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C1 vs DXO rendering

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sdprange

sdprange

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I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows. That said I find that DXO even without any options selected (as in 'as shot' WB, default rendering, no lighting or exposure enhancements) produces overly saturated images. It almost appears that there could be an issue with color management like when an srgb image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor with a program that assumes an srgb display. My 4K display is calibrated (slightly over 100% AdobeRGB) and Capture One works well with this setup. My DXO output images (either jpeg or tif, srgb ICC) have colors that appear to have almost 25% more saturation even with every option off (for a presumably vanilla image). I also prefer the contrast that Capture One generates (again with all default options for raw demosaicing. Am I overlooking something or is Capture One simply better for producing more neutral images?

Sean
 
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows. That said I find that DXO even without any options selected (as in 'as shot' WB, default rendering, no lighting or exposure enhancements) produces overly saturated images. It almost appears that there could be an issue with color management like when an srgb image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor with a program that assumes an srgb display. My 4K display is calibrated (slightly over 100% AdobeRGB) and Capture One works well with this setup. My DXO output images (either jpeg or tif, srgb ICC) have colors that appear to have almost 25% more saturation even with every option off (for a presumably vanilla image). I also prefer the contrast that Capture One generates (again with all default options for raw demosaicing. Am I overlooking something or is Capture One simply better for producing more neutral images?
Click to expand...
Any raw converter's default settings will have to be tweaked (and, hopefully, stored, so you only have to do the basic tweaking once) to your particular taste. I consider C1's defaults too chromatic, but not everyone does.

Jim
 
I find also DxO to be overly saturated, but compared to Lightroom.
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows. That said I find that DXO even without any options selected (as in 'as shot' WB, default rendering, no lighting or exposure enhancements) produces overly saturated images. It almost appears that there could be an issue with color management like when an srgb image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor with a program that assumes an srgb display. My 4K display is calibrated (slightly over 100% AdobeRGB) and Capture One works well with this setup. My DXO output images (either jpeg or tif, srgb ICC) have colors that appear to have almost 25% more saturation even with every option off (for a presumably vanilla image). I also prefer the contrast that Capture One generates (again with all default options for raw demosaicing. Am I overlooking something or is Capture One simply better for producing more neutral images?

Sean
Click to expand...
 
JimKasson said:
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows. That said I find that DXO even without any options selected (as in 'as shot' WB, default rendering, no lighting or exposure enhancements) produces overly saturated images. It almost appears that there could be an issue with color management like when an srgb image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor with a program that assumes an srgb display. My 4K display is calibrated (slightly over 100% AdobeRGB) and Capture One works well with this setup. My DXO output images (either jpeg or tif, srgb ICC) have colors that appear to have almost 25% more saturation even with every option off (for a presumably vanilla image). I also prefer the contrast that Capture One generates (again with all default options for raw demosaicing. Am I overlooking something or is Capture One simply better for producing more neutral images?
Click to expand...
Any raw converter's default settings will have to be tweaked (and, hopefully, stored, so you only have to do the basic tweaking once) to your particular taste. I consider C1's defaults too chromatic, but not everyone does.

Jim

--
http://blog.kasson.com
Click to expand...
Do you (or anyone else) have any preferred settings for C1 or DXO? I am used to tweaking false color images from my monochrome astronomy cameras (H-alpha SII OIII) but this real life stuff is a lot more challenging! My displays and prints all are at least 100% AdobeRGB (well prints have a similar volume but some colors are OOG for AdobeRGB but not my camera).
 
sdprange said:
JimKasson said:
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows. That said I find that DXO even without any options selected (as in 'as shot' WB, default rendering, no lighting or exposure enhancements) produces overly saturated images. It almost appears that there could be an issue with color management like when an srgb image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor with a program that assumes an srgb display. My 4K display is calibrated (slightly over 100% AdobeRGB) and Capture One works well with this setup. My DXO output images (either jpeg or tif, srgb ICC) have colors that appear to have almost 25% more saturation even with every option off (for a presumably vanilla image). I also prefer the contrast that Capture One generates (again with all default options for raw demosaicing. Am I overlooking something or is Capture One simply better for producing more neutral images?
Click to expand...
Any raw converter's default settings will have to be tweaked (and, hopefully, stored, so you only have to do the basic tweaking once) to your particular taste. I consider C1's defaults too chromatic, but not everyone does.
Click to expand...
Do you (or anyone else) have any preferred settings for C1 or DXO? I am used to tweaking false color images from my monochrome astronomy cameras (H-alpha SII OIII) but this real life stuff is a lot more challenging! My displays and prints all are at least 100% AdobeRGB (well prints have a similar volume but some colors are OOG for AdobeRGB but not my camera).
Click to expand...
If you use someone else's settings, you will be a victim (or a beneficiary) of their taste, and their choice of subject and lighting. Why not take the time to do your own? Or create an ICC profile using Xrite or other targets and tools?

Have you seen this?

http://www.dxo.com/us/color-rendition-profiles

BTW, there is no color that is out of gamut for your camera, but there are colors that are out of gamma for the images when converted to a CIE-traceable color space.

Jim

--
http://blog.kasson.com
 
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Hm, I've not had much color issues with DXO 10 vs C1 for Sony. That last thing about neutrality is funny though because I've always found C1's default 180 sharpening and 50 luma denoise unusable at 100%, things look like plastic. Haven't used it a whole lot but have seen that you can choose to apply any preset upon import. That would make me try it again but alas the denoise is like every other luma denoise that isn't especially good or profiled, it merely smears. So for neutrality I much prefer DXO. C1 so far has been much better at avoiding gradients in the sky and generally produces less aliasing, though.
 
I rarely have to worry about high ISO so noise reduction hasn't been an issue. Neither has sharpening as my favourite lenses seem to produce some fantastic images with nice contrast and sharpness. Regarding gamut I was referring to the fact that my printer and display both have wide gamuts but they do not overlap completely (I believe the printer/paper combo can show more saturated greens) but color management works well otherwise.

I am having some luck with color saturation in DXO around -22. Maybe this will work...
 
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows.
Click to expand...
I use C1 expess for Sony and I have all raw files on an external USB3 drive and catalog folder with previews on laptop ssd. There is also the possibility to choose different catalog database when starting C1. With full C1 versions you can swap catalogs without restarting C1. Images are not moved into catalog if you select option to leave them in place upon import, this option is valid for all C1 versions i tried since C1 8.0

Phase one have great introductory videos on YouTube

I don't understand what you mean by "being forced to catalog raw images" in C1 as my experience is that nothing gets moved on my drives.
sdprange said:
That said I find that DXO even without any options selected (as in 'as shot' WB, default rendering, no lighting or exposure enhancements) produces overly saturated images. It almost appears that there could be an issue with color management like when an srgb image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor with a program that assumes an srgb display. My 4K display is calibrated (slightly over 100% AdobeRGB) and Capture One works well with this setup. My DXO output images (either jpeg or tif, srgb ICC) have colors that appear to have almost 25% more saturation even with every option off (for a presumably vanilla image). I also prefer the contrast that Capture One generates (again with all default options for raw demosaicing. Am I overlooking something or is Capture One simply better for producing more neutral images?

Sean
Click to expand...
 
slstr said:
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows.
Click to expand...
I use C1 expess for Sony and I have all raw files on an external USB3 drive and catalog folder with previews on laptop ssd. There is also the possibility to choose different catalog database when starting C1. With full C1 versions you can swap catalogs without restarting C1. Images are not moved into catalog if you select option to leave them in place upon import, this option is valid for all C1 versions i tried since C1 8.0

Phase one have great introductory videos on YouTube

I don't understand what you mean by "being forced to catalog raw images" in C1 as my experience is that nothing gets moved on my drives.
Click to expand...
Unless I am missing something, I have to 'import' images to the C1 catalog. I am not a professional photographer so my photos are just random pictures of my family so I don't need sessions etc. With DXO I have an unprocessed folder where I toss all new images (after being renamed in the format of yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss.ARW). I launch DXO and process the images and changes are stored in DOP files. I can then just simply move all the ARW and DOP files to my main raw folder for future use. I can even use this folder on another computer without worrying about where the database file(s) are etc so its very portable. I don't like the cataloging feature of C1 but I understand some (most?) prefer this either in C1 or LR etc.
 
sdprange said:
slstr said:
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows.
Click to expand...
I use C1 expess for Sony and I have all raw files on an external USB3 drive and catalog folder with previews on laptop ssd. There is also the possibility to choose different catalog database when starting C1. With full C1 versions you can swap catalogs without restarting C1. Images are not moved into catalog if you select option to leave them in place upon import, this option is valid for all C1 versions i tried since C1 8.0

Phase one have great introductory videos on YouTube

I don't understand what you mean by "being forced to catalog raw images" in C1 as my experience is that nothing gets moved on my drives.
Click to expand...
Unless I am missing something, I have to 'import' images to the C1 catalog. I am not a professional photographer so my photos are just random pictures of my family so I don't need sessions etc. With DXO I have an unprocessed folder where I toss all new images (after being renamed in the format of yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss.ARW). I launch DXO and process the images and changes are stored in DOP files. I can then just simply move all the ARW and DOP files to my main raw folder for future use. I can even use this folder on another computer without worrying about where the database file(s) are etc so its very portable. I don't like the cataloging feature of C1 but I understand some (most?) prefer this either in C1 or LR etc.
Click to expand...
DOP files seem very convenient and portable

I name my sub folders containing RAW files by camera model and date then reference those folders in c1 database

Like Christian said, check sessions, they are portable.
Also you can import sessions database into catalog database later if you want
 
slstr said:
sdprange said:
slstr said:
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows.
Click to expand...
I use C1 expess for Sony and I have all raw files on an external USB3 drive and catalog folder with previews on laptop ssd. There is also the possibility to choose different catalog database when starting C1. With full C1 versions you can swap catalogs without restarting C1. Images are not moved into catalog if you select option to leave them in place upon import, this option is valid for all C1 versions i tried since C1 8.0

Phase one have great introductory videos on YouTube

I don't understand what you mean by "being forced to catalog raw images" in C1 as my experience is that nothing gets moved on my drives.
Click to expand...
Unless I am missing something, I have to 'import' images to the C1 catalog. I am not a professional photographer so my photos are just random pictures of my family so I don't need sessions etc. With DXO I have an unprocessed folder where I toss all new images (after being renamed in the format of yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss.ARW). I launch DXO and process the images and changes are stored in DOP files. I can then just simply move all the ARW and DOP files to my main raw folder for future use. I can even use this folder on another computer without worrying about where the database file(s) are etc so its very portable. I don't like the cataloging feature of C1 but I understand some (most?) prefer this either in C1 or LR etc.
Click to expand...
DOP files seem very convenient and portable

I name my sub folders containing RAW files by camera model and date then reference those folders in c1 database

Like Christian said, check sessions, they are portable.
Also you can import sessions database into catalog database later if you want
Click to expand...
Sony colours are always very saturated, thats why Nikon use conservative and same for Canon is much more conservative. Sony likes intense colours. So you need to fine tune to your taste.
 
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows.
Click to expand...
Capture One does NOT force you to use a catalog structure.
 
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BBQue said:
sdprange said:
I switched from Capture One Pro (Sony) to DXO Elite because I did not like being forced to catalog raw images/etc. I prefer having a portable directory for the raw files that DXO allows.
Click to expand...
Capture One does NOT force you to use a catalog structure.
Click to expand...
Perhaps you can explain how I can easily do this in C1: Work on raw files in a directory without importing them (IE copying them to a different location), and when done move the files to an achieve directory. When I use a session it seems to not like it when I move files from that directory--it appears to be geared at keeping the raw files in the directory that was originally used.
 
It is extremely dangerous to not import/copy your files off the flash card, think of this as your first backup. If you dont copy them and your card gets corrupted you are up the creek sans paddle. Post import dont format your card until your photos have been fully backed up ie 3 copies, 2 different mediums and 1 offsite. So in my case the cards dont get formatted till the files are on my workstation, NAS and cloud.

It sounds like you want to work on files directly and then move them to another drive once you have finished with them. The best workflow for this is to start in session mode, make all the adjustments (like working in the field on a laptop). When finished moved them to the long term storage, I personally would have a catalog for this, after the files have been moved go to C1 and sync the folder from within the catalog and all your photos will now be in your catalog.

This is the workflow I use between my laptop in the field and my workstation in the studio.
 
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Hosko said:
It is extremely dangerous to not import/copy your files off the flash card, think of this as your first backup. If you dont copy them and your card gets corrupted you are up the creek sans paddle. Post import dont format your card until your photos have been fully backed up ie 3 copies, 2 different mediums and 1 offsite. So in my case the cards dont get formatted till the files are on my workstation, NAS and cloud.

It sounds like you want to work on files directly and then move them to another drive once you have finished with them. The best workflow for this is to start in session mode, make all the adjustments (like working in the field on a laptop). When finished moved them to the long term storage, I personally would have a catalog for this, after the files have been moved go to C1 and sync the folder from within the catalog and all your photos will now be in your catalog.

This is the workflow I use between my laptop in the field and my workstation in the studio.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. My workflow is first renaming the raw files with advanced renamer to the format of yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss.ARW. I then copy them to a temporary directory. Sometimes I don't get to processing them for a while so this directory builds up. I then process them (usually just WB and cropping) and move all the processed raw files to a different location. This was pretty easy using DXO but I've since gone back to C1 because I found C1 to have more realistic colors.
 
Is your screen freshly calibrated? If not, it's dificult to say anything conclusive about colors.
 
naththo said:
olstrup said:
Is your screen freshly calibrated? If not, it's dificult to say anything conclusive about colors.

--
"Sharpness is a bourgois concept." (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
Click to expand...
Got nothing to do with monitor...
Click to expand...
Well, if the color calibration of the monitor is off, it's difficult to judge the colors coming out of the RAW converter/PP program fairly. The monitor has to be calibrated correctly to get a potential confounding factor out of the way. One can't be sure a color problem is caused by the RAW converter before other possible causes are excluded - and the monitor is the usual suspect. BTW, the same goes for the printer if one is printing.
naththo said:
All software will have different colour profile attach to all RAW camera files. Not all software are equal. Some profile are imo so far very poor in accuracy cos of limit wth colour checker with only 20 patches or so.
I find DxO render red very poorly and looks bit cold colour cast compare to Photoshop with warmer colour cast but green too strong saturation in photoshop.
Capture one is okay but not perfect really.
So I sum it all up, not all are accurate in most of RAW editing software for colours.
Click to expand...
No RAW converters are perfect (whatever that is, according to personal taste). And default settings of different RAW converters are different. One is supposed to set up ones own preferencies (by setting ones own defaults and presets for different situations), not just rely on the out of the box default. The problems you mention with the various converters can be tweaked to a high degree though a perfect match may not be possible.

--
"Sharpness is a bourgois concept." (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
 
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sdprange said:
Hosko said:
It is extremely dangerous to not import/copy your files off the flash card, think of this as your first backup. If you dont copy them and your card gets corrupted you are up the creek sans paddle. Post import dont format your card until your photos have been fully backed up ie 3 copies, 2 different mediums and 1 offsite. So in my case the cards dont get formatted till the files are on my workstation, NAS and cloud.

It sounds like you want to work on files directly and then move them to another drive once you have finished with them. The best workflow for this is to start in session mode, make all the adjustments (like working in the field on a laptop). When finished moved them to the long term storage, I personally would have a catalog for this, after the files have been moved go to C1 and sync the folder from within the catalog and all your photos will now be in your catalog.

This is the workflow I use between my laptop in the field and my workstation in the studio.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. My workflow is first renaming the raw files with advanced renamer to the format of yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss.ARW. I then copy them to a temporary directory. Sometimes I don't get to processing them for a while so this directory builds up. I then process them (usually just WB and cropping) and move all the processed raw files to a different location. This was pretty easy using DXO but I've since gone back to C1 because I found C1 to have more realistic colors.
Click to expand...
Maybe you should have read the manual first... :) C1 can all you need.

In a catalogue you can import to:
  • same place (the files will not be copied, they just get referenced in your catalogue)
  • catalogue (the files will be stored inside the catalogue file)
  • folder (copy them anywhere you want)
you can rename while you import with any exif information in it. also for foldernames. My import goes always to E:\pics and out of the picture-date it creates folders and rename the file to \yyyy\yyyy-mm-dd\yyyymmdd-xxxx.arw. xxxx is a counter wich resets each import.

If you don't want to use the import dialog you can add any folder inside of capture one. if there are some new files in an present folder you can add them with "synchronize".

while or after you processed you can save any kind of files (jpg, tif,...) with recipes to defined places (e.g. #picture-folder#\jpg\#starrating#\...).

Inside of capture one every file-selection can easily be moved with drag and drop to another folder (e.g. all files from a longer event into the folder of the last day of this event). Every folder can be moved with drag and drop (e.g. archiving pictures in a network) and you can also rename files or folders (e.g. add the eventname to the folder like ...\yyyy-mm-dd eventname). All those drag&drops are a part of my workflow (I work on a local SSD but move them to the server after processing). Just don't do that in the explorer(windows)/finder(mac). but if you did, you can locate the lost folder inside of capture one and it will reconnect all.

I have a catalogue for each year. They are not too big to work with. but also not too small to find something. Because I can move the files/folders all my processed and unprocessed files of one year are all together.

--
flickr
 
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