Capture One Pro 8 software review

TERRIBLE PROGRAM - Steer clear... I paid for and downloaded Capture One Pro ver 8 in March of this year 2015. My experience so far has been very poor. The main thing is that it's not simple to set up for each shoot. For single jobs you start a 'session' but it's just not laid out well enough to make you feel confident about what is going on. At one point it took me an age to stop it auto processing 200 images when I'd only selected one image in the side bar to work on. Bottom line is I have patiently waited for an update.

Now Capture One 9 has arrived and they want more money for an upgrade. I said that I felt it should be free under 12 months. They came back and told me this...

"If you buy an iphone 4 a few months before iphone 5 is released it does not mean you get a free iphone 5."

I had to remind them that iPhones are hardware and that the Apple software upgrades are free. So for now I would stick with Adobe until something else appears on the horizon.

When you look at the cost of Capture One Pro 8 compared to Adobe CS with LR It's a no brainier. Adobe will will work as long as you pay and pay and keep paying. The day you don't pay the system will not work for you. With Cap One, you pay once OR pay every month. I paid once and when I need the new enhancements that will come out in the future I'll consider them and I might buy the upgrade. I have a problem with greed.
After learning the software, and it does take a while, I am a devout follower.
Pete Malan

I thought I would try capture 1 but the trial version is not the same as the full version. So I downloaded the full but couldn't get on with it - mainly because of the library features but also it isn't as good or intuitive as Lightroom in my opinion. I stopped using it after 3 days and reverted to LR. But anyone else wanting to try the full version please note..if you do this Phase 1 will ABSOLUTELY NOT give you a refund. Buried in their Ts and Cs they stipulate NO REFUND.1

"A notable absence from the compatibility list is Hasselblad – perhaps too much of an arch rival in the medium format world."

You fail to mention Capture One blocking Pentax 647Z comparability. The software is compatible (you can change the EXIF camera model data to IQ250 and it will work with 647Z files) but they pulled support to undermine their competition in the hardware arena.

Or is this no longer an issue?

Thanks!

I will put it to you in simple words ... Capture-1 is hands down champion and I don't care what you say ...

probably need to upgrade my laptop for that

Capture One has one of the best demosaicing Algorithmus (Close to Amaze) & the best adaptive denoising algorithms & an phantastic analogue (colors) look at default settings.
IT is far ahead of lightroom.
While phase one team concentrated at processing algorithms, Adobe introduced gimmicks like gradient filters and face recognition.
Fuji X demosaicing have also been always better.
C1 is from my point of view the best raw converter on the market.

After playing with Capture One 8 pro for a couple of weeks. I can't really say it is better than LR5. In fact, sometimes I found LR5 actually shows better details. Each software renders a bit differently and to me, and its hard for me to say which is really better.

I have been reading all the back and forth comments on here about Capture One vs Lightroom. I had been using Lightroom since Version 1. I tried Capture One on a trial and didn't but it because I was somewhat confused by the import process. However, I decided to try it again and I am so glad I did. I had always shot Canon and really struggled to get some images right. Recently, I hurt my wrist and had to go to a lighter system, so I chose the Fuji XT1. Well, it is a documented fact that Lightroom is no good on Fuji raw files. Capture One did an excellent job on them. For comparison, I went back and tried to edit some of my Canon files that had been especially troublesome to get right in LR and I was amazed. What one poster said about the LR presets transferring to other images is so true. I spent a lot of money on presets and was never really happy. I also found that in C1 (and yes, that does stand for capture One), I didn't have the need for all those presets. And if I did make up one for one photo in a shoot it would transfer nicely to all others. I reedited a wedding that took me hours in LR and I never was really happy (there was some really strange lighting in the church) and it was faster and I got much better results. I have found the dynamic range sliders in C1 to be far superior to LR and have brought back highlights and shadows in photos that I had not been able to do in LR. One poster said something about having to copy/paste all of the edits to another file instead of being able to select which ones like in LR. However, you can choose which parameters you want to c copy/paste by using the 'copy and paste adjustments' tab and it will let you choose which ones you want to copy or paste. Also, you can use outside editors by taking your photo into PS, using your editor (I use Nik, Topaz, OnOne Perfect Photo Suite) and when you save, it goes back to C1 with the edits. No, I don't work for C1. I'm just a convinced convert. For a lot of people, including myself, sometimes it is easier to stick with what you are familiar with.

Great piece of software

First, let me comment that Damien has put together a balanced and accurate review. He hasn't been perfect in that regard on recent product announcements, but here he has hit the basics well.
As someone who has extensively used LR and C1 pretty much equally over the past 6-8 years, I can comment on the relative ease of use of each. To get a quick image processed relatively well, LR is a bit quicker overall. Possibly, 1 minute vs. 1:20 for C1.

Most of my work is serious, requiring color accuracy throughout the range, clarity, sharpening, micro-contrast, dynamic range adjustment and noise reduction (and possible film grain on occasion). What can be done in 6 minutes in C1, will take at least 10 minutes in LR - and you simply can't get the color precision you need using arbitrary sliders.

Also, Structure can provide better depth, allowing you to avoid overuse of Clarity; the interplay between Structure and Clarity is powerful, and LR doesn't include a similar function.

Capture One is an excellent program, but it does take time to get the best out of it, though the company are good at accepting suggestions for improvements. As it can take some time to work out how to use many of the features, I would recommend their excellent weekly Webinars, which demonstrate how to do things, and this will help people to learn more quickly than they would by trial and error (and frustration). They helped me no end, and now I really love the program.

Details of the Webinar programme can be found on their website at:

https://www.phaseone.com/en/Events/Capture-One-webinars.aspx?

Have tried LR, PS, C1, DXO9, RAWTherapee and AffinityPhoto.

I find LR and DXO UI much more friendly than the others, or maybe I am more used to it.

Have several plugins for LR, so it is an edge it has.

DXO and Affinity have the best NR by a good margin.

C1 has not stood out in any feature and the UI is not the best. It is a bit clumsy and crashes once in a while on my Mac.

RAWtherapee has only one great feature: it is free. Otherwise, it is a PITA.

Wow! Bought CaptureOnePro 8.3.2 64-bit today and have just tested it on some rawfiles from Fujifilm XE-1. All I can say is BIG difference to LR 4.4.1. in; Colors, smoothness and sharpness,effectively more resolution. Nice and easy UI. Happy camper :-)

I think U can't go wrong with this software if looking for ultimate image quality is your highest priority.

Cheers

Interesting article for those who've most likely never heard of Capture1 but only of LightRoom. Not to name RawTherapee

However as someone wrote, to me it misses the point: which is the best software ???
Where is the indepth comparison of these softwares ? Can't someone write something like those Buying guides published for cameras ?

I've never been able to find this kind of serious work done by a competent and independant person...
Anyone about to invest so much time in one or other software has a hard time choosing. Cause with the time you spend on this kind of software, you shouldn't choose according to a small price difference, but on the account of durability.

I chose LR cause it seemed more of a standard and closer to Photoshop in case I would need it.
Now I wonder if I was right. Especially withe Adobe's policy towards cloud licensing and the way they didn't upgrade the regular LR6 with dehazing function...

I recently switched to the Fuji system and I was kind of wondering why my images look much sharper on the screen than using LR6. I recently started the C1P subscription and found I can pull detail out much faster with C1P. It also seems to have a different tolerance for pulling back highlights. I feel LR6 gives you more freedom where you can pull a lot of info back even to the detriment of the image where C1P kinda says enough cowboy.

It is far superior to Light Room or Camera Raw if you are a more advanced user. Far better color accuracy, much better sharpening, supreme dynamic range controls, great noise reduction - the quality is miles ahead of Adobe products, period.

If you are looking for artistic merits in department of your image editing the C1 is hands down champ 😎

I tried it and compared to LR6. I did not find anything about it that was better than LR6 and much that was worse, not that I think LR6 is perfect, far from it, that was why I tried C1

I could never manage to sharpen my photos in C1 without producing additional (unwonted ) artifacts . LR has a really high edge in it .

I like the images C1P produces when someone else has edited them, but I couldn't produce a result I like to save my life with it. So, I will stick with LR which gives me results in a few seconds.

But... you may say, that is because you don't know how to work the program. And you would be entirely correct. I might even be able to get better results in C1P than I get in Adobe products if I knew C1P inside out.

But why would anyone throw years of learning and experience of product A in the bin just to invest money and time to acquire and learn product B when product A does everything you need it to do?

"Tethered shooting is reserved for the more modern of the Sony, Nikon and Canon models, with no mirrorless support even for models that are well capable of performing direct output."

Errm, plenty of Sony mirrorless cameras on that list #fail

Would have liked a direct comparison with Lightroom. I read everywhere that C1 has better "IQ" than Lightroom, I did a very quick comparison but found nothing drammatically different.

I have tried quite a few converters. Then I tried Capture One.

Glad I did. LOVE it.

Colors, tonality, contrast, out of box and with tweaking are wonderful.

Colors especially seem much easier to control than in some other software. And when one batch processes with some other software, often the preset made in one image does not translate well onto other images, with some other RAW converters, colors especially and contrast.

With Capture One, presets made in one image of a shoot translate 'honestly' to other images, even if those need tweaking, but I get what I expect from the preset.

Cant say enough good about it.

If I had to do it over, yes, I would like to think that I would have just bought Capture One from the beginning for its price and saved on others.

But then, I would not have learnt what I did in others and would not appreciate now, just how good it is.

Try it, you may like it. I LOVE it.

Missing from above is the info that for Sony users, you can get the Sony version either free (Express) or for a minor amount (50 Euros for the Pro?).
I personally think the "HDR" sliders are great and allow much better results than with LR, also with less effort. And the out of the box rendering is crisper whereas with LR/PS I always had to wrestle with USM and still wasn't happy.

I've been using C1 since version 2.4!! Pretty much since I bought Canon 1DsMkII in 2004. The software has undergone some nice evolutionary changes and recently a major overhaul of the user inteface which I welcomed and embraced. I have always admired its ability to sqeeze maximum detail out of RAW files while maintaining control over noise and delivering pleasing colors not to talk about great file organization structure. What more do I need? Not much. But that is just me. I do not get it why people get so wound up and defensive of their preferred software. Use what you are familiar and comfortable with and if you think that something is missing give another software a go. C1 should be in that case definitely on your list. Expect quite steep learning curve but once you master the basics it is very intuitive and well thought through software. That is my 2 cents worth.