Capture One Pro – (bad) impressions?

[Thomas Kyhn]

I've been curious about Capture One Pro and decided to try the demo. While importing my Lightroom catalogue, it used up all available memory (RAM) so that my computer became unresponsive and I had to turn it off. After deleting the partly imported Lightroom catalogue and the images in it from the Capture One Pro catalogue, I tried to empty the trash in Capture One Pro to get rid of the previews; this caused Capture One Pro to become unresponsive and I had to use 'Force Quit' to close it. I tried several times, each time with the same result. Finally, I ended up deleting the whole thing from my hard drive.

 

Have I for some reason been unlucky, or have other Capture One Pro users had similar experiences?

 

(Computer: MacBook Pro 2,9 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM; macOS 10.14.)

[MDM]

I have no experience of Capture One Pro but I see you are using MacOs 10.14 which is very new and is probably not the best way to test out and assess software. An alternative way to do this would be to install an older version of MacOS on a fast external drive (Thunderbolt or SSD) and use that for testing. Capture One seems very expensive for what it is - I don't think I will be going that route in the near future myself. 

[Thomas Kyhn]

Good point.

[Allan Bell]

 

I tried C1P some time ago and did not like the way it kept building folders on it's own which were not required. Removed it from system.

 

Much prefer LR.

 

Allan

 

 

[Brian Yarvin]

I have used Capture 1 since version 6 and haven't seen a crash in years. I find it to be absolutely the best raw processing software for studio images. That being said, when I'm doing the sort of work that many of you do - places or events for example - it becomes less appealing. Do you really need this sort of power?

[Thomas Kyhn]

I contacted their support and made another attempt. This time it went reasonably well; most of my Lightroom catalogue made the transfer. But my impression so far is that it's no replacement for Lightroom; searching is incredibly slow, and it's unable to handle large amounts of keywords. Though it does have editing features that Lightroom doesn't. I have yet to try out its tethering capabilities properly.

[Malcolm Park]

I use Capture 1 with tethered medium format digital back for all my studio work, it’s superlative piece of software for processing the raw files. I would, however, never use it for my location and news type shoots - it requires a more time-consuming and considered approach to processing in my view

[Martin P Wilson]

I have used C1Pro since about 2003 (V1?) and would not swap. Yes, from time to time I have had glitches but not so much in recent years. I front end it with PhotoMechanic for keyword, rating, selection etc then do ALL my processing in C1P, I have not touched PS for at least two years for photo processing, usually for adding text or the like, not for any post production reason. When my old PS stops working I wilkl switch to Gimp or why.

 

For news I do it all in camera and then caption/keyword and submit using PhotoMechanic.

[Thomas Kyhn]

An update to this thread.

 

I made the attempt to switch from Lightroom to Capture One, at least partly, after the update to Capture One 20. After spending 8 months now trying to use Capture One I've come to regard this as a mistake, and Capture One, the software and the company, as unreliable.

 

The first major issue I ran into was the severe limitations of Capture One's keystone correction tool, and the fact that simultaneous vertical and horizontal keystone correction doesn't work (what should be 90° angles come out as anything but 90° angles). Though Capture One has confirmed the issue, there's no indication that it will be fixed.

 

The second major issue is that many adjustments are lost when the program is closed, something the the company is aware of but has so far been unable to solve. This has been going on for months and a fix may still be months away.

 

In addition to these two issues, there's slow/unreliable customer support, lack of support for many standard lenses and cameras, etc. All in all, the advantages that Capture One may have over Lightroom, and it does have some, are more than outweighed by its lacks and disadvantages.

[John Mitchell]

I don't like the auto keystone tool in Capture 1 Express for Sony, so I continue to use a little program called PTLens to make precise vertical/horizontal corrections. I have it installed as a PS Elements plugin. BTW, have you backed up your catalogue, Thomas? I haven't because I don't really use the catalogue feature, but perhaps backing up would help save adjustments.

Edited September 5, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Thomas Kyhn]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

I don't like the auto keystone tool in Capture 1 Express for Sony, so I continue to use a little program called PTLens to make precise vertical/horizontal corrections. I have it installed as a PS Elements plugin. BTW, have you backed up your catalogue, Thomas? I haven't because I don't really use the catalogue feature, but perhaps backing up would help save adjustments.

 

I have regular backups, but the problem is that adjustment masks disappear after the program is closed, and I don't think they would be retained in the backups either. As for the keystone adjustments, I prefer editing nondestructively so that I can always go back and make further adjustments. So for now, I've returned to Lightroom.

 

[John Mitchell]

10 minutes ago, Thomas Kyhn said:

 

I have regular backups, but the problem is that adjustment masks disappear after the program is closed, and I don't think they would be retained in the backups either. As for the keystone adjustments, I prefer editing nondestructively so that I can always go back and make further adjustments. So for now, I've returned to Lightroom.

 

 

Yes, I've noticed that the adjustments disappear sometimes. I thought that I must be doing something wrong -- i.e. not saving them manually before closing edited files, which I believe you can do.  I don't think that making keystone adjustments on 16-bit TIFS results in much if any destruction, certainly none that I can see in the histograms, but I'm no expert (and understatement) on this stuff. I won't be upgrading to Capture One Pro because I don't need all the extra features. Sorry to hear that it didn't work out for you. Guess Adobe will just continue to get richer and richer...

[MDM]

Sally - I would recommend you try DxO PhotoLab before making a decision if you don't want a subscription. There is a trial version and it is very fully featured including advanced perspective correction. However, what you are missing with most of these raw converters is a pixel editor (such as Photoshop). The ability to work on the actual pixels as well as work on layers rather than do non-destructive raw conversions is still a very important part of the overall image editing process. 

Edited September 6, 2020 by MDM

[Thomas Kyhn]

9 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Yes, I've noticed that the adjustments disappear sometimes. I thought that I must be doing something wrong -- i.e. not saving them manually before closing edited files, which I believe you can do.  I don't think that making keystone adjustments on 16-bit TIFS results in much if any destruction, certainly none that I can see in the histograms, but I'm no expert (and understatement) on this stuff. I won't be upgrading to Capture One Pro because I don't need all the extra features. Sorry to hear that it didn't work out for you. Guess Adobe will just continue to get richer and richer...

 

The adjustment mask issue is discussed in the Capture One forum. Quite a few users seem to be affected by it and Capture One support says that there's no workaround that they know of.

 

Regarding destructive/nondestructive editing, what I meant was that Capture One and Lightroom, for instance, leave the image files untouched, and once you leave Capture One/Lightroom to continue working on an image in, say, Photoshop, you're working on an exported file (destructively) and can no longer go back and change previous adjustments in Capture One/Lightroom without then having to export the image again and start all over in Photoshop.

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, MDM said:

I would recommend you try DxO PhotoLab before making a decision if you don't want a subscription. There is a trial version and it is very fully featured including advanced perspective correction.

 

Is that part of the standard package? Or do you also have to buy the viewpoint add-on?

 

Mark

Edited September 6, 2020 by M.Chapman

[MDM]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Is that part of the standard package? Or do you also have to buy the viewpoint add-on?

 

Mark

 

You are correct Mark. It is extra for Viewpoint. I got PhotoLab at a significantly reduced price just to check it out but have never really used it much. It is a good raw converter. In total at the moment it would be £180 including Viewpoint which compared to the Adobe subscription is a crazy price given that there is no database and no Photoshop. 

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, Sally R said:

 

Thanks Michael. I have read that DxO PhotoLab is an excellent raw converter, and particularly good at handling noise.

 

I downloaded the trial version of On1 Photo Raw today. It is a pixel editor as well as a raw processor and it also does layers, stacking and stitching. It is like a blend of both Lightroom and Photoshop. I've done some tutorials on it and already really like it. I know it won't be up there with DxO for raw conversion, but it has apparently improved in this area and I think is going to be good enough for my purposes. It appeals to me that it is an all-in-one package.

 

I'll definitely still keep DxO in mind though, particularly if I'm not achieving the results I would like with a particular image in On1.

 

I really struggled to get decent results with On1. IMO, if you're looking for an all in one, Affinity Photo and Photoshop Elements are both worth a look. Photoshop CC is better still. All three can handle RAW conversion and pixel editing and layers. I think they can all stitch too. Affinity and PS CC can focus stack, I'm not sure about PSE.

 

Mark

Edited September 6, 2020 by M.Chapman

[M.Chapman]

4 hours ago, MDM said:

 

You are correct Mark. It is extra for Viewpoint. I got PhotoLab at a significantly reduced price just to check it out but have never really used it much. It is a good raw converter. In total at the moment it would be £180 including Viewpoint which compared to the Adobe subscription is a crazy price given that there is no database and no Photoshop. 

 

I got a free copy of DXO Photo 9 with Digital Camera magazine just after DXO Photo 10 came out. I also downloaded a trial of Photolab. You're right, DXOs latest pricing is too high. Why would you pay that much when you can have 18 months of LR and PS CC for the same amount? DXOs RAW conversion and lens profiles are good, but not better than PS/LR. They also make a fuss about their Prime Denoise, but I was never that impresssed and I found it really slow. I find Topaz Denoise AI does a much better job and so can LR/PS (if you know what you're doing).

 

Mark

[John Mitchell]

10 hours ago, Thomas Kyhn said:

 

The adjustment mask issue is discussed in the Capture One forum. Quite a few users seem to be affected by it and Capture One support says that there's no workaround that they know of.

 

Regarding destructive/nondestructive editing, what I meant was that Capture One and Lightroom, for instance, leave the image files untouched, and once you leave Capture One/Lightroom to continue working on an image in, say, Photoshop, you're working on an exported file (destructively) and can no longer go back and change previous adjustments in Capture One/Lightroom without then having to export the image again and start all over in Photoshop.

 

I haven't encountered the term "adjustment mask" when using Capture One Express for Sony, so I guess it probably applies only to Capture One Pro, which has a lot more features. However, even with the stripped down Express version I often have to go back and re-import images and start again from scratch. Losing adjustments definitely seems to be a weakness in the software. I sometimes use DxO as well, and it's much better in this regard. However, I'm not fond of it's keystone adjustment tools either.

 

P.S. In Express, there are options to "copy adjustments to the primary variant" and "apply adjustments to the primary variant", which I find totally confusing. I have no idea what they are supposed to do or when to use them, so I leave them alone. This might be (?) causing me to lose adjustments.

Edited September 6, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Thomas Kyhn]

55 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

I haven't encountered the term "adjustment mask" when using Capture One Express for Sony, so I guess it probably applies only to Capture One Pro, which has a lot more features. However, even with the stripped down Express version I often have to go back and re-import images and start again from scratch. Losing adjustments definitely seems to be a weakness in the software. I sometimes use DxO as well, and it's much better in this regard. However, I'm not fond of it's keystone adjustment tools either.

 

P.S. In Express, there are options to "copy adjustments to the primary variant" and "apply adjustments to the primary variant", which I find totally confusing. I have no idea what they are supposed to do or when to use them, so I leave them alone. This might be (?) causing me to lose adjustments.

 

An adjustment mask is just a mask contained in layer, this feature should be in the Express version too.

 

A variant is an instance of an image; "the primary variant" would be the main instance of an image. So if you have multiple variants (instances/virtual copies) of an image, you can copy the settings/adjustments from one and apply it to another.

[John Mitchell]

2 hours ago, Thomas Kyhn said:

 

An adjustment mask is just a mask contained in layer, this feature should be in the Express version too.

 

A variant is an instance of an image; "the primary variant" would be the main instance of an image. So if you have multiple variants (instances/virtual copies) of an image, you can copy the settings/adjustments from one and apply it to another.

 

Thanks, I'll look further into this and do some experimenting with "variants".

[M.Chapman]

5 hours ago, Sally R said:

Thanks Mark. What would you say were the drawbacks in getting the results you were after with On1? I'm frustrated with it today because I set it to correct lens distortion on import, but it has not applied this to my Sony RX100 VA files even though it is meant to be a supported camera model. It's options in the Edit module do not provide correction for the RX100 VA specifically either, and it is frustrating to be correcting this manually. I've contacted their technical support for assistance. The files imported with the crazy distortion that your post with the RX100 image showed. The 2020 version of On1 is meant to be quite an improvement on earlier versions. I need to keep experimenting with it to see how it goes.

 

I downloaded and tried ON1 2020 Beta in Oct 2019. I found the lens correction profiles for my Canon G15 were (still) useless and the distortion slider didn't have enough range to fix it (I'd reported this to them from previous versions). I believe they use the free LensFun "crowd sourced" lens correction database (which has some problems) rather than create their own, so they have no control over the quality of the lens profiles they are supplying. I also found my graphics or processor fans swould come full blast for no reason. There was no CA correction at all if the LensFun entry for your lens doesn't include it (CA removal is essential for Alamy). The cloning/retouch and undo were all impossibly slow. Some images opened mirror imaged (weird...). I found it impossible extract the same level of detail from RAWS that I can get with Adobe PS or LR. Finally I just didn't like the default rendering on images and found it hard to adjust to get something I liked. Whereas PS and LR defaults are pretty good and the lens profiles and CA removal work really well. Obviously On1 was Beta Software (so things may have improved), but it was just before the 2020 product release, and they were offering it as download to all potential customers...

 

I'd previously purchased the 2019 version with the VP's promise "If ON1 Photo RAW 2019.5 doesn't become your new favorite photo editor within 30 days, just contact us for a full refund”. It had exactly the same problems. Needless to say I complained and got a full refund, at least they were good to their word on that one.

 

Mark

 

[John Mitchell]

6 hours ago, Sally R said:

 

Thanks Mark. What would you say were the drawbacks in getting the results you were after with On1? I'm frustrated with it today because I set it to correct lens distortion on import, but it has not applied this to my Sony RX100 VA files even though it is meant to be a supported camera model. It's options in the Edit module do not provide correction for the RX100 VA specifically either, and it is frustrating to be correcting this manually. I've contacted their technical support for assistance. The files imported with the crazy distortion that your post with the RX100 image showed. The 2020 version of On1 is meant to be quite an improvement on earlier versions. I need to keep experimenting with it to see how it goes.

 

I had thought I might get Affinity Photo while they had a special on, but didn't purchase it in time. However, it is still reasonably priced and worth considering. I do have a very old version of Photoshop Elements that I've barely used. I've been using Apple's Aperture program even though it's no longer supported/discontinued. I've actually found it excellent over several years even though it doesn't do lens correction and chromatic aberration correction has to be done manually.

 

Putting aside the lens correction issue, viewing my Sony RX100 Raw files between Capture One and On1, they look optically better (if that is the right word) in Capture One. I'm not feeling totally comfortable with using Capture One yet though, and would like to be able to do effective keystone corrections.

 

As I've mentioned (perhaps too many times), PTLens, which costs $25, does a good job with keystone corrections and is very easy to use. I have it as a plugin with my ancient edition of PS Elements, which I use only for cloning and resizing. Capture 1 Express for Sony does all the rest for me at the moment. Good luck.

[MDM]

 

6 hours ago, Sally R said:

 

Thanks Mark. What would you say were the drawbacks in getting the results you were after with On1? I'm frustrated with it today because I set it to correct lens distortion on import, but it has not applied this to my Sony RX100 VA files even though it is meant to be a supported camera model. It's options in the Edit module do not provide correction for the RX100 VA specifically either, and it is frustrating to be correcting this manually. I've contacted their technical support for assistance. The files imported with the crazy distortion that your post with the RX100 image showed. The 2020 version of On1 is meant to be quite an improvement on earlier versions. I need to keep experimenting with it to see how it goes.

 

I had thought I might get Affinity Photo while they had a special on, but didn't purchase it in time. However, it is still reasonably priced and worth considering. I do have a very old version of Photoshop Elements that I've barely used. I've been using Apple's Aperture program even though it's no longer supported/discontinued. I've actually found it excellent over several years even though it doesn't do lens correction and chromatic aberration correction has to be done manually.

 

Putting aside the lens correction issue, viewing my Sony RX100 Raw files between Capture One and On1, they look optically better (if that is the right word) in Capture One. I'm not feeling totally comfortable with using Capture One yet though, and would like to be able to do effective keystone corrections.

 

Sally - I know you say you don't want a subscription but if you can get over that one and can afford 14 Aussie dollars a month, then you would save yourself a lot of hassle. The Adobe Photography package is literally world beating and completely out on its own in terms of what it can do. I had a look at the ON1 product description and, unless I am missing something, there is no pixel-based photo editor. The Adobe software works perfectly and opens up a whole new world in terms of photo editing as well as image management. Affinity Photo is coming along but it is not in the same class as the Adobe software. 

[M.Chapman]

21 minutes ago, MDM said:

Affinity Photo is coming along but it is not in the same class as the Adobe software. 

+1

Mark