Phase One is a Danish company specialising in medium format studio cameras and lenses, but it also publishes Capture One Pro, a professional image capture, RAW processing and image enhancement application that has developed into a powerful Lightroom rival.
Verdict 9/10: Capture One Pro 9 delivers superb RAW conversions, with effective image cataloguing tools and newly improved keywording. Its layers-based localised adjustment tools are terrific and with presets, styles and virtual ‘variants’, it’s easily got the measure of Lightroom. There are a … Continue reading PhaseOne Capture One Pro 9 review
There’s something odd about the way Capture One crops certain RAW files. Now and again, when you select the crop tool, you’ll see that Capture One has chosen a default crop that’s actually smaller than the full image area. • … Continue reading Can Capture One see more than your camera?
I had a horrible thought today. Like everyone else, I’ve been saying non-destructive editing is fantastic. It’s smart, it’s efficient, and it changes the way we work. It’s the most important innovation in digital imaging this century… But wait a … Continue reading The ticking time-bomb of non-destructive editing
We’ve all been there. You’ve got a shot that’s fundamentally sound but lacks rich, strong colours or any kind of atmosphere. They can be tricky to fix and you can spend hours experimenting with settings that don’t seem to get … Continue reading Looking for an instant boost? Try this three-step fix in Capture One
You can’t keep every picture you shoot – but how do you know you’re keeping the right ones? We all shoot more than we keep, and the obvious thing to do is make a first pass of your images and … Continue reading Are you missing your best shots? Capture One’s Auto Adjust tool could tell you with a single click
Capture One lets you save adjustments for re-use in the future, but it can be confusing because it offers user ‘presets’ and user ‘styles’ without being terribly clear about the difference. In other programs, ‘presets’ usually refer to sets of … Continue reading Capture One presets vs styles: what’s the difference?
Capture One Pro has some very good localised adjustment tools. You can create gradient filter effects and paint on manual adjustments, just as you can in Lightroom, but I think Capture One Pro’s system of adjustment layers and masks works … Continue reading How to use the Capture One adjustment tools
Keystone correction is usually used to fix converging verticals in architectural shots – that’s the most obvious use for the Capture One keystone correction tools – but this vertical keystone correction isn’t the only kind you’ll need. Keystone distortion happens … Continue reading Capture One keystone correction tips
Newcomers to Capture One may be confused by its talk of ‘Sessions’, which are an alternative way of browsing, selecting and editing pictures that’s still available, even though Capture One Pro now offers Aperture and Lightroom style image catalogs. ‘Sessions’ … Continue reading How do Capture One sessions work?
Export sharpening is a setting that’s often overlooked when you generate images for online or on-screen viewing, but it makes a big difference to how sharp your pictures look. Every time you resample an image, you introduce a degree of … Continue reading Export sharpening part 2: DxO Optics Pro 9 and Capture One Pro 7
Editor’s note: This was written back in 2013 and I know it needs an update. The broad conclusions still apply – that different RAW converters produce very different results – but I do need to re-test the latest versions to … Continue reading DxO vs Lightroom vs Capture One Pro – which is best?
The Capture One Color Editor is designed for subtle manipulation, not wholesale colour substitutions. It has much in common with the Replace Color tool in Photoshop and Elements, but restricts itself to modest hue shifts rather than complete colour changes. … Continue reading How to use the Capture One Color Editor to fine-tune your image’s colours
