Why are the previews of Capture One Pro of such low quality?

[Dave Rosser]

I've just joined LL just because I have this same issue. It's extremely frustrating, and
everything is exactly like what 'The View' is saying. Pictures in Capture One preview look like, well, crap.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so

The first one is a screenshot of me working in capture one; it also shows the preview size (and yes, I've regenerated the preview many times).

http://scenicdesktops.com/test/Capture1preview.png

The other picture is the output at 2160 x 1440.

http://scenicdesktops.com/test/Output.png

Look at the difference between them. It's obvious. I'm a stubborn man, but this is honestly ticking me off. Can anyone help with this?

You have -25 clarity set, is this your normal setting? What does the pre-view look like with the default 0 setting?

Dave

[The View]

Tom Fitzgerald has just published a suggested workaround for this

http://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2017/9/capture-ones-preview-problem-and-how-to-get-around-it

Don't have time to try it right now, and it may well be something already suggested, but just in case it helps anyone.

Graham

This doesn't make the preview as good as the output, but the output as bad as the preview.

Also, the example in the blog is doesn't show the extent of the problem with the blurry preview. It doesn't show the loss of sharpness, the incorrect regional contrast, and that the Capture One Preview is just a bullshit preview that has nothing to do with the output.

Would the output be as bad as the preview, nobody would use C1.

You adjust according to the preview, you are flying blind.

My "fix" is that I only use minimal adjustments. Nothing that really makes a esthetic decision. I just create a neutral good start with a slight inclination towards where I want to go.

This way, of course, I cannot use most of the tools offered by C1.

But then, what use are tools, if you don't see how they work but get some fake preview instead.


I can't believe Phase One stacks feature upon feature - and they are all built on sand of a blatantly false preview that is useless to do proper adjustments.

[myotis]

This doesn't make the preview as good as the output, but the output as bad as the preview.

Ah, well, thought it was worth passing on, sorry it didn't help.

Graham

[The View]

Ah, well, thought it was worth passing on, sorry it didn't help.

Graham

You can't work around a key software weakness.

Fixing the low quality preview problem is a must for Capture One 11.

Just like bringing the catalog up to standards - to what the Lightroom catalog can do.

More features (which you usually get in upgrades) are not necessary. The basic functions need to be great.

[The View]

Well, I did some additional research and could not find a single instance where I see a plan by Phase One to improve on this deadly failure of bad previews.

Basically, all the editing tools are worthless with a low quality, fuzzy preview.

I also checked colors versus Canon's DPP (unsophisticated interface, no database) and the detail was excellent there. In some cases, DPP created better colors our of the box.


Because of this problem - I can't even see my RAW collections decently, because the preview quality is so bad, I am considering letting C1 go. I am using Capture One Pro 9, and from what I heard from others, Capture One Pro 10 is just as bad. Capture One Pro 11 - I have little hope Phase One will do something about this deadly fault. They don't seem to care that you can't preview your images properly and can't see what you are doing when adjusting them.

I'm very frustrated with this disfuncational piece of software.

[Walter Rowe]

How many have opened cases with Phase One about this issue? In my experience the squeaky wheel gets the grease with them. Some very significant performance and memory management issues were addressed in 10.1 that I had complained about since 8.3. I am a heavy catalog user (58,000 images and counting) and this was a very significant issue for me. With enough detailed evidence and complaints they addressed it. There seems to be enough evidence for preview quality issues. Maybe what they need are open cases from enough people to get their attention?

[The View]

How many have opened cases with Phase One about this issue? In my experience the squeaky wheel gets the grease with them. Some very significant performance and memory management issues were addressed in 10.1 that I had complained about since 8.3. I am a heavy catalog user (58,000 images and counting) and this was a very significant issue for me. With enough detailed evidence and complaints they addressed it. There seems to be enough evidence for preview quality issues. Maybe what they need are open cases from enough people to get their attention?

Yes, it's a good idea.

I am currently reviewing if I still like Capture One for other reasons, too (even though the bad preview issue is a total killer already): I feel that the basic adjustment looks overprocessed.

That was OK until now, but the trend in photography is going towards less and less post processing, almost towards a film-like image.

And the overly punchy processing of C1 isn't even good for fashion photography any more. I have played with reducing contrast, detail, microcontrast, sharpening... without getting where I wanted. I'll likely start another thread on that issue.

DPP, while a totally unsophisticated app, seems to have a very natural and neutral processing that doesn't push you into any direction.

But, anyway, I am totally fed up with the horrible preview and I'm equally fed up with the catalog that doesn't even match what Lightroom 1 showed up with almost ten years ago.

[IanSeward]

Yes, it's a good idea.

I am currently reviewing if I still like Capture One for other reasons, too (even though the bad preview issue is a total killer already): I feel that the basic adjustment looks overprocessed.

That was OK until now, but the trend in photography is going towards less and less post processing, almost towards a film-like image.

And the overly punchy processing of C1 isn't even good for fashion photography any more. I have played with reducing contrast, detail, microcontrast, sharpening... without getting where I wanted. I'll likely start another thread on that issue.

DPP, while a totally unsophisticated app, seems to have a very natural and neutral processing that doesn't push you into any direction.

But, anyway, I am totally fed up with the horrible preview and I'm equally fed up with the catalog that doesn't even match what Lightroom 1 showed up with almost ten years ago.

Have you tried using the linear response curve in place of auto?
This will give you the starting point you appear to want.

Ian

[The View]

Has this problem of the blurry, low resolution previews been fixed in Capture One 11?

[Dr Tone]

Has this problem of the blurry, low resolution previews been fixed in Capture One 11?

Still looks a little soft to me.

[TeeKay]

Still looks al little soft to me.

If that is confirmed, I won't upgrade.

C1 11 has some neat new features (some of which I suggested), but I won't bother paying an increased upgrade price for a new version that still has this fundamental problem.

[The View]

Still looks a little soft to me.

It's a trend in software development to overload software with unnecessary features and neglect the basics.

The two things C1 must fix is the inaccurate, low quality preview and the datebase that is so bad it's unusable.

If the preview is still poor, then an upgrade is not worth it.

[IanSeward]

Thank you for the vindication guys. This really is a "core and crippling problem".

I've been discussing this over at the phase one user forums. I ended up refining my examples down to the bone, to remove any comparison issues, and make everything equal. Here's what I put there:

I made a preview without any adjustments. This way any edits I made play no role whatsoever. Took a screenshot, again from within Capture One:
http://scenicdesktops.com/test/CapturePreview.png

Then, I took that screenshot, of exactly what's on my screen, and cropped out just the preview part. It ends up being 1927 x 1286:
http://scenicdesktops.com/test/CapturePreviewCropped.png

Then, in capture one, I exported the image at this same resolution, 1927 x 1286. That way the output matches the exact dimensions of what I see, on screen, in capture one.
http://scenicdesktops.com/test/CaptureOutput.png

Now compare those last 2 links. No difference in resolution, no adjustments, just pure comparable quality differences between two 1927 x 1286 pictures, generated by capture one in different situations.

There's an obvious difference between what you see in capture one, and the image itself being worked on, which could undeniable look better (as the output demonstrates quite clearly). Look at the trees, mountains, and logs at the bottom right. The same program produces a mushy, cruddy looking picture at 1927 x 1286 in-program, while at the same time producing a better, higher quality picture at the same resolution of 1927 x 1286 when exported.

I will try and create a support case with Phase One. I'm moving away from Aperture, since it's been unsupported for a while now, and my desktop PC is faster and easier to edit with anyway. I expected this program to be better, and gave it the benefit of the doubt at first. Now I'm turned off, because this non-destructive raw program can't seem to even make decent in-program images to work with. This is face-on obvious stuff, which I noticed right away the first time I used capture one.  How are people not up in arms about this? How old is this program?

Here is the last post in the forum thread you listed:



Re: Image being edited looks low-res

Postby gusferlizi » Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:26 pm
I might have insight on what's happening. I wrote a brainfart reply moments ago (deleted) that enlightened me on the probable cause. Down-sampling.

C1 draws the screen fill preview out of the generated proxy files. Those files have already been down-sampled to the screen's maximum resolution. When drawing the preview in the window, it's down-sampled again to match the frame.

As far as I understand, pixels are averaged out when down-sampling, resulting in less information. Having less detail available to compute preview results in this discrepancy.

Maybe this was mitigated in version 10, because while I can see a difference in contrast and perceived sharpness, it is minor. Alluding to sampling the export from the original file versus the preview from the proxy file; giving a different result at the same output resolution.
Praise Kek.

Conclusion:  Minor difference?

Ian

[The View]

Here is the last post in the forum thread you listed:



Re: Image being edited looks low-res

Postby gusferlizi » Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:26 pm
I might have insight on what's happening. I wrote a brainfart reply moments ago (deleted) that enlightened me on the probable cause. Down-sampling.

C1 draws the screen fill preview out of the generated proxy files. Those files have already been down-sampled to the screen's maximum resolution. When drawing the preview in the window, it's down-sampled again to match the frame.

As far as I understand, pixels are averaged out when down-sampling, resulting in less information. Having less detail available to compute preview results in this discrepancy.

Maybe this was mitigated in version 10, because while I can see a difference in contrast and perceived sharpness, it is minor. Alluding to sampling the export from the original file versus the preview from the proxy file; giving a different result at the same output resolution.
Praise Kek.

Conclusion:  Minor difference?

Ian

Maybe this is really very hard to re-code because it sits at the source of the software and affects all tools.

But it should have been done. I still love the output but when I adjust an image to the preview, the output is different and not what I was going for. Adjusting to the preview I end up with overprocessed images: too much contrast in particular because the contrast is particularly weak in the preview.

Instead of adding a few features we can do without (to cash in on a minor upgrade) Phase One should have attacked this core problem.

And the weak - actually useless - database as well and make it as good as Lightroom.

With these two issues fixed Capture One Pro would have no competitor in the RAW software market.

Looks like marketing leads technical on a leash here. I'm sure the coders at Phase One would love to put out a class 1 product, especially as the high priced MF business is connected to it.

Those two issues must be fixed. I'm not paying for an upgrade that doesn't fix those core problems.

[the_luminous_french]

Hourra... i'm not alone with that kind of problem ;-(

[julianv]

I just did a bit of testing in Capture One Pro 11, on a 27" Retina iMac. In Preferences, I have Preview Image Size set to maximum: 5120, which happens to be the horizontal pixel dimension of the display.  The images were raw files from a Nikon D850, which are 8256 x 5504 pixels.  Display in C1 was set to "Fit".  I used the "PSD ProPhoto for Photoshop" process recipe, with no output sharpening, to open the images in Photoshop CS6, and set that program to show the shots at the same size as C1.

Comparing the programs, I could see no significant differences in sharpness.  Both looked great, with gobs of crisp detail.  Similar to what Bart noted, there may have been tiny differences in contrast and color.  Vertical format images require more down-sampling, and for those images, there was a barely noticeably softness in the C1 version, but I had to really strain to see it on things like thin twigs in tree branches.

The fit-to-view previews in C1 are perfectly adequate for my editing needs.  Perhaps the softening that others are seeing is not nearly as obvious on a high-DPI display.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I just did a bit of testing in Capture One Pro 11, on a 27" Retina iMac. In Preferences, I have Preview Image Size set to maximum: 5120, which happens to be the horizontal pixel dimension of the display.  The images were raw files from a Nikon D850, which are 8256 x 5504 pixels.  Display in C1 was set to "Fit".  I used the "PSD ProPhoto for Photoshop" process recipe, with no output sharpening, to open the images in Photoshop CS6, and set that program to show the shots at the same size as C1.

Comparing the programs, I could see no significant differences in sharpness.  Both looked great, with gobs of crisp detail.  Similar to what Bart noted, there may have been tiny differences in contrast and color.  Vertical format images require more down-sampling, and for those images, there was a barely noticeably softness in the C1 version, but I had to really strain to see it on things like thin twigs in tree branches.

The fit-to-view previews in C1 are perfectly adequate for my editing needs.  Perhaps the softening that others are seeing is not nearly as obvious on a high-DPI display.

I also do not have issues with the previews, although there's always room for (optional) improvement if it doesn't slow down normal operations too much.

I still have a nagging feeling that those who do report issues with softness may be seeing the effects of mismatched scaling on high DPI displays, nothing to do with C1 but with system/interface settings. Hans Kruse mentioned that 4K versus 5K display "looks like" issue several times, e.g. here.

Since the complainers are not clear enough in identifying the issue, or may be exaggerating it hoping for a quicker response, it's hard to diagnose. I've made screenprints from Adobe Photoshop and Capture One of the same TIFF scaled to fit screen, and looked at them side by side, and could hardly see any difference, so it's unlikely due to the scaling quality in isolation. It was possible for both display source grabs to improve their sharpness by adding sharpening as an additional step, but that's beside the point, one can always add sharpening.

Still puzzled ...

Cheers,
Bart

[IanSeward]

I also do not have issues with the previews, although there's always room for (optional) improvement if it doesn't slow down normal operations too much.

I still have a nagging feeling that those who do report issues with softness may be seeing the effects of mismatched scaling on high DPI displays, nothing to do with C1 but with system/interface settings. Hans Kruse mentioned that 4K versus 5K display "looks like" issue several times, e.g. here.

Since the complainers are not clear enough in identifying the issue, or may be exaggerating it hoping for a quicker response, it's hard to diagnose. I've made screenprints from Adobe Photoshop and Capture One of the same TIFF scaled to fit screen, and looked at them side by side, and could hardly see any difference, so it's unlikely due to the scaling quality in isolation. It was possible for both display source grabs to improve their sharpness by adding sharpening as an additional step, but that's beside the point, one can always add sharpening.

Still puzzled ...

Cheers,
Bart

Logically, given the number of C1 users and the relatively few people noticing this issue, it suggests a "system" issue for certain computer configurations.  Such issues will be very difficult to pinpoint as for most the issues highlighted simply do not exist.

Perhaps if the users noticing the pre view issue could post detailed specs of their systems including preview size, monitor resolution, GPU etc, a trend could be identified?

Ian

[Henk Peter]

I also have experimented with preview dimensions, and it has no effect to have a higher resolution.

The problem is that the preview window has old and outdated code and is not up to snuff with modern solutions like in Photoshop CC.

Phase One needs to address this - stop filling up the software with easy to code gadgets and features, but give us important core performance.

1. great image processing (this C1 does extremely well)

2. Great preview so you see what you are doing when you adjust images (here C1 truly fails - which is why I only give very basic and minimal adjustments to images in C1 - since I started to avoid adjustments in C1 it has helped my work a lot. The unusable preview destroys images.

3. Image organization - here is C1 behind Adobe as well. the catalog is close to unusable. Keywording is slow and unreliable and a hassle to do. Adobe Lightroom is ten times better here.

I can deal with a bad catalog - but the low quality and incorrect image preview must be fixed.

I do not see these problems in my workflow, I process several different types of raw files (no Canon) and the previews are always reflecting the quality of the processed files. My advise is file a support case at PhaseOne, else your issue will not be solved.

Henk

[TeeKay]

I still have a nagging feeling that those who do report issues with softness may be seeing the effects of mismatched scaling on high DPI displays, nothing to do with C1 but with system/interface settings.

Rest assured that this problem also occurs on a regular HD displays and since the only software performing image scaling is C1, there is no point in looking at system/interface settings. We are not talking about font sizes, or similar, but about the rendering quality of the preview image that C1 produces and that the OS has no involvement with. Just realise that once one engages "Proofing" the softness of the rendering disappears. The cause is 100% the standard preview generation strategy employed by C1.

The issue indeed is worse with portrait-orientation images which require further downscaling than landscape-orientation images. I too suspect that there is an issue with a double downscaling process -- first from original size to preview size, then from preview size to actual display size. I wish C1 would keep cached versions of images that were optimally rendered for the standard preview sizes instead of (what is likely the case) computing the preview sizes from a single pre-rendered image (that has the size one provides in the preferences). There should at least be an option for users to request that image previews are cached for a "Fit" view with the size that results from just having the tool bar open.  If someone does not want to use the required storage or invest the rendering time for that, fine, but for those who suffer from the blurry previews, there should be a remedy.

The issue is real and Phase One acknowledges it. I've been told that this is an area they'll continue to work on. I hope they can fix that issue soon as it really is pretty much is the only major weakness in an otherwise fantastic software. I also have to say that support has been absolutely fabulous in my experience and I do understand that fixing such issues takes time and I don't expect wonders over night.