For me, Capture One is history…

[ErikKaffehr]

See below…

Best regards
Erik

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

See below…

Hi Erik,

LOL. New Year's resolution # 1.

Since it came free with you camera back, and you prefer Lightroom anyway, that was not too hard a decision, was it? Number 2 on the list may be harder?

Cheers,
Bart

[allegretto]

was there a "last straw" or just a preponderance of trouble?

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I actually paid for it. I was not aware that the version supporting Phase One backs was free. I downloaded a demo several times and did want to give it more time.

Regarding resolution # 2  it is harder.

Best regards
Erik

Hi Erik,

LOL. New Year's resolution # 1.

Since it came free with you camera back, and you prefer Lightroom anyway, that was not too hard a decision, was it? Number 2 on the list may be harder?

Cheers,
Bart

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Essentially, I was growing into a decision not to use it. The main reason may be that I don't want a raw converter but a parametric workflow. It is my understanding that Capture One can be used as a parametric workflow tool, but I have an existing workflow I don't want to leave.

Another major factor is everyone telling me I have to use C1 with my P45+ back to make the best of it. I want to use the tool of my choice. That is really just me!

Third factor is DNG support for P45+ backs. I have used DNG since 2006. The way I convert to DNG I embed the original file so I still have all data, but in a DNG container. I have tested that I can extract a bit for bit copy (identical MD5 checksums) of the original IIQ file from my DNG. It seems Capture one makes bad processing of DNG files, even if they include a bitwise copy of the IIQ file.

I want to experiment with other raw converters who may support DNG but not IIQ.

Lack of DCP support. It is said to be possible to generate an ICC profile using Argyll or another tool, but it seems that it is in no way obvious how to generate those profiles.

There are some aspects of C1 that make me less than secure. Say sharpening presets. Lightroom has three, standard, Portrait and Landscape. I have rolled my own. C1's presets are not self-explanatory.
The colour profiles are said to be optimised for film curve. Film curve makes my pictures to look overexposed. I don't want to have a film look, which film by the way?

Lightroom/ACR have a tone mapping built into the highlight/shadows slider that I use extensively with gradients. It uses some tone mapping that is underdocumented but works fine. For instance I can darken sky and enhance clouds without affecting treetops.

The major aspect is that I am happy with Lightroom. I have 75000 images in my library. I obviously don't want to move and reprocess all those images. I am comfortable to have them in DNG, less so with a vendor specific format. So Capture One would never be my primary tool.

I also feel that I cannot like the user interface. It is not natural for me.

I still feel that C1 is a good tool, but not one that I want to have in my workflow.

I still have a valid license, so I can install it again, if I need to. But right now it is history for me and I feel good about it.

Best regards
Erik

was there a "last straw" or just a preponderance of trouble?

[AreBee]

Erik,

Regarding resolution # 2  it is harder.

What's resolution #2, if I may ask? Staying with DMF?

Cheers,

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

No, there are other things in life than photography.

Regarding the DMF part, I actually enjoy shooting Hasselblad. It is about as I expected. Why I like it, I don't know, actually. For short walks I carry the Hasselblad and my five lenses plus a Sony Alpha 99 and two lenses (24-70/2.8 and 70-400/4-5.6G), for longer walks the Hasselblad is left behind, two DSLRs and a couple more lenses.

Regarding C1 I didn't like it but I am pretty sure it is a nice program. In reality it doesn't fit my workflow. Lightroom was "invented for me". I don't want a lot of TIFFs in my catalogue.  Ideally there would just be raw images and panos and HDRs as TIFF. So mixing in another raw converter is not for me.

Another things is that Phase One has some aggressive marketing, which I don't really appreciate.

Getting back to MFD thing, I feel it was not a very wise choice to go MFD, I wouldn't recommend it to neither friend or foe, but I enjoy it. Good investment? No! Fun investment? Maybe! Fun as long as it works? Initially I planned to replace my Hasselblad 555ELD with a Hartblei HCam in the long run, but than I bought a Flexbody, need to find out if I can live with that.

Best regards
Erik

Erik,

What's resolution #2, if I may ask? Staying with DMF?

Cheers,

[Vladimirovich]

Another things is that Phase One has some aggressive marketing

I doubt it is really more agressive than Adobe's one...

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I don't get mails from Eric Chan or Jeff Schewe, nor does anyone tell me that I need to use Lightroom with any of my cameras.

Best regards
Erik

I doubt it is really more agressive than Adobe's one...

[tho_mas]

See below…

Best regards
Erik

extremely valuable post for the community.
Why don't you post it in the coffee corner?

[ErikKaffehr]

Let's put it this way, I was a bit agitated at the time I made the posting.

Best regards
Erik

extremely valuable post for the community.
Why don't you post it in the coffee corner?

[EricWHiss]

For someone that pixel peeps and frets as much over image quality factors as you do, Erik, I'm surprised that its C1 you threw away.  I get consistently better IQ from C1 than LR4 for my phase and Leaf backs and better IQ from Phocus for my Hasselblad backs.   Better IQ with C1 for my older DMR files too.   I'm not convinced LR4 does anything better except sharpening with the detail slider and possibly NR for some cameras.   

[hubell]

C1 does have some very powerful features, and I often prefer the files I get out of it to LR. However, the Highlight and Shadow tools in LR 4 and 5 are exceptional and the ones in C1 are very limited and crude by comparison. Too bad. These are frequently the most important tools in the raw converter toolbox.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Eric,

Seven years of experience also plays a role, LR is a program I know pretty well by now. Another factor is that C1 doesn't integrate in my workflow. I don't want to databases, and I try to avoid TIFFs, I have only RAW files. Yes, I know that C1 one has parametric capabilities and database, but I don't feel I would migrate my 75000 images from Lightroom to C1, so I stay with C1.

Jeff Schewe says that he can achieve the same image quality in LR as in C1, so I feel it may be better to improve my processing in LR than working with another product.

Regarding colour, I can achieve almost twice the accuracy on a ColorChecker with LR and DCP profiles on my P45+ compared to Capture One, using it's standard profiles. C1 one profiles are built for "film curve" but I don't want a film curve, using a linear curve the results are not as good.

One advantage I found with Capture One is that it produces less aliasing than LR 5, it is probably depending on the demosaic algorithm. Could be that LR is more addressed to OLP filtered images but C1 is more intended for non OLP filtered images? But C1 doesn't take away all the artefacts. I will look a bit into RawTherapee for difficult cases.

Another issue is that I am leaning very much towards DNG based workflow and Capture One doesn't support DNG well or not at all. I don't like proprietary formats, partially for ideological reasons. A practical aspect may be that I need DNG images for working with the profile tools and also that IIQ images don't work with RawTherapee. I embed the original raw in my DNGs and I can extract a bitwise copy if needed. I checked the bitwise stuff a couple of days ago.

I have been using C1 for something like 9 months I guess, and was never happy with it. Sometimes I positively hated it. Yes, it can produce good images, but I simply don't like it.

The main issues:

- Film curve
- Bad support for DNG
- Cannot handle DCP profiles, no easy to use tools for generating ICC based profiles
- No good integration in Lightroom (could perhaps be fixed)
- Lightroom 4 and later got tone mapping built into highlights and shadows, I use these facilities a lot. HDR controls in C1 one don't have tone mapping, also there are no 'HDR' options on layers.
- The P45+ I have is a bit challenged in DR compared to my Sony Alpha cameras, at least what I feel. C1 is a bit aggressive on noise reduction, something I observed, but this has not really been an issue for me.
- User interface issues

Best regards
Erik

For someone that pixel peeps and frets as much over image quality factors as you do, Erik, I'm surprised that its C1 you threw away.  I get consistently better IQ from C1 than LR4 for my phase and Leaf backs and better IQ from Phocus for my Hasselblad backs.   Better IQ with C1 for my older DMR files too.   I'm not convinced LR4 does anything better except sharpening with the detail slider and possibly NR for some cameras.  

[Paul2660]

I agree that the default noise reduction with capture 1 can be a bit aggressive. 

I also would love to see highlight and shadow support in layers along with noise reduction.  For a while in the adjustment layer tab there was a noise reduction slider but it was greyed out now with version 7  it's gone.

What I have always wanted in Capture one is the ability to have color adjustments in over lapping layers.  Currently the 2nd layer will not allow it however you can make the more general adjustments like saturation, exposures etc. 

And of course I still want a history of adjustments per image.

Paul Caldwell

[EricWHiss]

Yes C1 could use some more (photoshop like features) such as local edit tools, better masking, and history …  but all considered, I still think C1 is worth the trouble of having two catalogs.  The color editor on C1 is great, profiles also preferred.

I'm not sure I'd agree that the highlight and shadow tools are better in LR than C1 - but it probably depends on what camera's files you are talking about.   The shadow tool in Phocus actually is quite good too, btw.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

The main advantages I see with the Shadows and Highlights tools in Lightroom is that tone mapping is applied with increased application of each slider and they can be applied locally. The tone mapping they use is quite subtle.

I would normally first crop an image, after that I would apply a graduated filter to the sky. Once sky was tamed, I would adjust exposure for highlights and set blacks for just clipping deep shadows and then increase "shadows" to get decent details. After that I adjust Exposure to get good midtones and iterate until happy.

The tone mapping is very important to my workflow and also that it can be applied locally.

I did use Capture 1 for something like nine months I guess, I purchased it well before I got around to buying my P45+ back. But I never felt we made friends, C1 and I.

Something I would add is that I seldom adjust colours, except increasing vibrance and sometimes reducing saturation. In part because I don't have that much ideas about colour. So I want good/realistic/credible colour out of the box and I want to enhance it. I am also an outdoor type photographer.

Best regards
Erik

Yes C1 could use some more (photoshop like features) such as local edit tools, better masking, and history …  but all considered, I still think C1 is worth the trouble of having two catalogs.  The color editor on C1 is great, profiles also preferred.

I'm not sure I'd agree that the highlight and shadow tools are better in LR than C1 - but it probably depends on what camera's files you are talking about.   The shadow tool in Phocus actually is quite good too, btw.

[Phil Indeblanc]

Interesting to hear Erik,

I would like to read up and practice what Jeff's method/approach is to getting equal results to C1, as I do get noticeably better/cleaner results with PhaseOne files on shooting high contrast high detail subjects.

I too much prefer LR's interface to C1, and would be nice to use 1 vs 2 developers.

(We should be able to test such things by sharing a raw file and see who gets better results out of each app..subjectively speaking, but trying to identify areas it makes a difference.)

One good thing about C1 on the usability is that it doesn't force a catalog on the user, its a choice, and likely the reason I still use C1.
But yes, there are more filter editing ease and control options in LR, at least easier for me to use.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I just posted a sample image, here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Capture1_vs_LR5/

The raw image is here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Capture1_vs_LR5/20131231-CF044462.iiq

The images are were processed in LR5 and C1. In LR 5 I used my own DCP profile. Processing in LR5 was more intensive: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Capture1_vs_LR5/20131231-CF044462.xmp

I have not matched brightness, as I was using different tools and have not seen the images simultaneously.

LR5

Cone


Best regards
Erik

Interesting to hear Erik,

I would like to read up and practice what Jeff's method/approach is to getting equal results to C1, as I do get noticeably better/cleaner results with PhaseOne files on shooting high contrast high detail subjects.

I too much prefer LR's interface to C1, and would be nice to use 1 vs 2 developers.

(We should be able to test such things by sharing a raw file and see who gets better results out of each app..subjectively speaking, but trying to identify areas it makes a difference.)

One good thing about C1 on the usability is that it doesn't force a catalog on the user, its a choice, and likely the reason I still use C1.
But yes, there are more filter editing ease and control options in LR, at least easier for me to use.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I found some issues with LR5 where C1 is clearly better. So C1 may be on it's way back into my toolbox.

There have been a couple of issues, I post the most obvious one. And will discuss the other issue(s) later. The sample shows two issues with LR5, first it produces more moiré, secondly the lines in the marked area shift in colour, that is colour aliasing, at least in my book.

I will look more into RawTherapee before reverting to C1 as an alternative raw processor.

The other issue where I found advantages with C1 is lateral chromatic aberration correction, but I need more time to present a sample (it's on a real world image and quite disturbing).

Best regards
Erik