Capture One Help!

[novice9]

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I have spend alot of time learning how to perfect my photos in capture one. Now, for the first time, after a couple of months of shooting and learning Capture 1, I have taken the next step and started to process the files into jpeg's/tiff's. Unfortunately, when they show up on the other side of the processing step, they look terrible -- even if i process as a 16 bit tiff. They seem to loose all of their magic, the look soft, less contrast, etc. Am I doing something wrong? Please help me, how do i get the beautiful images that I see in my C1 session windows into a format that I can post on-line and or use to make prints?

 

Thanks!

[archi4]

To get the results you want, you should configure the output recipe.

Go to the Capture One tutorials and choose the tutorial on this subject.

Tutorials - Phase One

Hope this helps

Maurice

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[wlaidlaw]

I have spend alot of time learning how to perfect my photos in capture one. Now, for the first time, after a couple of months of shooting and learning Capture 1, I have taken the next step and started to process the files into jpeg's/tiff's. Unfortunately, when they show up on the other side of the processing step, they look terrible -- even if i process as a 16 bit tiff. They seem to loose all of their magic, the look soft, less contrast, etc. Am I doing something wrong? Please help me, how do i get the beautiful images that I see in my C1 session windows into a format that I can post on-line and or use to make prints?

 

Thanks!

 

My guess is that you are not selecting the correct colour space for processing. To learn about colour spaces, there is a nice tutorial download document on the Phase One website, that unlike the one from Adobe, you don't need a cold towel wrapped round your head to cool your brain down when digesting it. I use Prophoto which is a modern wide gamut space. It is included with PS CS 3 and 4 and probably available for download elsewhere. You can definitely download ECiV4 for free, which is very similar. Then look at the video tutorials from Phase to explain where the colour space ICC file should be installed for Windows or Mac. If you can't find the Phase One colour space doc, PM me and I will send you a copy. I have permission from Phase One to distribute this.

 

Wilson

[novice9]

Thanks much for the replies. I have tried processing into a variety of color spaces but with no material difference in results (at least not in the respect that is troubling me). However, my guess is that the defect is not with my process but rather my understanding of it. Here is what I have recently undertaken to try and sort things out:

 

I export a file as a 16 bit tiff from C1 to LR. I then import into LR and saved as a JPEG. I then import the JPEG back into C1 to compare against the original DNG (with adustments). I made no adjustments in LR, just ran it through and saved it as a jpeg. (I suppose I probably could have omit the LR steps all together, just processed a jpeg out of C1 and re-import it into C1 and would have observed the same behavior).

 

When i compare 100% crops of the two images in C1, the files look identical (or nearly so, no material diffs that I can discern). Same at 50% magnification. However, when I get down to 25%, the jpeg starts to show softness relative to the dng. By the time I get down to normal size (ie, no magnification), the dng looks much sharper than the jpeg, so something seems to be happening in the way the software renders the two images at less than 100% that I don't understand. (And I repeated essentially the same exercise in LR and observed the same behavior, the DNG rendered at "normal" size (that is, not magnified at all) appeared to be much sharper than the "normal" sized jpeg derived from that DNG.)

 

This all seems sort of "ironic" to me as i had thought that may programs (eg, raw developer) actually do not show the sharpening being performed on raw files unless you are displaying a 100% crop. But here, for some reason the dng is showing the sharpening all the way down to small size and the jpeg somehow is not.

 

So I'm sure this is all perfectly normal, but I don't understand it. Can anyone pls explain what's happening here?

[leicamann]

I downloaded Capture One a month ago, to try it , since so many folks swear by it.

 

I found the user interface to be weird, arcane, obscure and basically it took me 5 minutes even to learn how to open a picture in it.

Finally when I did do some "digital processing" the results were so terrible I dropped it.

 

For my Leica DNG files I use the FlexColor by Hasselblad and at times I find I can get good results with Adobe Lightroom which has an excellent user interface that is very user friendly and intuitive.

 

I don't quite understand the hype or virtues of Capture One:confused:

 

 

Cheers, JRM

[h00ligan]

I downloaded Capture One a month ago, to try it , since so many folks swear by it.

 

I found the user interface to be weird, arcane, obscure and basically it took me 5 minutes even to learn how to open a picture in it.

Finally when I did do some "digital processing" the results were so terrible I dropped it.

...

 

I don't quite understand the hype or virtues of Capture One:confused:

 

 

Cheers, JRM

 

+1 - but i use lightroom, i find aperture to be unfriendly as well, for an apple product. maybe it's just de to my being so used to photoshop - but i don't see too many shared elements (no pun intended)

[wlaidlaw]

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I downloaded Capture One a month ago, to try it , since so many folks swear by it.

 

I found the user interface to be weird, arcane, obscure and basically it took me 5 minutes even to learn how to open a picture in it.

Finally when I did do some "digital processing" the results were so terrible I dropped it.

 

For my Leica DNG files I use the FlexColor by Hasselblad and at times I find I can get good results with Adobe Lightroom which has an excellent user interface that is very user friendly and intuitive.

 

I don't quite understand the hype or virtues of Capture One:confused:

 

 

Cheers, JRM

 

I agree that the ergonomics of C1 have steadily got worse since V3. V5 is the weirdest of all, with the "sessions" thing. It also has a bug at the moment, certainly on the Mac version, where it keeps losing the colour space for thumbnail displays, so you have to keep resetting it. However once it is working, I find I get better colour than I do with either LR3 beta, ACR 5.6 or Silverfast. In particular, with the skin tones tool, facial colours are better than LR, on which I have to reduce the mid tones in the red channel, to avoid everyone looking as if they have had "one too many".

 

Wilson

[leicamann]

I agree, Adobe needs all of our feedback about the "sunburn" or one drink too many look on the skin tones with their DNG/RAW converter... for skin tones Adobe sucks.

 

I'll give Capture One...one more try today and post my results in the "People" section.................IFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF?????????? I succeed in getting anything.

 

 

Cheers, JRM

[Luke_Miller]

I agree that the ergonomics of C1 have steadily got worse since V3. V5 is the weirdest of all, with the "sessions" thing. It also has a bug at the moment, certainly on the Mac version, where it keeps losing the colour space for thumbnail displays, so you have to keep resetting it. However once it is working, I find I get better colour than I do with either LR3 beta, ACR 5.6 or Silverfast. In particular, with the skin tones tool, facial colours are better than LR, on which I have to reduce the mid tones in the red channel, to avoid everyone looking as if they have had "one too many".

 

Wilson

 

That was my experience as well - until today. I used the Adobe DNG Profile Editor to create my own M8.2 Lightroom profiles using images taken of the GretagMacBeth ColorChecker card. Took a few tries, but in the end worked out very well and cured the "ruddy complexion" issues. I now feel I am getting skin tones out of Lightroom using my profile that are very comparable to those I get from Capture One.

[wlaidlaw]

That was my experience as well - until today. I used the Adobe DNG Profile Editor to create my own M8.2 Lightroom profiles using images taken of the GretagMacBeth ColorChecker card. Took a few tries, but in the end worked out very well and cured the "ruddy complexion" issues. I now feel I am getting skin tones out of Lightroom using my profile that are very comparable to those I get from Capture One.

 

Luke,

 

I have been using profile editor and ACR/LR for profiles for the DNG's for my pocket camera - a Ricoh GX200, where very irritatingly, Ricoh and Phase don't seem able to talk to each other to put Ricoh profiles on C1, in spite of a lot of nudging from me on Phase stands at shows and from the Ricoh User Forum. It is really irritating that I have to use two DNG developers. I also wish that profile editor could save as an ICC profile, as that would also solve my problem.

 

I agree that you get better skin tones for a specific set of circumstances/lighting etc with a profile. However C1 V5 Pro skin tones tool takes this to a whole new level, where you can correct people with wholly different shades of skin within the same image. Previously I found with a global change, you got say Nordic "peaches and cream" skin right and then darker skin tones in the same image could look muddy. C1 can get them both right.

 

Wilson

[Luke_Miller]

I agree that you get better skin tones for a specific set of circumstances/lighting etc with a profile. However C1 V5 Pro skin tones tool takes this to a whole new level, where you can correct people with wholly different shades of skin within the same image. Previously I found with a global change, you got say Nordic "peaches and cream" skin right and then darker skin tones in the same image could look muddy. C1 can get them both right.

 

Wilson

 

Wilson

 

I have used Capture One LE (the non-Pro version) since its V3 incarnation and firmly believe that it consistantly produces the best skin tones of any raw converter I've tried. Unfortunately it does not fit well into my workflow so I only use it when I can't get the results I want using my normal method. With my new Lightroom profiles that will be even more infrequent. I do like the new V5 Skin Tone tool, but I would have to upgrade to to Pro version to get it and that does not seem to be cost effective based on my current use. I am tempted though .

 

Luke

[jumbalix]

"So I'm sure this is all perfectly normal, but I don't understand it. Can anyone pls explain what's happening here?

"

 

 

Please make this check: to switch on and off the button of sharpening simulation in C1, I noticed, when switched off, the image looks similar to the effective output, then if you want to sharper the image, in PS, you can use unsharp mask.

 

Hope it help!

Daniel

[novice9]

Please make this check: to switch on and off the button of sharpening simulation in C1, I noticed, when switched off, the image looks similar to the effective output, then if you want to sharper the image, in PS, you can use unsharp mask.

 

Hope it help!

Daniel

 

I will try that. But why wouldn't the effective output reflect the sharpening in the first place?