Capture One Express for Sony oddity

[John Mitchell]

I've recently started using the free Capture One Express for Sony software for most of my RAW processing. I'm quite happy with the program in that it has all the features that I currently need, and it certainly suits my slim budget. However, I'm noticing one peculiarity. For some reason, Capture One often reduces images captured with my 24MP Sony a6000 from 6000 pixels on the long side to about 5700 pixels. This is no big deal of course, but I can't figure out why the software changes the output size. Has anyone else noticed this oddity or have an idea what might be causing it? I've tried playing with the distortion slider (auto-correction for Sony lenses). However, that doesn't seem to help matters. I also sometimes use a 16MP Sony NEX-6, and Capture One doesn't fiddle with the image size with that camera, only with the a6000.

Edited May 19, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Harry Harrison]

That sounds pretty strange, I don't use it myself but I wonder if there is anything in this blog that would help, some setting hidden in the Export Variants panel perhaps, something to do with scale maybe.

 

https://imagealchemist.net/capture-one-export/

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

I've recently started using the free Capture One Express for Sony software for most of my RAW processing. I'm quite happy with the program in that it has all the features that I currently need, and it certainly suits my slim budget. However, I'm noticing one peculiarity. For some reason, Capture One often reduces images captured with my 24MP Sony a6000 from 6000 pixels on the long side to about 5700 pixels. This is no big deal of course, but I can't figure out why the the software changes the output size. Has anyone else noticed this oddity or have an idea what might be causing it? I've tried playing with the distortion slider (auto-correction for Sony lenses). However, that doesn't seem to help matters. I also sometimes use a 16MP Sony NEX-6, and Capture One doesn't fiddle with the image size with that camera, only with the a6000.

 

Distortion correction has to be a suspect? Suggest checking whether the same reduction occurs at wide end long end of the zoom lens, or only applies to one lens?

 

Mark

Edited May 19, 2020 by M.Chapman

[Bionic]

I suspect if you go in to the lens correction area and turn off hide distorted area you’ll find Capture One has cropped your area slightly

[John Mitchell]

6 hours ago, Bionic said:

I suspect if you go in to the lens correction area and turn off hide distorted area you’ll find Capture One has cropped your area slightly

 

Thanks I'll try that. Actually, I'm not even sure what "hide distorted area" means.

[John Mitchell]

10 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

That sounds pretty strange, I don't use it myself but I wonder if there is anything in this blog that would help, some setting hidden in the Export Variants panel perhaps, something to do with scale maybe.

 

https://imagealchemist.net/capture-one-export/

 

Thanks for the link. I think I've got the export settings correct, but I'll have a closer look.

[spacecadet]

1 minute ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Actually, I'm not even sure what "hide distorted area" means.

When you let LR correct a RAW for lens distortion on import there's an option to crop out the resulting white crescents automatically. Could it be that?

Although when it does mine, it doesn't change the pixel count.

Edited May 19, 2020 by spacecadet

[John Mitchell]

Just now, spacecadet said:

When you let LR correct a RAW for lens distortion on import there's an option to crop out the resulting white crescents automatically.

 

I don't use LR, but isn't that the same as "scaling"? Who dreams up all these confusing terms anyway.

[spacecadet]

1 minute ago, John Mitchell said:

 

I don't use LR, but isn't that the same as "scaling"? Who dreams up all these confusing terms anyway.

I don't know. It's called "constrain crop".

[John Mitchell]

1 minute ago, spacecadet said:

I don't know. It's called "constrain crop".

 

Or "minimize migraine". The English language is doomed. 😲

[Harry Harrison]

I think Mark & Bionic are on the right track here, if Capture One corrects for lens distortion then the image will no longer be rectangular so a slight amount of cropping will need to take place. 'Hide distorted areas' seems like a rather clumsy way of describing that though, if that's what it is. It's similar with correcting for keystoning which is why they are dealt with together in the explanation at the top here:

 

https://help.phaseone.com/en/co6/editing-photos/lens-correction?p=1

 

The RAW file will be unchanged of course, just exported tiffs or jpegs will be affected.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[spacecadet]

I'm wrong about LR, it just corrects the distortion out of frame. It doesn't create any white areas, that's only done in manual perspective corrections.

[John Mitchell]

25 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

I think Mark & Bionic are on the right track here, if Capture One corrects for lens distortion then the image will no longer be rectangular so a slight amount of cropping will need to take place. 'Hide distorted areas' seems like a rather clumsy way of describing that though, if that's what it is. It's similar with correcting for keystoning which is why they are dealt with together in the explanation at the top here:

 

https://help.phaseone.com/en/co6/editing-photos/lens-correction?p=1

 

The RAW file will be unchanged of course, just exported tiffs or jpegs will be affected.

 

 

 

Thanks for the link. I also sometimes use an old version of DxO OpticsPro for RAW processing. It too auto-corrects for lens distortion but doesn't change the image or file size. Perhaps Capture One uses a different method for correcting distortion. I'm going to check images captured with various lenses and focal lengths as Mark suggested. I often downsize, so the loss of a few pixels doesn't really matter. However, I'm a bit confused why images taken with my older camera (Sony NEX-6) don't seem to be affected, but perhaps I'm wrong about that.

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

I think Mark & Bionic are on the right track here, if Capture One corrects for lens distortion then the image will no longer be rectangular so a slight amount of cropping will need to take place. 'Hide distorted areas' seems like a rather clumsy way of describing that though, if that's what it is. It's similar with correcting for keystoning which is why they are dealt with together in the explanation at the top here:

 

https://help.phaseone.com/en/co6/editing-photos/lens-correction?p=1

 

The RAW file will be unchanged of course, just exported tiffs or jpegs will be affected.

 

 

 

It all depends on the maths used to "linearise" the distortion. Pixel positions can either be remapped by shifting affected pixel values outwards (away from the image centre), in which case the original image size is retained but image quality at the edges is reduced as data is "spread out". In the other case affected pixels values are shifted inwards (towards the centre). In this case image quality is retained (and possibly enhanced were image data is squeezed together). But the image will require cropping and so the pixel dimensions of the image are reduced.

 

I find it can be useful to turn off distortion correction on wide angle lens shots of subjects without straight lines as it improves corner sharpness. I can do this in LR or PS by altering the image metadata (using EXIFToolGUI.exe) before opening the image. Other packages (e.g. DXO) allow automatic lens distortion correction to be turned on an off, but not Adobe.

 

Mark

Edited May 19, 2020 by M.Chapman

[Harry Harrison]

5 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

It all depends on the maths used to "linearise" the distortion. Pixel positions can either be remapped by shifting affected pixel values outwards (away from the image centre), in which case the original image size is retained but image quality at the edges is reduced as data is "spread out". In the other case affected pixels values are shifted inwards (towards the centre). In this case image quality is retained (and possibly enhanced were image data is squeezed together). But the image will require cropping and so the pixel dimensions of the image are reduced.

Thanks for the explanation, 6000 to 5700 px does seem quite a large difference. In Lightroom I haven't frankly paid any attention to how it does it but then if I knew my images should be exactly 6000 px as John's are then I probably would have noticed more readily. My cameras' native resolutions on the long side are 5616,  5184, 4896 & 4288, and yes, I had to check.

[John Mitchell]

51 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Thanks for the explanation, 6000 to 5700 px does seem quite a large difference. In Lightroom I haven't frankly paid any attention to how it does it but then if I knew my images should be exactly 6000 px as John's are then I probably would have noticed more readily. My cameras' native resolutions on the long side are 5616,  5184, 4896 & 4288, and yes, I had to check.

 

Actually, I might have overstated the shrinkage. Looking at recently processed images, I'm seeing sizes like 5772, 5779, 5846, 5882, etc. These smaller images seem to have been captured mainly with two Sony lenses  -- a 16-50 that has huge field curvature at 16mm, and a 55-210 at the longer end. I checked out pictures taken with my Samyang 12mm manual focus lens, for which there is no auto-correction in Capture One, and the file sizes remain at 6000 pixels. I also use a Sony 18-55 lens that doesn't exhibit nearly as much distortion as the 16-50, and the file sizes do seem more consistent. So I guess Capture One uses a distortion correction method like the second one that Mark described.

Edited May 19, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Harry Harrison]

9 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

So I guess Capture One uses a distortion correction method like the second one that Mark described.

Looks like distortion is the key as Mark & Bionic (James) proposed. In the post above Bionic says that you might be able to switch off 'Hide distorted areas' just to compare and if you can Mark suggests that it might in certain circumstances be a good thing.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[John Mitchell]

12 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Looks like distortion is the key as Mark & Bionic proposed. In the post above Bionic says that you might be able to switch off 'Hide distorted areas' just to compare and if you can Mark suggests that it might in certain circumstances be a good thing.

 

In Capture One Express for Sony, the toned-down version of Capture One Pro that I'm using, you can't actually click a box and turn distortion correction off. However, you can move the distortion slider all the way to the left, which I guess is essentially the same as turning it off. Will do some more experimenting...

 

BTW, for anyone using Sony cameras and lenses, Capture One Express is a really good RAW processor. Sony must have put together some kind of deal with Phase One in order to offer such powerful software for free.

Edited May 19, 2020 by John Mitchell

[M.Chapman]

The distortion correction applied on modern lenses can be quite extreme.

 

Here's a wide angle RX100 Mk3 shot with and without distortion correction. You can see where all those pixels might go....

 

 

 

Images were produced from Sony RAW files in DxO Optics Pro 9.

 

Mark

Edited May 19, 2020 by M.Chapman

[Harry Harrison]

9 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

The distortion correction applied on modern lenses can be quite extreme.

Extraordinary

[John Mitchell]

31 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

The distortion correction applied on modern lenses can be quite extreme.

 

Here's a wide angle RX100 Mk3 shot with and without distortion correction. You can see where all those pixels might go....

 

 

 

Images were produced from Sony RAW files in DxO Optics Pro 9.

 

Mark

 

The distortion produced by my Sony 16-50 "pancake zoom" lens at 16mm is at least as bad as that, if not worse. I too have Optics Pro 9 (Elite). DxO's lens modules do a very good job of making things look presentable.

 

I switched to Capture One Express because it offers more processing tools than Optics Pro. The catalogue looks as if it could be useful as well, but I've yet to figure out how to set it up. I still prefer Optics Pro for processing high ISO images. The "prime" setting for NR is excellent.

Edited May 19, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Marianne]

I don't use Capture One Express for Sony often - mostly due to the learning curve - but I noticed the shrinkage when it corrected for my 8mm Rokinon fisheye lens - in fact it was autocorrecting which defeated the purpose of the fisheye - though it made for some amazing wide angle images with perfectly straight lines. Unfortunately it's been ages since I've used Capture One and I can't recall how to change the settings. I should check out that link.

 

I never figured out the Capture One catalog either and so I also imported the RAW and processed images into Lightroom. It seemed like an excellent processor and I loved the way my images came out, but it was far more time-consuming than Lightroom and for most images didn't seem worth the extra time, though I was just looking at a recently licensed image I'd forgotten about from a group of the first photos I processed in Capture One and was thinking I might give it a try again. Getting the best out of a vast landscape image seems like a good way to escape the confines of our current situation. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Marianne

[John Mitchell]

3 hours ago, Marianne said:

I don't use Capture One Express for Sony often - mostly due to the learning curve - but I noticed the shrinkage when it corrected for my 8mm Rokinon fisheye lens - in fact it was autocorrecting which defeated the purpose of the fisheye - though it made for some amazing wide angle images with perfectly straight lines. Unfortunately it's been ages since I've used Capture One and I can't recall how to change the settings. I should check out that link.

 

I never figured out the Capture One catalog either and so I also imported the RAW and processed images into Lightroom. It seemed like an excellent processor and I loved the way my images came out, but it was far more time-consuming than Lightroom and for most images didn't seem worth the extra time, though I was just looking at a recently licensed image I'd forgotten about from a group of the first photos I processed in Capture One and was thinking I might give it a try again. Getting the best out of a vast landscape image seems like a good way to escape the confines of our current situation. 

 

That's really odd that you're seeing shrinkage of images captured with the Rokinon lens as Capture One Express only supports auto correction for Sony lenses. I see no loss of pixels when using manual focus lenses. Are you correcting distortion yourself using the "distortion" slider? The catalog is a complete mystery to me. I need to watch some "how to" videos.

Edited May 20, 2020 by John Mitchell

[ReeRay]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

That's really odd that you're seeing shrinkage of images captured with the Rokinon lens as Capture One Express only supports auto correction for Sony lenses. I see no loss of pixels when using manual focus lenses. Are you correcting distortion yourself using the "distortion" slider? The catalog is a complete mystery to me. I need to watch some "how to" videos.

 Maybe this link will help to define the Catalog v Session option.  

 

https://www.azuloxworkshops.com/educational/capture-one/capture-one-catalogs-vs-sessions/

 

I've been using Capture One for years and have never bothered with Catalog preferring Sessions. Seemed a lot easier to understand in the "old days". Never had any problems or losses and I've switched computers numerous times. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by ReeRay

[meanderingemu]

15 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

In Capture One Express for Sony, the toned-down version of Capture One Pro that I'm using, you can't actually click a box and turn distortion correction off. However, you can move the distortion slider all the way to the left, which I guess is essentially the same as turning it off. Will do some more experimenting...

 

BTW, for anyone using Sony cameras and lenses, Capture One Express is a really good RAW processor. Sony must have put together some kind of deal with Phase One in order to offer such powerful software for free.

 

 

glad you found it..  it's the same in the main version (i use the Fuji full one)....  I actually adjust the percentage slider on about 20% on shots