Capture One "Magic Brush"

The latest C1 Pro includes a "magic brush" for edge masking. As usual, I can't find anything about it online except marketing promo, and bloggers repeating that promo. Lots of "awesome" and "amazing" - but no serious reviews.

Has anyone here ponied up for the upgrade and tried that Magic Brush on a challenging subject?

From what little I've read about it, I fully expect to be underwhelmed. I will be happy to be wrong.

Lot's of stuff online

Capture One 21 Livestream: Quick Live | Capture One - New update

Capture One Pro Tips - Version 21.3 Upgrade Guide - In-Depth: Magic Brush, New Exporter +more | 14.3

Capture One 21 Tool Introduction | Magic Brush

I think it's a great tool. Helps me to mask the sky in a few seconds. My Fuji has the tendency to introduce cyan in overexposed skys. Easy fix with a few brush strokes.

It's just based on color, right? Not edge detection?

jimhughes said:

The latest C1 Pro includes a "magic brush" for edge masking. As usual, I can't find anything about it online except marketing promo, and bloggers repeating that promo. Lots of "awesome" and "amazing" - but no serious reviews.

Has anyone here ponied up for the upgrade and tried that Magic Brush on a challenging subject?

Click to expand...

It's putting much of the selection power from the Advanced Colour Editor in a easier to use (often people overlooked the "create mask from colour selection checkbox") UI. Each brush stroke can have its own selectivity settings and the final mask can be feathered, refined, erased, etc.

Personally I find it a very useful addition and it avoids having to go into the Advanced Colour Editor which speeds up editing and the magic brush provides a useful addition to C1's layer based masking capabilities. Certainly welcome as a free "point" update.

Ian

jimhughes said:

It's just based on color, right? Not edge detection?

Click to expand...

Well, yes and no. It's based on color, and depending on the option you select, it either samples the entire image or stops at what it identifies as borders. The example they gave at a webinar was a building with windows. With "entire image" unchecked, the brush effect stops at the window frame you brushed in. When sampling the entire image, the mask is applied to all windows. I find that like AutoMask, edge detection doesn't work as well as I'd like.

I find Magic Brush very useful when retouching images when, for example, I'm working with a subject that has a lot of edge detail and I want to separate it from a background that's generally a different color from the subject. Example: separating a great egret from the forest (simple example that hopefully everyone can imagine).

For me, the Magic Brush is so good that I'm willing to suffer with the new Exporter workflow, which has been pretty widely dissed.

A nice addition but not worth the upgrade price for me.

I'm looking for better edge detection; I'll start a new thread.

jimhughes said:

It's just based on color, right? Not edge detection?

Click to expand...

No it's based on the colour AND the luminosity of the pixels you select with the brush. and you can refine the precision of the selection like other masks.

So the colour editor allows you to make masks based on colour, the luma masks allow you to defiine the masks based on luminosity and the magic brush combines the two tools.

jimhughes said:

A nice addition but not worth the upgrade price for me.

I'm looking for better edge detection; I'll start a new thread.

Click to expand...

Which version are you on?

Ian

jimhughes said:

The latest C1 Pro includes a "magic brush" for edge masking. As usual, I can't find anything about it online except marketing promo, and bloggers repeating that promo. Lots of "awesome" and "amazing" - but no serious reviews.

Has anyone here ponied up for the upgrade and tried that Magic Brush on a challenging subject?

Click to expand...

One aspect of the Magic Brush which doesn't get mentioned much is that it works on Black and White conversions as it samples the raw image. So you can simply brush over an area of blue sky and it gets selected, red post box the same etc.

Ian

IanYorke said:

It's putting much of the selection power from the Advanced Colour Editor in a easier to use (often people overlooked the "create mask from colour selection checkbox") UI. Each brush stroke can have its own selectivity settings and the final mask can be feathered, refined, erased, etc.

Click to expand...

You are missing that it is sampling luminosity AND colour. And that you can set it up to sample to edges, or globally.

I've just been sampling some green leaves which had fallen onto green fern fronds.

I couldn't separate the leaves from the ferns with the colour editor (or luma mask), but the magic brush did an amazing job at separating the green leaf edges from the green ferns in the background.

The luminosity and color of the leaves and fronds were very similar (hence me needing the mask for some selective editing) and the magic brush did a much better job than expected.

I know that several of the C1 tutorials give examples of when it just doesn't work and other masking tools are shown to be better, but I've been pretty impressed so far.

myotisone said:

IanYorke said:

It's putting much of the selection power from the Advanced Colour Editor in a easier to use (often people overlooked the "create mask from colour selection checkbox") UI. Each brush stroke can have its own selectivity settings and the final mask can be feathered, refined, erased, etc.

Click to expand...

You are missing that it is sampling luminosity AND colour. And that you can set it up to sample to edges, or globally.

I've just been sampling some green leaves which had fallen onto green fern fronds.

I couldn't separate the leaves from the ferns with the colour editor (or luma mask), but the magic brush did an amazing job at separating the green leaf edges from the green ferns in the background.

The luminosity and color of the leaves and fronds were very similar (hence me needing the mask for some selective editing) and the magic brush did a much better job than expected.

I know that several of the C1 tutorials give examples of when it just doesn't work and other masking tools are shown to be better, but I've been pretty impressed so far.

Click to expand...

Yes agreed. Magic Brush is not perfect but it is certainly a very useful addition to C1's masking tools and enhances the fluid editing experience I personally find with C1 compared to other software. C1 isn't the cheapest raw editing option but for me it's the best.

Ian

IanYorke said:

C1 isn't the cheapest raw editing option but for me it's the best.

Ian

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this is how I feel as well. But somehow, where as I could live with an annual upgrade of £100 to £150, the new £200 upgrade price seems an awful lot of money to me.

I'm not saying it isn't worth it, because I think it is, but it still means me spending more money than I feel I should.

I am finding the Magic Brush to be a fairly useful tool. Like all things digital, it takes time to become familiar with how it works.