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C1 Pro 20 can't crop a TIFF file....in 2020! Really?


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Well,

I've just purchased  C1 Pro 20 and started working with it.

To my utter astonishment, after importing a scanned TIFF file, I couldn't crop it. In fact, I wasn't able to do anything with it. After some searching I found this, on their support page:

JPEG and TFFF formats

Apparently, JPEG and TIFF Grayscale files can't be edited in this piece of software! In 2020! 

Now I must reinstall Lightroom 6 in order to be able to work on my scanned files. I find this completely ridiculous! I mean, these open files formats exist for close to 25 years, yet a state--of-the-art photo editing software can't work on them.....

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Why would you want to work in TIFF Greyscale? In photographic work it holds no advantage over any of the RGBs, just the disadvantage of not being able to do toning.  It is intended for commercial printing.

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14 hours ago, horosu said:

Apparently, JPEG and TIFF Grayscale files can't be edited in this piece of software! In 2020! 

Yup.  A known (but apparently not well known) limitation of Capture One.  I  convert grayscale images to RGB and then import the converted image into Capture One.

I use a Mac.  For jpeg images I use the Mac command line program "sips" to do the conversion.  Sips comes with macOS.  When scanning B&W negatives or prints I create 16 bit grayscale tiff files and bring those images into Affinity Photo.   I use the Affinity Photo levels tool to adjust levels -- my scans are linear raw files -- and then Affinity's Inpainting brush to take care of dust spots.  It is better/faster than the Capture One tools at doing that job.  I export the file as a rgb/16 file.  The exported file is then brought into Capture One.  The extra step of exporting the file is done to conserve disk space.

Example from an image I used to figure out my workflow:

  • The scanned 16-bit grayscale file was about 13 MB
  • The saved edited 16-bit grayscale after spot removal and conversion to 16-bit RGB was about  90 MB.  That seemed a bit much
  • The same image as above, but exported as a 16-bit RGB file was less than  40 MB

And it's not just Capture One.   Several image editors I tried could not process grayscale images.

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On 5/27/2020 at 11:34 AM, jaapv said:

Why would you want to work in TIFF Greyscale? In photographic work it holds no advantage over any of the RGBs, just the disadvantage of not being able to do toning.  It is intended for commercial printing.

I scanned them as B&W Negative files from FlexColor. Should I've scanned them as RGB in order to be able to edit them in C1? It never crossed my mind that such a highly regarded piece of software would not be able to do basic editing on TIFF files. In any case, Lightroom 6, has no problem doing that

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Because LR works in the ProPhoto colour space in the background, which is natively RGB. In last analysis LR is a raw converter with sophisticated editing options, so you do not see the converting going on in the background. I think the best solution would indeed be to scan to Adobe RGB.  Actually, I do exactly the same with Monochrom DNGs (which is closely TIFF related). ACR wants to convert them to Greyscale; I changed the default to Adobe RGB 16-bits.

In general, format mismatches are the bane of photo processing.

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LAB colour was a decent way to convert colour files to B&W back in the day, and even desaturating the colour image was adequate for most people, but Greyscale is the bane of monochrome photography and should come with a warning.

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I find this on the C1 site.

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360009717838-Converting-gray-scale-images-before-import

I haven't used grayscale mode for 15 years or more: basically since the moment that I found out it messes with Photoshop's/Epson's printing workflow (switches back to "Printer Manages Color" and loses track of my default paper profile) and requires constant fiddling to reset my defaults as I move back and forth between B&W and color images.

Yeah, grayscale formats been around for 25 (actually 35) years - that just means they are antiquated.

Vuescan allows me to scan as "B&W Negative" source and get gray tones - but also select "RGB" as the output format, and get an RGB file of those gray tones. One-stop shopping.

And for quite a few years, it has had the option to save as either regular TIFF - or as a .DNG (which is essentially TIFF pixels, packaged with extra metadata). Which is glorious - my scanning workflow is now identical to my digital camera raw workflow. Open via Adobe Camera Raw, make substantial non-destructive global adjustments there, and then pass the image directly into PhotoShop as Adobe RGB 1998 for any detailed work (dodge, burn, output sharpening, printing, saving for web, etc.)

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15 hours ago, adan said:

Vuescan allows me to scan as "B&W Negative" source and get gray tones - but also select "RGB" as the output format, and get an RGB file of those gray tones. One-stop shopping.

Hmmm.... I'll have to try that.  It could save a step in my processing of old BW negatives and prints.

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