I use Capture One’s Auto Adjust option a lot. I’m sure some will insist that professionals only use manual adjustments and Auto Adjust is for amateurs, but I’d like to explain why I think that’s wrong, and why Auto Adjust is actually a lot more powerful and useful than you might think.
The Auto Adjust option optimises a whole bunch of editing settings to fix images which are badly exposed or have clipped highlights or shadows or just look flat. It’s a one-click shortcut that makes a series of adjustment that you might not have chosen exactly, but it does serve one crucial purpose – it shows you whether your image has basic potential or not.
You could spend a lot of time figuring this out with manual adjustments, but Auto Adjust will show you with a single click.
And, of course, you can easily dive in and change any of these automatic adjustments that you don’t like or that you think the image doesn’t need. I guess my point is that it’s easier (well, I find it easier) to work back from these auto adjustments than to work up to the ideal settings manually.
That’s one thing, but there’s also this.
You can configure Capture One’s Auto Adjust options
If you check Capture One’s Adjustments menu you’ll see there’s a Configure Auto Adjustments option. This opens up a tick-box submenu where you can choose which auto adjustments you want Capture One to apply.
For example, I like to use Exposure, High Dynamic Range and Levels. I work almost exclusively with RAW files and I think these three tools do the best job of maximising and enhancing their tonal range. I tend not to use the Contrast and Brightness option at the same time because I find this can often push the contrast level up a little too high. I think as well that I’d rather make these adjustments manually.
Rotation and Keystone? That’s up to you. Capture One fixes both issues very effectively, though if you have shots with extreme convergence or tilt it’s presumably because you did that on purpose, or you might want to examine and fix these manually.
The Dust Removal option is definitely worth using if you work with DSLRs, say, or Sony Alpha mirrorless cameras. Both seem especially prone to dust, and Sony’s dust removal system really doesn’t do very much at all, as far as I can tell. (Sorry, Sony!)
Now, what about White Balance? This is interesting. With most of my cameras I choose a white balance present in-camera and As Shot in Capture One and it works pretty well. I have some cameras, though, that seem to need a little help – my PEN-F, for example, does not produce great colors with the default profile in Capture One, but an auto white balance adjustment can clean the colors up nicely – I can then use that WB setting across other images shot in the same lighting at the same time.
So this is just a plea to take Capture One’s Auto Adjust option seriously. Don’t dismiss it as a one-click cop-out for amateurs. It’s extremely useful for instantly seeing the editing or pictorial potential of any image, and can be configured for all sorts of tastes and uses.
