still try to use a full range of tones in the image.

Read The Image Quality Professor’s 5 simple steps

2) Top 10 reasons to switch to Capture One Pro, Part 1

– By Alexander Svet

In this article, I’ll show you my reasons for my choosing Capture One Pro after almost a 10-years of using different RAW-converters. If you’re totally fine with your converter of choice – well, good for you. Though, if you feel that there is something missing, that some guys should really find a better way to deal with RAW formats; If you’re looking for something more – this article will help you find it.

Discover 5 of the reasons in Part 1

Psst: To get to know the remaining 5 reasons, check out Top 10 reasons to switch to Capture One Pro, Part 2

3) Second to None color with Pratik Naik

Personally, Pratik prefers to use Capture One Pro for his RAW processing. His explanation is that it contains reliable tools that offer richer colors, compared to all other RAW converters on the market.

Watch his video about Capture One Pro to learn why he thinks this is so essential to your photography:

Visit the full post to watch the BTS-video from Pratik Naik’s and Jonas Jensen’s shoot with the Phase One XF 100MP camera system.

4) 5 fundamental features in Capture One Pro

– By Baber Afzal

Capture One Pro forms the backbone of my images, especially when it comes to creating fine art images.

The 5-step workflow presented in this post will give you an understanding of why I prefer Capture One as a RAW converter, compared to the rest.

We can reveal that the first step is ‘Creating Sessions & Importing Images’. Read the full post to get to know the rest of the workflow.

5) Jumping ship to Capture One Pro from Lightroom

– By Martin Bailey

I started using Lightroom back in 2006, during the initial beta phase, and I’d been a loyal Lightroom user since. So, this may come as a shock to people that know me. I can already hear you Capture One users chuckling to yourselves, not so surprised that I’ve finally decided to make this change.

If you want an application that works exactly the same as Lightroom, then you’d better stay with Lightroom. This is why I stayed with Lightroom for such a long time. However, if you want the ultimate image quality, and you are willing to make changes to your workflow, I personally think it’s worth the change.

Click here to read about the switch and why Martin thinks Capture One equals ‘ultimate image quality’.

Psst: If you’re immigrating from Aperture, Jordan Bush offers a comprehensive guide for you: Switching to Capture One Pro from Aperture – Photography Workflow.

As a small gift, we’ve decided to provide you with an extra essential tip; Check out our new Capture One Pro 10 highlight – Proofing.

6) Control your output in Capture One Pro 10

– By The Image Quality Professor

Capture One Pro 10 now provides a whole new way of proofing the quality of your output. Until now, you have only been able to validate colors or zoom in and out of the image to see the quality of the file as it will appear if processed with no scaling changes.

Today’s cameras offer very high resolution. Therefore, exporting your file at maximum resolution is often unnecessary. You may want to deliver smaller JPEG files to your client for selection, or simply export images for your website.

However, how do you insure your processed images have the right amount of sharpening, film grain or JPEG compression? With Recipe Proofing, new in Capture One 10, you can now view the image exactly as it will be processed, according to the selected Process Recipe.

Click here to read how The Image Quality Professor benefits from the new Output Proofing.

That was it for 2016. Feel free to leave a comment and share which article has been your favorite this year.

Happy New Year,

The Capture One Team

Visualizing Dreams with the XF 100MP and Capture One Pro

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

Last week, I flew down with my creative partner, Yanyanista, to sunny Miami, and spent time shooting with the Phase One XF 100MP Camera System for our Master Class on Fashion Photography. We shot on-set and on-location at the ultra-cool Miami Ad School, which was perfect for our concept of “dreamland”.

The idea for the images was planned initially by making a creative mood board. Next, Yanyanista brought in her styling magic, and we casted our models and crew. We wanted an unusual setting with surreal elements and the best gear possible, and nothing compares to the XF 100MP. The Phase One camera shoots lighting fast. It always far exceeds the images that come from my mind’s eye.

What sold me right away on this camera was that it has the largest sensor ever produced at a consumer level and such an incredible dynamic range. Up to 15 stops of Dynamic Range! There is literally so much one can do with their images, and fine-tuning them with the new Capture One Pro 10 only makes the dreamland even more realistic.

Watch the BTS video of the Master Class, and read along to experience our dreams come true, step by step.

Preparing the shoot

A week before the shoot, we planned out the mood board to be full of unique dreamy locations. We sourced ideas and images to make our imagination come to life on paper. We started casting with the modeling agencies in Miami while we were in NYC, and chose Karina from Front Management, and Taylor from Next Management. They had just the look we needed to make our unique dreamland ideas shine. We learned on set that they were also very sweet girls, too, with wonderful characters and energy.

The inspiration was very natural. We planned the shoot based on magical creative backdrops similar to Alice in Wonderland. Not your usual locations. Location was to be set outside because we were fortunate to be shooting in wonderful warm Miami.

“The style is the essential part of the story telling. When I saw the location, I knew that something bazaar was going to be created there. Ideas were flooding in my mind. I immediately thought of one of my best friends, couture designer Anthony Manfredonia, and his gorgeous Rose Collection. I also thought of using cute headpieces from Ayuko H. Millinery and silk gowns from Manuel De la Cruz. I contacted the designers and they were super excited for the ideas!” stated Yanyanista.

We had stepped on a plane in NYC at 40 degrees Fahrenheit and stepped off to a perfect 80 degrees in Miami. We had really interesting backdrops of graffiti, a bull, flamingos, large pink buildings, greenery, and an air stream trailer. It was very important to utilize it all. Miami Ad School was very gracious to let us run around like kids on a playground shooting with the XF 100MP. We had so much fun.

Tethering on set

At the Miami Ad School, our students and I shot for two days with a huge 10 foot monitor to display the images while shooting. We were able to tether and immediately see the massive files in full perfect clarity, exposing every gorgeous detail. Amazingly, we had no problems tethering such high resolution images. In fact, it was lightning fast. And the sharpness of the files was intense.

We simplified the workflow by tethering directly into Capture One Pro. We used the Mac core desktop indoors and MacBook Pro laptop outdoors, always tethering. It let us see our composition, that our lighting was on point, and easily see when we got our shot so we could move on to the next shot quickly.

We shot the two models in a variety of locations, shooting beauty indoors and fashion outdoors. Our incredibly smart digital tech helped us handle the files and see the beautiful images immediately upon each shot. Some students had their iPads with Capture Pilot, which allowed them to see each image on their individual screens. Very cool!

Great gear takes the project to the next level

We had the Profoto D2 portable kit on-hand, along with the bright Miami sun. For the beauty shots we used the Schneider Kreuznack 120mm macro that was simply amazing. It has to be one of my favorite lenses of all time. It is so sharp and crystal clear. The depth of focus is extreme. One centimeter difference makes all the difference. This lens has gorgeous depth and sharpness.

Outdoors, we used theSchneider Kreuznack 55mm and 80mm prime lenses. Both are super sharp. I believe this is the best glass available on the market. When working with a large file you want to know the sensor actually has space to read the light coming into the camera. On a DSLR you know that the frame is small and therefore squeezing more information into a smaller space.

When working with medium format it allows the pixels to breathe. The light affects the sensor similar to using film. It is inherently beautiful straight from the camera, with little or no processing necessary.

Our “Dreamland” images came alive with the Phase One XF 100MP Camera System. Is it better than a DSLR? Without a doubt it is!

Fine-tuning with Capture One Pro

Capture One helps stylize and color tone your images for every shot, giving you a unique touch. It renders the picture color wonderfully.

Yanyanista broke down the steps in Capture One and Photoshop for retouching. She started with getting the most from the file in Capture One. Bringing up the shadows, setting the dreamy mood by lowering the clarity and desaturating the skin tone.

The images deliver a natural texture and tonal feel. In Photoshop, she worked on cleaning up the skin with her special techniques. And separating layers to isolate color tones.

The process was long but worth the detailed attention. We first broke down the concept, creating the right feeling with styling, mood boards and the location of Miami Ad School. Then, we made it happen with the great gear like the powerful portable Profoto lights and the glorious Phase One XF 100MP camera. Finally, Yanyanista processed the files with Capture One.

Our students in Miami were very discerning professionals working in high profile commercial studios that need the ultimate image quality for their jobs. The XF 100MP camera has breathtaking detail in both highlights and shadows.

On our large monitors, they saw images coming into Capture One via tethering that barely needed any retouch in Photoshop. With 500MB 16 bit 100%-scaled TIFFs you can crop into the image for any detail needed.

Capture One Pro Workflow in Pictures

1. Make sure the image selected is focused

2. Create flawless skin by decreasing Clarity while increasing Structure

3. Create a dreamy and surreal color tone with Color Balance

4. Add a new layer on Local Adjustment, draw mask on skin area

5. Use the Color Picker Tool in Color Editor to sample the midtone on the skin, then make adjustments in Hue, Saturation and Lightness

6. Add another layer and draw mask on the area of the eyes, then increase the amount of Sharpening

7. Add the final layer and decrease the opacity of the brush, Paint on the areas around the model and other subjects softly

8. Before and after

9. Select image from another look

10. Apply similar adjustments of the first image in Color Balance

11. Create a new layer and paint mask on the area of the sky

12. Sample the color of the sky and make color adjustments in Color Editor

13. Before and after

That was all from us. Feel free to leave a comment here on the blog.

All the best,

Jodi Jones & Yanyanista

Retouching by Yanyanista

All Photos by Jodi Jones

Article by Jodi Jones & Yanyanista

Confessions of a Beta Tester: Capture One Pro 10 Review

Some of you might remember my post about Switching to Capture One from Aperture. Since then, Capture One Pro 10 has been launched, which I’ve beta tested for a couple of months (more on that below). I would like to share some of my favorite features and tips with you. There are many, and each have proven to be useful controls I’m not sure how I previously did without. The image quality has never been greater!

Tethering Improvements with Focus Control

Capture One 10 precisely controls the camera focus when tethering, and this feature is simply incredible. I wanted to put it through the paces in a lower light situation, having less contrast for the camera to focus on. I often capture nightscapes to create dramatic images for clients, and tethered capture improves that process.

Tethering empowers photographers to more easily monitor sharpness, view the exposure on the histogram, check for composition changes, and now to also adjust focus.

You can automatically copy and apply adjustments to each new subsequent capture, which is particularly beneficial when a client observes. I’ve had as many as ten excited people gathered around a tethered computer watching an image come together. It helps observers instantly visualize the creative process, which often leads to great feedback, help with staging, and collectively achieving better results.

To test out focus control I used the following gear:

Nikon D4 with 24-70 mm f/2.8 lens
13” MacBook Pro with Capture One 10
USB 3 Cable (this will vary by camera)
Manfrotto Tripod & Head
Tether Tools Aero Table and Rock Solid Tether T setup. Be sure to tighten the grub screws to secure both arms
Optional weight for tripod – a sandbag or backpack with a carabiner will do

Setting Exposure Variables

The tethering panel in Capture One 10 enables control of all exposure settings, focus, and shutter release, with incredible simplicity. Adjusting one setting or variable at a time is often easier than trying to dial in the entire scene all at once, and the interface is straight forward.

For a nightscape that involves a tripod I set the ISO 200 as a baseline starting point, once the composition is framed. That’s the lowest ISO on a Nikon DSLR within the standard range, which keeps digital noise at a minimum (ISO 100 for Canon, ISO 50 for Phase One). If you drop lower into expanded ISO territory it can diminish the dynamic range and increase digital noise. If you use a tripod (a hiking boot or tree stump will do in a pinch), start with the lowest ISO within the camera’s normal range.

Next, I set the aperture. To keep most of the scene in focus, start around f/8, which is where many lenses offer the sharpest quality. For this scene, I eventually set the aperture to f/16 to balance the exposure in achieving a longer/slower shutter speed to blur moving traffic.

Combining long exposures and narrow apertures (f/8, f/11, f/16) emphasizes sensor dirt on each image, so keep your sensor clean to avoid heavy retouching. If i’s too late, it can diminish the appearance of sensor dirt if you stop up to f/5.6, f/4 (or faster/wider). From there, you can shorten or lengthen shutter speed based on ambient light, and if there are any moving objects in the frame to emphasize or minimize, such as traffic. While the camera is steady, motion becomes blurred in longer exposures, and repetitive movements eventually smooth out in ambient light.

Focus Tweaking Using Live View

To find and adjust focus, Live View in Capture One 10 enables focus control on a tethered camera. Focusing is quite simple, with the preview exposure momentarily brightening as it searches for contrast in the frame. You can make near or far focus adjustments incrementally in three different amounts in either direction. I kept the focus about 1/3 into the frame to maximize the already large depth of field.

I’m amazed at how well Capture One finds focus at night and how much control I have even with a narrow depth of field. Focus control is quite useful to avoid disturbing the camera anytime the camera needs to be still, including commercial settings, product work, and focus stacking without using a slider. For portraits, tethering coupled with focus control helps create a more casual interaction, while it offers refinements to nail exposure using a larger monitor.

With a Phase One camera, especially the astounding XF 100MP Camera System with razor sharp focus, the most beneficial feature of Capture One 10 might be focus control.

Sharpening with Halo Suppression

Halo suppression is yet another fantastic measure to improve image quality. When heavily applying sharpening to an image, glowing halos might show up along lines of high contrast. The new Halo Suppression Tool smooths those halos over effortlessly to diminish the appearance that a photograph was sharpened.

As an experiment, I took an image slightly out of focus to sharpen it in post, using the more concise sharpening adjustments in Capture One 10. The difference was remarkable and halos were dramatically reduced while I made the photograph noticeably sharper.

Always try to get it right in camera, but if you can’t, halo suppression can really help save the day.

Workspaces

There’s a new default workspace in Capture One 10, along with some streamlining for making faster adjustments. One change eliminated the Crop Tab through reorganization, which had the same icon and close proximity as the Crop Tool.

Keeping the browser on the screen’s right side makes great use of real estate – especially for wide aspect ratio.

You can create your own customized workspaces for specific tasks, which I highly recommend. This can completely transform your Capture One experience in the best possible ways.

Hardware Tools as Time Saving Shortcuts

If you use an Intuos tablet with custom configurations specific to an earlier version of Capture One, keep in mind that you need to configure those for Capture One 10. However, this is quite simple.

I’m new to using an Intuos Pro tablet, but love it with Capture One.

I finally got to meet David Grover in person at PhotoPlus Expo in NYC and he has a literally jaw dropping workflow where he uses Tangent Element video editing controllers, which are now enabled in Capture One 10. With this, you can customize physical shortcuts and image adjustments on the controller for tangible precision and incomprehensible speed.

Also, if you’ve never been to PhotoPlus Expo, check it out next October and say hi to everyone at Capture One.

Output Proofing

A great feature to quickly review web resolution files before exporting one or many photographs in a recipe. This works quite well to see if sharpening gets affected when you resize a photograph. Output proofing helps balance quality with resolution to optimize webpage speed instantly, saving the time it would take to export a sample.

Folder Merging in Catalogs

The User Collection in Capture One 10 is one of its greatest strengths and it just got easier. I recently finished a two-week working road trip that included photographing multiple subjects on a daily basis. Capture One helped keep my work organized so when I later imported the trip catalog into my main 2016 Catalog at my desk, reorganizing was a cinch.

Beta Testing Capture One

It’s really awesome having access to new features ahead of schedule to bring your image quality to another level. If you’re already a registered Capture One Pro user, you can sign up to beta test here. You’ll have periodic downloads of beta software with release notes describing each new feature.

When the official release comes out, you’ll be fully in the know and your feedback helps improve the user experience. Capture One 10 is packed with exciting and useful features so there was much try out.

When beta testing, it’s best to create a separate test catalog for that version of Capture One. That will protect your primary catalog from any potential issues that may arise by maintaining those images when using the official release. If you back up each Capture One catalog regularly, your adjustments and image organization will be saved, should a problem arise. So, be sure to keep on top of that simple procedure. During long color correction sessions, I recommend that you back up periodically to save your work.

I’ve beta tested for a few great companies and it amazes me how frequently Capture One’s software is updated. They always update release notes correspondingly and highlight changes as well as the logic behind the improvements. It’s clear that much care goes into the development of Capture One – that it’s made by photographers, for photographers.

Tips for upgrading to Capture One 10

Backup

Upgrading from Capture One 9 to 10, for me, was a breeze. A 450 GB Capture One catalog updated almost instantly after the prompt.

It’s always a wise idea to back up your catalog AND image files, but you need to complete it any time there’s a software change. Carbon Copy Cloner 4 makes the job increasingly simple for you this and every subsequent time. I maintain one backup on a dedicated hard drive at my desk and a second, which is off site.

To keep CCC from automatically overwriting a healthy backup, I have scheduled backups disabled.

Styles

If you have any User Styles installed, Capture One automatically finds them, which is nice (Adjustments – Styles – User Styles).

Intuos Tablet Shortcuts

This is quite simple. However, be aware that Intuos Tablet settings in System Preferences need to be configured if you have specific shortcuts enabled in Capture One 9 or earlier. I’m relatively new to using an Intuos Pro tablet, but love it with Capture One.

That was all from me, for now. I’ll be back in an up-coming webinar with David Grover, in which we’re going to talk about Maximizing Catalogue Organization. Feel free to join in! You can read more and sign up here.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. You’re also more than welcome to visit my website.