Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: woof75 on July 31, 2008, 05:55:35 pm
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First off, capture one 4.1 is horrible to use, the worst I've used in as long as I can remember, it's slooowww too how modern software can be this user unfriendly is beyond me. Luckily the out the box colour rendering is pretty close to what I want so I can usually work around it. Lightoom is much better in all aspects of usability. However, look at these tests. (capture one files start with cptr1 and LR files start with lr).
The difference is amazing, the capture one files make the LR files look awful, I haven't spent a massive amount of time massaging the files, I did sharpen them as best as I could, I turned off most of the noise reduction in both the programs, I prefer the way it looks). The LR files are so smudged looking and the subtlety of tone and colour is pathetic compared. All of these segments are from the same file processed the best I could in LR and capture one 4.1 DB. (I couldn't show the entire image as it is from a yet to be released cover image).
In sequence, left to right, the files are: 1)Capture one, 2)Lightroom, 3)Lightroom, 4)Capture one, 5)Lightroom and 6)capture one.
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First off, capture one 4.1 is horrible to use, the worst I've used in as long as I can remember, it's slooowww too how modern software can be this user unfriendly is beyond me. Luckily the out the box colour rendering is pretty close to what I want so I can usually work around it. Lightoom is much better in all aspects of usability. However, look at these tests. (capture one files start with cptr1 and LR files start with lr).
The difference is amazing, the capture one files make the LR files look awful, I haven't spent a massive amount of time massaging the files, I did sharpen them as best as I could, I turned off most of the noise reduction in both the programs, I prefer the way it looks). The LR files are so smudged looking and the subtlety of tone and colour is pathetic compared. All of these segments are from the same file processed the best I could in LR and capture one 4.1 DB. (I couldn't show the entire image as it is from a yet to be released cover image).
In sequence, left to right, the files are: 1)Capture one, 2)Lightroom, 3)Lightroom, 4)Capture one, 5)Lightroom and 6)capture one.
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C1 4.1 rules for Phase files. What are you running C1 4 on? On my Macs C1 4 blows LR away in terms of speed.
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C1 4.1 rules for Phase files. What are you running C1 4 on? On my Macs C1 4 blows LR away in terms of speed.
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On a macbook which is actually surprisingly fast for most software, PS etc.
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On a macbook which is actually surprisingly fast for most software, PS etc.
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Strange, because on my Mac Pro processes P30+ files in 3 - 4 seconds. MacBookPro speed is a little slower, but not much. Maybe something is slowing down C1 on your system?
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For RAW file processing I have pretty much stopped using LR, Aperture, Canon DPP and Bridge in favor of C1 4.1.
Although perhaps not as fast as LR and Aperture for working through a lot of files, the quality of the images, in my opinion, are much better with less work. Also final batch outputting seems faster than Aperture and at least as fast as LR.
I am primarily using it for Canon 5D files although also with P45+ files.
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For RAW file processing I have pretty much stopped using LR, Aperture, Canon DPP and Bridge in favor of C1 4.1.
Although perhaps not as fast as LR and Aperture for working through a lot of files, the quality of the images, in my opinion, are much better with less work. Also final batch outputting seems faster than Aperture and at least as fast as LR.
I am primarily using it for Canon 5D files although also with P45+ files.
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I personally would not use anything but C-1.. I still prefer 3.7.9 and will dab with 4.1 when the pro version comes out...
I agree that Lightroom seems to smear (de-Noise) the images some how even when everything turned off.
Snook
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In follow up, I must say that I just worked on a fairly high volume of files from a shoot with a Canon 5D in C1 4.1. I processed the RAW files and batched out 152 print ready without ever going into PhotoShop. This was a commercial ad/brochure job.
It went very quickly and the end result is better than I could have asked.
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First off, capture one 4.1 is horrible to use, the worst I've used in as long as I can remember, it's slooowww too how modern software can be this user unfriendly is beyond me. Luckily the out the box colour rendering is pretty close to what I want so I can usually work around it. Lightoom is much better in all aspects of usability. However, look at these tests. (capture one files start with cptr1 and LR files start with lr).
The difference is amazing, the capture one files make the LR files look awful, I haven't spent a massive amount of time massaging the files, I did sharpen them as best as I could, I turned off most of the noise reduction in both the programs, I prefer the way it looks). The LR files are so smudged looking and the subtlety of tone and colour is pathetic compared. All of these segments are from the same file processed the best I could in LR and capture one 4.1 DB. (I couldn't show the entire image as it is from a yet to be released cover image).
In sequence, left to right, the files are: 1)Capture one, 2)Lightroom, 3)Lightroom, 4)Capture one, 5)Lightroom and 6)capture one.
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woof75,
why is the skin color so different on the thumbnail (from the same image) from the original color when you press the thumbnail and look at the full size image?
or... what was your original preference?
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I agree that LR favors the "painterly" rendering, while C1 just gives straight detail, and has good built in sharpening settings, but you can do much better than that in LR.
I guess this is why people hate tests. Everyone does everything differently.
I grabbed a P30 file from the Capture Integration test (hope they don't mind).
C14.1 vs. LR 2.0: (disregard color and white balance, because they're craptastic).
C1 settings:
Sharpening = Standard 3.7 sharpening = 130, 1.3, 1
Luminance NR = 0
Color NR = 45 (can't do 100, because it screws everything up, and the best color NR in the world was from pre-3.7 or C13.7 with "use pre-3.7 color noise suppression" checked in preferences).
LR main settings:
Clarity = 52
Sharpening = 25
Radius = 0.5
Detail = 100
Masking = 0
Luminance NR = 0
Color NR = 100
Notice that LR handles wide edged sharpening better (seen in arm crops), and C1, with the applied sharpening, favors fine detail sharpening instead, but has a bit of sharpening artifacts.
The last face crop from LR has the above settings with an added USM in PS of 100, .3, 0.
Since LR seems to handle wide edged detail better than fine edged detail, this final move handles the fine detail (like in the beard) and leaves you with good sharpening, no sharpening artifacts, and no noise of any kind really, but still a hint of the painterly look. It's just different. If you don't like that look, than, LR is not for you.
I'm still on C13.7.
[attachment=7727:attachment]
[attachment=7728:attachment]
[attachment=7729:attachment]
[attachment=7730:attachment]
[attachment=7731:attachment]
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First off, capture one 4.1 is horrible to use, the worst I've used in as long as I can remember, it's slooowww too how modern software can be this user unfriendly is beyond me. Luckily the out the box colour rendering is pretty close to what I want so I can usually work around it. Lightoom is much better in all aspects of usability. However, look at these tests. (capture one files start with cptr1 and LR files start with lr).
The difference is amazing, the capture one files make the LR files look awful, I haven't spent a massive amount of time massaging the files, I did sharpen them as best as I could, I turned off most of the noise reduction in both the programs, I prefer the way it looks). The LR files are so smudged looking and the subtlety of tone and colour is pathetic compared. All of these segments are from the same file processed the best I could in LR and capture one 4.1 DB. (I couldn't show the entire image as it is from a yet to be released cover image).
In sequence, left to right, the files are: 1)Capture one, 2)Lightroom, 3)Lightroom, 4)Capture one, 5)Lightroom and 6)capture one.
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I persist in using capture one even though it runs slowly on my G5, on the macbook , with 4gb ram , it runs really well and processes fast. I can't get away from the colour it gets out of my Canon files, Camera raw and lightroom along with Aperture just don't do it for me ,and I like the detail. As someone else said , you don't really need to got to Photoshop after as it will do it all.
The only thng I would like is some sort of CA control and vignetting - and of course more speed , then it would be almost perfect.
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The difference is amazing, the capture one files make the LR files look awful, I haven't spent a massive amount of time massaging the files, I did sharpen them as best as I could, I turned off most of the noise reduction in both the programs, I prefer the way it looks).
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This was also the case for my ZD and D3 files. I have not checked LR 2.0 yet, but I didn't read Adobe mention enhanced detail as one of the features of 2.0, so I guess that they probably didn't work on that. It is unclear to me whether they acknowledge the fact that 1.4 was significantly behind the curve in terms of demoisacing.
It is really sad that Adobe is not looking at a plug-in approach for the conversion part of lightroom as I suggested several times more than one year ago...
The workflow of Lightroom with the conversion quality of C1 or Raw Developper would be a very convincing tool!
Cheers,
Bernard
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woof75,
why is the skin color so different on the thumbnail (from the same image) from the original color when you press the thumbnail and look at the full size image?
or... what was your original preference?
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The jpegs are in the Profoto colorspace. The larger jpeg is tagged with the proper colorspace and therefore shows correctly on you monitor if you are using a color managed browser. The small thumbs are untagged, so on apple computers the monitor colorspace is applied to the thumb (something close to sRGB), and on windows machines the thumbs are assumed to be sRGB.
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I agree that LR favors the "painterly" rendering, while C1 just gives straight detail, and has good built in sharpening settings, but you can do much better than that in LR.
I guess this is why people hate tests. Everyone does everything differently.
I grabbed a P30 file from the Capture Integration test (hope they don't mind).
C14.1 vs. LR 2.0: (disregard color and white balance, because they're craptastic).
C1 settings:
Sharpening = Standard 3.7 sharpening = 130, 1.3, 1
Luminance NR = 0
Color NR = 45 (can't do 100, because it screws everything up, and the best color NR in the world was from pre-3.7 or C13.7 with "use pre-3.7 color noise suppression" checked in preferences).
LR main settings:
Clarity = 52
Sharpening = 25
Radius = 0.5
Detail = 100
Masking = 0
Luminance NR = 0
Color NR = 100
Notice that LR handles wide edged sharpening better (seen in arm crops), and C1, with the applied sharpening, favors fine detail sharpening instead, but has a bit of sharpening artifacts.
The last face crop from LR has the above settings with an added USM in PS of 100, .3, 0.
Since LR seems to handle wide edged detail better than fine edged detail, this final move handles the fine detail (like in the beard) and leaves you with good sharpening, no sharpening artifacts, and no noise of any kind really, but still a hint of the painterly look. It's just different. If you don't like that look, than, LR is not for you.
I'm still on C13.7.
Yes these tests can be hard, all I can say is I tried to make the files look the best they could to my eye from the two different programs and the results are consistent with my general experience.
A few people mentioned speed to not be an issue for them, I find speed to be fine when processing a file but terrible for things like showing a change, there's a delay when I alter things, the screen is fuzzy for a couple of seconds before it clears to show the changes.
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T-1000 to my eye the C1 files win on all counts, detail, wide edge, and skin tones.
Not even close.
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Yes, but I don't think LR is quite as bad as was shown in the shots from the original post, but that's because everyone has their own different settings that they use, so it's just too hard to compare.
But one thing is clear to me: C1 just gives you straight detail, and LR has the painterly/smudgy sort of look in general.
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T-1000, I agree, your LR posts do look better than the earlier ones.
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C1 4 is great for noise on my canon 1d3, but v3 is much better for my P25 back. i like the new controls of v4, it took a little getting used to, some changes were good, others i really dont like from v3, it was frustrating for awhile and i didnt use it for awhile. the transition hasnt been seamless.
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I'm just amazed at all these unequivocal statements people are making on this thread, saying that one is clearly better than the other. As far as I'm concerned, the qualitative differences are anything but clear, and what differences I do see can be accounted for by different defaults or settings used in the applications. More specifically, how anyone can say the C1 conversions shown by T-1000 are "clearly" better than the LR conversions is a total mystery. The LR shot with the applied USM shows somewhat more detail in the shirt fabric, to point at just one area. Obviously, it has had USM applied, so you'd expect greater apparent detail. BUT that's my point. The differences are in the settings, not in the quality of the conversions. I don't doubt that there are differences in demosaicing quality, but they pale in comparison to the differences in app defaults and settings that come into play in comparisons like these.
Frankly, just like lens tests, and camera tests, etc, people more often than not see what they want and expect to see. And the more they spent on some product, the more likely it seems that it will be percieved by that person as being superior, whether in fact it is or isn't.
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I'm just amazed at all these unequivocal statements people are making on this thread, saying that one is clearly better than the other. As far as I'm concerned, the qualitative differences are anything but clear, and what differences I do see can be accounted for by different defaults or settings used in the applications. More specifically, how anyone can say the C1 conversions shown by T-1000 are "clearly" better than the LR conversions is a total mystery. The LR shot with the applied USM shows somewhat more detail in the shirt fabric, to point at just one area. Obviously, it has had USM applied, so you'd expect greater apparent detail. BUT that's my point. The differences are in the settings, not in the quality of the conversions. I don't doubt that there are differences in demosaicing quality, but they pale in comparison to the differences in app defaults and settings that come into play in comparisons like these.
Frankly, just like lens tests, and camera tests, etc, people more often than not see what they want and expect to see. And the more they spent on some product, the more likely it seems that it will be percieved by that person as being superior.
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Mort I will have to disagree with you 100%.
Sorry I just saw that you said the one T-1000 did.. that may be true but on Mine images C-1 is Clearly better. IMWO
I have done many test with my images and C-1 by far, Yes by far are better.. Especially for me which is all that matters.
The only one I have find almost as good is Raw Developer But I am used to C-1.
I agree that on the above images you should not judge...They all looked overly done in my mind.
I acutally dislike images I have change with lightroom unless doing some special adjustments or preset. But even then I change in C-1 then import to Lightroom. ACR through PSCS3 I find pretty weak also.
Besides being a personal choice... I do see a difference. Atleast on P30 files and on my 1DsMII files. anything else I cannot speak about.
Snook
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C1 4 is great for noise on my canon 1d3, but v3 is much better for my P25 back. i like the new controls of v4, it took a little getting used to, some changes were good, others i really dont like from v3, it was frustrating for awhile and i didnt use it for awhile. the transition hasnt been seamless.
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I've just been looking at my old files, C1 3.7.9 looks much sharper, less noisy for architecture and landscape with my P45+ than V4
Edmund
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Mort I will have to disagree with you 100%.
Sorry I just saw that you said the one T-1000 did.. that may be true but on Mine images C-1 is Clearly better. IMWO
Hi Snook. Yes, many people who are probably way better than me at post processing have told me that. And I respect their opinons. But I have yet to see a convincing side by side comparison that clearly shows one is better than the other. The one presented in this thread is far from convincing, for example. So I'm not doubting you - I'm just saying I've yet to see a comparison that convinces me.
My personal view is that while the differences in demosaicing algorithms make a difference, a far bigger factor is the skill of the person using the tool, and the familiarity of that person with the tool. For example, I have no doubt that a person who really knows C1 and uses it regularily can produce a better file using C1 than they can using LR, which they might not know as well, and may only use occasionally. I also have no doubt that a person who really knows LR and seldom uses C1 is going to get better results from LR than C1.
Comparing converters is apples and oranges. The person doing the comparison is always going to know one tool better than the other, and that's bound to make a difference in the results. I think the quality of the raw conversion engines has gotten so close that the primary difference in results has more to do with the skill of the user, the user's familiarity with the tool, and the ease of use and power of the tool's features. That's just my opinion, of course.
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I've just been looking at my old files, C1 3.7.9 looks much sharper, less noisy for architecture and landscape with my P45+ than V4
Edmund
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i noticed that with focus set to 0 in v3, light sharpening is still applied, it has to be set to disable to turn off all sharpening effects. just had a shoot where some files were processed in v3 others in v4 and the v3 were slightly sharper due to that.
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Since Version 4 of Camera Raw I think detail extraction is close to Capture One. Modulation of dark tonal values is better in C1. But maybe experienced users of ACR/LR can compensate the difference with advanced adjustments. On the other hand: when sharpening the images (at the end in Photoshop on layers) the results from the C1 files are … maybe not really sharper but at the same level of sharpness finer and subtler. The files of ACR compared to the C1 files have somehow a slight coarse look. So the difference is maybe not that big if you compare images without sharpening. But it’s getting more obvious after sharpening. Which may indicate a better detail extraction of C1… I think. But all in all the engines are quite close now from my point of view.
Much bigger the difference with regard to the look, the gradation and colors of the images. Well, obviously depends on the users taste. But whitebalance is a pain in ACR/LR for me personally and it takes some effort to find the right or a pleasing balance. Too, the images look flat in ACR/LR before I adjust something. Default settings in C1 look much more "film like" with regard to gradation and colors. So the new "camera profiles" – or better color correction presets – in ACR/LR are a good improvement. But not for the files of my P45 – the colors in ACR are a joke with the old "camera profile" as well as with the new Beta profile. Apart from that exposure is always 1 stop of (captures are 1 stop too dark in ACR so I have to push 1 stop and add noise herewith). Color and exposure of my small DSLR is somehow okay in ACR but images look flat here as well by default. With regard to the whole color management workflow the four output profiles in ACR/LR are a serious restriction. Me I need none of these four color spaces and at least this is a reason to refuse using ACR/LR.
While ACR is a plugin for those who want to process some raw files now and then LR and C1 offering enhanced workflow. But from my point of view LR has far too much options and sliders… all that slows down workflow. And the additional tools are much better organised in Photoshop (with much more control e.g. color warning, layers in different modes and so forth).
I hate the interface of LR and that of C1 V4, too. Too dark if you spent a long time in front of the display. I prefer the middle grey interface of the C1 V3x Windows version or the white one of the MAC version.
i noticed that with focus set to 0 in v3, light sharpening is still applied, it has to be set to disable to turn off all sharpening effects. just had a shoot where some files were processed in v3 others in v4 and the v3 were slightly sharper due to that.
Yes. Especially with threshold set to zero the sharpening is quite aggressive though the amount of sharpening is set to zero. In V3x you have to disable sharpening in the preferences. And in this case V3 and V4 produce the same results.
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I am finding C1 a much better raw processing tool than LR but than again C1 was always really at the top with many of the camera's I owned but for Phase files no question C1 is better in my view . A lot less adjustments just to get a good base image. LR comes in at least 1 stop too dark and the kelvin temp just is not even close to what the light temps are so it gets confusing because many times i will set my kelvin and apply that to outdoor images. I know I can do presets and all that but I still find C1 a better tool for Phase files plus it has lens corrections and such for my mamiya lenses. Little clunky on interface but I am hoping the Pro version will improve that.
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I'm a long time ACR user, but just recently tried out C1 4.1 just to see what it offers. Like many here, I found that the program was extremely slow on my machine, which isn't saying all that much (using a dual G5 2.3ghz, 6.5gb ram, 10.4.11). But to zoom in/out, move a file around, or many any adjustment, it always takes 3+ seconds to make the adjustment then "focus" the image. Is that a typical experience for this program? And when making changes to files, must I process the image (thus creating a new TIFF) just to open it in Photoshop? It took me a looooong time (+30 mins) to work through a test folder of 50 or so files, which took about 10 mins in ACR. I did like the way the C1 processed the images, but does it require a beefy Mac Pro to really get it going efficiently?
Is C1 Pro any better? Will it support DNG files?
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I'm a long time ACR user, but just recently tried out C1 4.1 just to see what it offers. Like many here, I found that the program was extremely slow on my machine, which isn't saying all that much (using a dual G5 2.3ghz, 6.5gb ram, 10.4.11). But to zoom in/out, move a file around, or many any adjustment, it always takes 3+ seconds to make the adjustment then "focus" the image. Is that a typical experience for this program? And when making changes to files, must I process the image (thus creating a new TIFF) just to open it in Photoshop? It took me a looooong time (+30 mins) to work through a test folder of 50 or so files, which took about 10 mins in ACR. I did like the way the C1 processed the images, but does it require a beefy Mac Pro to really get it going efficiently?
Is C1 Pro any better? Will it support DNG files?
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I think it's a processor architecture thing, needing an Intel processor. Maybe even a used Intel Mac is enough for your purposes.
Edmund
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I think it's a processor architecture thing, needing an Intel processor. Maybe even a used Intel Mac is enough for your purposes.
Edmund
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It's not so great on my intel Mac Book. 3 seconds for images to clear after adjusting.
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It's not so great on my intel Mac Book. 3 seconds for images to clear after adjusting.
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the desktops should be seriously faster for this type of work.
may be worth putting a faster disk in your macbook.
Edmund
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I did like the way the C1 processed the images, but does it require a beefy Mac Pro to really get it going efficiently?
Is C1 Pro any better? Will it support DNG files?
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It is definitely best on Intel chips.
My setup:
Intel MBP 17" 2.16Ghz Core Duo: 2gb ram 100 gig 7200rpm (i.e. first generation intel laptop with upgrade hard drive).
Time to snap after adjustment (exposure, contrast, WB): <1/2 sec (too fast to measure)
Time to snap after zoom to 100% (w/ thumbnails and adjustments pane shown): 2.5 sec
Time to snap after zoom to 100% (near full screen, thumbnails and adjustments pane hidden): 6 sec
Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
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the desktops should be seriously faster for this type of work.
may be worth putting a faster disk in your macbook.
Edmund
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It's funny, for photoshop I used to have the powerpc dual 2.7 ghz processor G5 desktop and I bought an intel macbook 2.2 ghz dual processor for location work (both 4megs ram) and I found the macbook was markedly faster. The new intel desktops I'm sure do rock out though.
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It's funny, for photoshop I used to have the powerpc dual 2.7 ghz processor G5 desktop and I bought an intel macbook 2.2 ghz dual processor for location work (both 4megs ram) and I found the macbook was markedly faster. The new intel desktops I'm sure do rock out though.
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I too bought the cheapest MacBook Pro, and found it"s a very fast machine. Still have to upgrade the RAM, though. he desktops are now obscenely expensive when compared to the laptops, but one can hang wonderful screens off them.
Edmund
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I too bought the cheapest MacBook Pro, and found it"s a very fast machine. Still have to upgrade the RAM, though. he desktops are now obscenely expensive when compared to the laptops, but one can hang wonderful screens off them.
Edmund
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Hey, I have my 19inch Eizo connected to my macbook and it's great.