Leica Q crop frames for RAW files in Capture One

[Justin23]

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It has been noted in other posts that Capture One does not display the crop framelines which can be used on Leica Q cameras, when importing RAW files. JPEG files have the crop added in-camera, so they are imported in a cropped state. There is a simple workaround using CO Styles, which works well and only needs setting up once and doesn't involve tinkering with the metadata interpretation.

Set the Q camera to record DNG + JPEG (any size). Find a subject with plenty of detail and lines, like a bookshelf full of books, and take a picture at each of the frameline sizes available on the Q model (35mm, 55mm, 75mm, 90mm). Import the images to CO with RAW and JPEG files "not hidden" in the View Menu > Global Filters. Bring up each pair side by side. With the DNG image selected, click the Crop Tool, hold down the Option key to keep the crop centred, and adjust the crop so that it exactly matches the JPEG image. When you are happy, go to the Styles and Presets tool, click on the three dots and select Save Custom Style. In the list displayed, select only Crop, deselect any other adjustments, and click Save. Ignore the warning message and give the Style a name (e.g Leica Q 50mm) and save it. Repeat the process for the other crop frames if required. Now, any imported DNG file will show the crop when the cursor is hovered over the relevant Style in the Styles and Presets menu. Even better, the Style can be chosen in the Import Dialogue too, so if 100 images have been taken using, for example, the 50mm crop, they will all show the 50mm crop after import!

[jaapv]

Question: Does it show the crop frame whilst still displaying the whole image, or does it hide the area around the crop? I tend to frame quite loosely on all my cameras to be able to improve the composition on my computer screen.  

[Justin23]

Yes it does show the whole image all the time, with the crop frame displayed just as if you'd done your own crop on the RAW file. Capture One editing is non-destructive so the original is always there, unlike the cropped JPEGs out of the camera.

[Guest]

@Justin23 This is a great tip, thanks! I had done something similar with DxO, but hadn't worked out how to do it with C1. I think that creating the presets as you suggest is even better than Lightroom's approach of auto-applying the crop.  As you point out, the C1 presets allow you to instantly see the crop effects just by hovering over the preset where's with Lightroom all you see is the in-camera selected crop. Your preset approach is much more flexible.

 I think this feature is enough to move me entirely from LR to C1. I have licenses for both and prefer the C1 rendering and UI, but the lack of cropping support had kept me with LR until your suggestion.

I would suggest anyone with C1 should try these crop presets. They are very easy to create, taking only a minute each, and your instructions are spot on. I found that photographing images that included geometric shapes like paving stones made it very easy to match the crops

[Justin23]

I'm glad it works for you too, Corius, and thank you for confirming. The Leica manual does say that the framelines transfer to editing software, but clearly not to Capture One. I'm very happy to have worked out this simple solution: I too prefer CO for lots of reasons and have given up my Adobe subscription.

[JNK100]

DXO PL doesn't import crop lines either

 

[Guest]

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If people want to try them here are the 4 presets for C1 that I created...

Leica Q3 35mm.costyleLeica Q3 50mm.costyleLeica Q3 75mm.costyleLeica Q3 90mm.costyle

[dpitt]

If you like these styles, you can assign a shortcut to apply each style, so that any crop is just a matter of pressing the right button. I made some presets for each and assigned them to CMD-OPT- 1/2/3/4  (CTRL-ALT for windows users) and then some 5/6/7/8 for the square equivalents because I often like to work in square frames for some subjects.

 

Edited June 21, 2024 by dpitt

[JimP]

This is a nice solution, thanks! I looked into crop modes using C1 when I got my Q2 and came across a person who wrote a script to crop the image based on EXIF data. It works well, however, the one downside is if you run the script twice it will crop your crop the same percentage. Fortunately all you have to do is reset the crop and run the script again. This does lead me to think it crops based on percentage rather than absolute numbers, which may be good news for Q3 owners. An advantage of the script is you can import your images and run the script on all of them at once and they don't all have to be the same crop lines. Unfortunately according to the author, this uses AppleScript so will only run on Mac's. 

Below is the Lica Forum thread. 

 

 

Edited June 21, 2024 by JimP

[ChrisQ3]

21 hours ago, Corius said:

If people want to try them here are the 4 presets for C1 that I created...

Leica Q3 35mm.costyle 409 B · 11 downloads Leica Q3 50mm.costyle 408 B · 7 downloads Leica Q3 75mm.costyle 409 B · 7 downloads Leica Q3 90mm.costyle 410 B · 7 downloads

They work really well, thank you! 

 

[Fotospass]

Am 21.6.2024 um 19:26 schrieb Corius:

If people want to try them here are the 4 presets for C1 that I created...

Leica Q3 35mm.costyle 409 B · 15 downloads Leica Q3 50mm.costyle 408 B · 11 downloads Leica Q3 75mm.costyle 409 B · 10 downloads Leica Q3 90mm.costyle 410 B · 10 downloads

Many thanks for your great help, crops can now be seen under CO. Now post-processing under CO is fun again!

Best regards,

Michael