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Capture One Pro 10: 10 reasons why I’ll never look back

While retouching with Photoshop isn’t a necessary step to get the best out of a picture, processing the RAW file is necessary. There are many RAW editing applications available on the market, and it can be difficult to find the one that best suits your needs.

I remember when I started photography, I was introduced to Apple’s Aperture, which has since been discontinued. So, I then moved onto Adobe Lightroom. Neither of them truly met my requirements. But eventually, I stumbled upon Capture One Pro and slowly made the transition. I’ve had extensive experience with all three apps. While none is perfect, there are at least ten reasons why I can’t leave Capture One and go back to any other RAW-processing software.

#1 Tethered Shooting Made Perfect

If Capture One has become the industry standard in commercial, fashion, beauty, or even still life photography, there must be at least one really good reason. To me, Tethered Capturing mode is that reason. Unlike most of its competitors, tethered capture in Capture One is reliable, and adjustments can be made on the fly, which offers clients a better vision of the end result. Plus, it’s easy to setup.

This is actually the reason I started using Capture One, and why I mention it first. Lightroom simply didn’t cut it when I shot tethered in studio. In the beginning, I used Capture One only for its tethering mode, and I would develop my files in Lightroom. But that quickly changed…

With Capture One 10, still life and macro photographers will be pleased to hear that they can finely set the focus within the app. No need to move to the camera to adjust it. No more trying to get it right with live view mode.

#2 Easy and Accurate Color Management

Only with Capture One do I manage to get the colors I want out of my RAW files without spending too much time. The easy use of the Color Editor and Skin Tone Tab allows for extremely accurate adjustments! Every time a client requires different software to process the RAW files, I miss Capture One’s Color Editor Tool. It’s such a time saver, and diminishes the work you need in Photoshop quite a lot.

Even better yet, I haven’t had to buy an expensive color target to obtain the colors I want. The ICC profiles, created by Phase One for over 400 cameras, are stellar and can easily be tweaked to one’s liking. Get your white balance right, and your colors will look more realistic than ever, even with the default settings.

#3 Good Out of the Box, Great Once Customized

Capture One offers great settings right out of the box. When I switched from Lightroom, I was astonished to see the difference between my files in Capture One and Lightroom! They look so much better in Capture One, without adjusting anything. Consequently, I decided to leave Adobe’s product behind. The Capture One look, just like the medium format look, is something truly special. You have to try it to understand it.

Once you get accustomed to Capture One and its tools, you should tailor your interface. I see so many photographers using the software just as it is even though they don’t use half of the features and don’t know about others far more important.

The level of customization is above anything else I’ve seen: you can personalize almost everything. It’s by making your own workspace that you’ll be able to go through pictures extremely quickly and efficiently, without feeling restricted by the interface. You’ll take your RAW files to the next level without losing time.

#4 Lightning Fast

At first, Capture One may be intimidating because of all its tools. But once you make your own workspace and customize everything you can, you’re able to work faster than ever. Not just because you know the ins and outs of the software, but also because it’s built to operate with big files and for large jobs.

Most other RAW processing apps were built to process pictures from a 10-year-old 35 mm digital camera with a 15 megapixel sensor or less. The power needed isn’t the same as what 50+ megapixel files now require.

Capture One is designed to work with digital medium format cameras that produce large RAW files, so it is not an issue at all to develop pictures from a Nikon D810 or Canon 5DSR. I mean, it can process 100 megapixel files without slowing down, as long as your computer can handle it.

If you’re used to Capture One 8 or 9, you need to give Capture One 10 a try. It’s even faster, thanks to the software engineers who reworked the main tools to make them more efficient. Panning, zooming, or going from one RAW file to another is instantaneous, no matter how big the images are!

#5 Focus Mask

Wedding or commercial photographers sometimes have to go through quite a lot of pictures quickly to keep their business profitable. One issue when culling down files is that you can’t select them using the thumbnails only as you can’t check focus properly this way.

Well, with Capture One it’s actually possible! The Focus Mask Tool displays an overlay color where the focus is achieved. No need to zoom in on every single frame, just the ones you aren’t sure about. Even then, you can use the Focus Tool to keep the navigator view but still check focus accuracy on your file. Culling has never been easier than with Capture One.

#6 Color Toning Made Visual

When teaching retouching, I find that many struggle with the notion of color. Using curves when you don’t know anything about color theory is awkward and anything but intuitive. Removing green to add magenta, go figure it out…

Anyone who ever opened a video color corrector software has probably seen the color wheels they feature to adjust the colors. Until Phase One introduced it in Capture One, no other photo-editing software offered this! It’s such a powerful and easy to use tool, that one can only wonder why it wasn’t available in any other photo editing software before. Once you try it, it’s extremely hard not to use it.

Adjusting color according to luminosity levels is so intuitive that even beginners will achieve the results they have in mind.

#7 Multiple Exports at Once

I remember when I used Lightroom and the export process could be a pain when exporting in multiple formats. When I shot weddings, I wanted to export 8×12” files at 240 DPI for my clients, full resolution at 300 DPI for my archives, and have 120% TIFFs at 300 DPI in 16 bits for wall prints and album design. To avoid extremely slow processing, I wait for one export to finish before I launch the next.

Capture One is designed to launch multiple recipes (export presets) at once. So, exporting JPEGs for proofing while the TIFFs are being processed is no longer an issue. The software does the work for me once I select the recipes.

#8 Capture Pilot

Any commercial photographer has probably worked with an art director looking over his shoulder to get a glimpse at the camera’s back. Tethered shooting becomes more efficient with Capture Pilot running on an iPad alongside Capture One on a computer. By using Capture Pilot, the art director can quickly go through the files as they’re captured. Meanwhile, the digital assistant can work in Capture One on the computer, adjusting the files on the fly.

Also family and portrait photographers can benefit from Capture Pilot. Instead of sending a proof gallery, simply hand over an iPad at the end of the session, and let your client(s) choose their images. It’ll make your work easier and they’ll most likely pick more shots as they’ll make an emotional rather than a rational decision.

#9 Proofing Taken to the Next Level

Proofing has become a forgotten step in many photographers’ workflows nowadays. As our industry has changed and digital use only has become a thing, many don’t proof their files anymore. But proofing isn’t limited to making sure the file looks perfect once printed. Most photo editing software can do that, Capture One being one of them. However, Capture One 10 offers a brand new feature allowing you to proof a file according to the process recipe selected.

This effectively means that Capture One 10 will display a proof of the picture with the settings the recipe has. No need to guess the effect of the JPEG compression or of the scaling on the sharpness accentuation anymore. The proof looks exactly like the final exported file.

#10 Sharpening for Final Use

This new feature of Capture One 10 has to be one of my favorite ones! Many photographers tend to add sharpening to their images in Photoshop using some kind of high pass filter trick. That works great, but saving the file with added sharpness isn’t such an excellent idea when the final use hasn’t been defined or if the file will be used on different media. Your picture may need different sharpening for Facebook than it does for a fine art print or a billboard.

When exporting, Capture One 10 offers the choice between adding sharpness for print, screen, or none at all. The last option is ideal for retouching. Better yet, sharpening for print has a handy feature named “Distance”. It lets you define the viewing distance of your print, so that sharpening is applied accordingly. With this feature, you don’t have to guess if your file is sharp enough for a 5-meter-wide image.

And there you have it, my top ten reasons why I’m not looking at any other RAW processing software alternative. Capture One is what suits my needs best, and I customize it to make my workflow as efficient as possible. And I’m extremely excited about Capture One 10!

While I mentioned a few of the newest features here, the new release has so much more to offer. Whether you’re a Capture One user or not, you must give it a try and experience its speed and handy new features.

… And before I leave you with the free 30-day trial, here’s a bonus 11th reason why you should consider Capture One: free tutorials and webinars. No need to pay to become a Capture One expert. Just head over to Phase One’s YouTube channel to watch videos in seven different languages. If you want to go more in depth, there’s always the Image Quality Professor’s blog posts.

Control your Output in Capture One Pro 10

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

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.

But 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.

Adjustments made to the image whilst Recipe Proofing is active are shown instantly. This means that you can deliver the exact the look and quality needed, even for a small file.

One can even see JPEG compression artifacts if processing out to JPEG.

Typically, the goal is to have as small of a JPEG file as possible, with the right quality for your need. Now, it is as straightforward as adjusting the JPEG quality slider in the Process Recipe, to immediately see the impact.

Images for Web Use

When I process images out of Capture One for the web, I still want the highest possible quality.

Before Capture One 10, I was processing out to a 50% size TIF file. Then, in Photoshop, I downsized the image to a width of typically 1600 pixels. The downsizing process actually makes the image look softer compared to the 100% view in Capture One. This is a logical consequence of downsizing. Therefore, I need to re-sharpen the file.

Finally, I save it as a JPEG file with a specific compression setting.

However, I still need to check the final, compressed JPEG quality for “ringing” artifacts and banding in smooth transitions.

Now, in Capture One 10, all these steps are made redundant by simply using the “Recipe Proofing” option.

Recipe Proofing

Recipe Proofing requires that a Process Recipe is first selected in the Process Recipe Tool. For this example, I have chosen a Process Recipe named “JPEG sRGB 1600 Pixels for web”.

The Recipe Processes to a JPEG file with Quality set to 50. The ICC Profile is sRGB and I have chosen a scaling of 1600 pixels on the long edge of the image.

Capture One 10’s new default workspace contains a shortcut on the toolbar to activate recipe proofing. A red circle above the image marks this.

Once activated, the selected image in the viewer shows a “Proofing” label (See above image).

In this mode, the viewer will display the image according to the recipe. So, now zooming to 100% means 100% of the output size. This way, I can see the file exactly as it will look when processed and I can also check the sharpness and the quality of the JPEG compression.

Output Sharpening

To compensate for lost sharpness, caused by the downsizing of the file, I could just add some more sharpening in the Sharpening tool. However, I would then need to change it again if I were to process the same image with different scaling. To deal with this issue, we have added another new Capture One 10 feature that allows you to add Output Sharping to a Recipe.

In the Adjustments tab for the selected Recipe, sharpening is set to “Output sharpening for Screen” with a Radius of 0.6 pixel and an Amount of 80. With Recipe Proofing active, dragging any of the sliders gives live feedback in the Capture One viewer. Image update speed during Recipe Proofing may be slower, as it requires more processing.

Setting the Right JPEG Compression

The following image is good to show JPEG compression artifacts as it has smooth tonale transitions as well as fine high contrast structures:

Underneath, it’s illustrated how I have zoomed in to 200% with Recipe Proofing mode activated. Normally, I recommend validating the file at 100% view, but in order to make it easier to see the differences when choosing different JPEG qualities, I use 200% view.

The image to the left uses JPEG Quality 0. In this image, the “ringing” artifacts around the antennas are obvious. The image in the middle uses Quality 50. Here, the ringing is much less noticeable. The image to the right uses Quality 100 and here no JPEG artifacts are visible.

The Process Summary Tool shows approximately how big the file will be. In the example above the file increases from 175kb to 245 kb to 1Mb. So, if you find that 50% quality works for you, then you will have a file that is four times smaller than using Quality 100. Consequently, the upload of files to a client, or Image loading on a webpage, will also be four times faster.

Film Grain

With Recipe Proofing, it has also become super easy to use Film Grain on scaled images as you can view the effect exactly as it will appear in the final image.

Recipe Proofing in Capture One 10 simply provides a much more efficient workflow with full control of the image quality whenever you need to resize images.

If you want to try out the proofing and sharpening, together with a lot other new features, you can download a free 30-day trial or visit our online software shop to upgrade, subscribe or buy a new license.

If you have any questions about the new Capture One Pro 10, please feel free to add a comment.

Niels,

The Image Quality Professor

Creating atmosphere with Color Grading

It was a cold and windy morning in Chicago, and the sun was just beginning to peak over the lake. I was more than 500 ft in the air, standing on the roof of the Hard Rock Hotel. I cleaned the sleep from my eyes while trying to decide the best angle to shoot from. I’m no stranger to heights, much of my work showcases the city of Chicago from high angles – but being on the ledge of a building 40 stories high is an unforgettable experience. I don’t often shoot the city at dawn, but have always enjoyed it when I do. It’s such a great time to take photos, as everything seems less chaotic and serene. The light on the buildings is noticeably different, and it’s a nice change from the norm.

Choice of equipment and settings

My equipment for this shoot was an XF IQ1 80MP. The lens was the Schneider Kreuznach LS 28mm f/4.5. I chose this lens because I wanted to capture the canyon of the street perfectly, and knew I needed something wide to do so. The wide angle also increases the feeling of vertigo, which worked perfectly in this scene. I wanted as little noise as possible, so I set my ISO to 35, which left me with a shutter speed of 1/40s.

Recreate your style

When it comes to grading, I tend to favor a more dramatic and emotional tone to my photos. With consistency, it gives my work a recognizable style, something that sets me apart from other photographers. In this blog post, I’ll show you three different variations of the same photo, and the steps to recreate it on your own.

Version 1: Deep and dramatic

In the first example, we’ll make the photo appear a little more dramatic with deep creamy shadows and neutral mid tones. This will be done by using Curve adjustments and the Color Balance Tool. Small adjustments to both can have a profound result to your photos. The photo straight out of the camera is a little green, and the first thing I want to do is to correct the white balance. I tend to edit my work on the cooler side, but it’s more of a personal preference than being technically accurate.

As you can see from my adjustments, I’ve made very minor changes using the Color Balance Tool, yet it has a nice effect on the colors of the photo. Perhaps the most important adjustment here is the shadows, which give a nice cool hue, combined with the Curve adjustments. I’ve also desaturated the blues in order to give the buildings a silver/grey look.

Creating a variation of a photo is an easy way to compare different edits of the same photo without losing your settings. To do this, simply right click the photo and select “New Variant” for a completely fresh variant without adjustments. Also, you can “Clone Variant” to make a variant copying the adjustments from the photo.

Version 2: Bright and clear

My next edit is similar, but with no adjustments to the exposure curve. By comparing this with the first picture, you can see how big a difference curves can have. I’ve also recovered the shadows and highlights to even out the exposure. After also cooling the White Balance down, I desaturated the blues a bit to give the buildings a grey/silver look.

Comparing this edit with the original and first edited version, everything seems brighter. The mood of the photo is less dramatic, and has more of a natural feel to the image. The buildings no longer emerge from the shadows of the streets, but are more pronounced and clearer. This image represents more closely to what the scene looked like that morning.

Version 3: Black & White

Lastly, let’s look into the Black and White tool built into Capture One. I kept the cooler White balance settings from the previous two photos, and then dropped the blues a little in the color sensitivity settings. This gives the photo a little more contrast. Moreover, I gave the shadows a slight blue hue under split tones to give the photo a little bit of a silver look to it. I’ve also copied the exposure curve adjustments from the first photo to again give the shadows a milky look to them.

Color versus B&W atmosphere

Choosing to edit in B&W is a choice that some photographers often struggle with. The most common question is: “When is it appropriate to do so?” Depending on who you talk to, the answer will vary to great lengths, but I always say that it depends on how the photographer views the scene. Personally, I think it provokes a different feel and mood altogether. The image, to me, is less distracting and more serene. It feels less busy. It’s hard to pull off B&W in architectural photography, but I think it works for this image.

The importance of Color Grading

Coloring your images can sometimes be an intimidating process. In a world where expensive filters and presets are becoming the norm, people seem to spend less time learning the tools at their disposal. Understanding how all of these tools fit together and change your images is almost an art in itself. Sometimes, you become a photographer and a painter at the same time, taking something straight from the camera and creating a whole new perspective on an image just through color grading it.

I hope you learned at least where to begin coloring your images, and explore other possibilities by putting your own spin on it. If you want to explore more of my work, you can visit my website.

Feel free to let me know which of the three versions fits your style the best, or maybe you have another suggestion?

Capture One Pro in the fashion industry

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

My name is Nicklas Ingemann, and I’m a Danish fashion photographer located in Copenhagen.

One of the most important factors in my setup and workflow is flexibility. In my opinion, you need to be aware of what’s happening around you, and to be able to deal with fast changes. This is especially the case when you shoot fashion. You never know when tendencies switch or when the client wants to develop a new look. Moreover, you, as a photographer, evolve and move in new directions from time to time.

For this reason, I don’t own a studio. Instead, I rent studio, lighting gear and camera equipment from each production, to effectively match the client’s exact needs.

A focused but simplified shooting process

One of my most important tools is Capture One Pro. I always shoot tethered and it helps me to focus and concentrate on what’s important. As my lighting setups often get a bit advanced when the process advances, it’s very important for me to do a step-by-step buildup. When doing so, I can see the character of each light in each image.

When shooting with the Phase One XF Camera System, the built-in Profoto Air Tool makes it easy to adjust the power of every light or to control the model light. You or your assistant don’t need to struggle going from generator to generator when everything is available on the camera itself.

Shooting with a dual-screen setup

When I’m shooting, I always use a dual-screen setup. Sometimes, I include an iPad running Capture Pilot for extra reviewing possibilities during the shoot. I have two main reasons for using a dual-screen setup:

My assistant can keep an eye on the sharpness and exposure on the laptop and make sure everything is as it should be.
The client and the rest of the team can follow the images and details on a bigger monitor.

Usually, the iPad is only for me. I attach it to a small roller stand next to me, and use it as an extra, wireless reviewing option.

In the creative business, an important aspect about shooting tethered into Capture One is that you can grade the images during the shoot. The same look is instantly applied to every image, which effectively shows the client something close to the final result.

As a professional photographer, it provides endless joy when the client is excited about the images while still in the creative process. This Capture One factor is absolutely priceless, and it helps me bring my images to the highest level.

Few limitations, medium format, high quality

Speed and reliability are also important factors when shooting tethered. No one on set wants to wait a second or two for every image to appear on the screen, or even worse – suddenly lose the tethered connection.

Besides the Phase One equipment, I shoot with both Canon and Nikon. However, nothing beats the image transfer speed of the new Phase One XF IQ3 100MP Camera System. I was in love from the first time using it. Even though the files are 2-3 times bigger than those from Canon and Nikon, and the native depth is 16-bit, the transfer speed is still much faster and close to being instant.

When I talk to other photographers about shooting medium format, they often complain about the camera system being too slow and bulky. My experience with the XF 100MP Camera System is quite different. I find it fast enough to not limit me technically during my shoot. Also, the files exceed everything I could hope for when reviewing them in Capture One. If a client demands the highest quality available, that is my go-to setup.

That’s it for now. Underneath, you can find some of the final results from this shoot.

Feel free to let me know if you have any comments or questions.