For you photographers out there...

AsSiMiLaTeD

If you've joined us in the 21st century and are shooting digital you owe it to yourself to check out Capture One Pro for your image processing, especially if you're shooting raw.

I've shot RAW off and on over the years, but recently I've switched to shooting exclusively in raw format. I've used Lightroom for a while now and am on their CC Photography subscription service, which gets you full Lightroom and Photoshop access for $10 a month, not a bad deal at all especially if you use Photoshop. Lightroom is a great program, it's very feature rich and really quite simple to use compared to the other options out there. For most people it can completely replace Photoshop such that they never have to endure the learning curve of that program, although they share the same raw imaging processor Photoshop is a MUCH more in depth program.

Lightroom usually spits out good looking pictures, but as my photography skills have improved I've noticed the occasional photo that it spits out that I'm less than thrilled with until I tweak a million different things to get it right. This isn't on every photo as most of the day to day photos I take aren't sharp enough for this to really matter, but on those photos where I've made an effort to get the perfect shot with perfect focus I typically find that Lightroom doesn't give me the image I want without heavy manipulation on my part.

So I started looking at how to better use Lightroom and stumbled across Capture One Pro, and holy crap does it product excellent images! There are plenty of reviews online and I'm seeing the same results that other people report, the images right out of Capture One Pro are just sharper and better looking overall. I've seen the argument that Lightroom produces a less detailed image because people generally find the softer photos more pleasing on casual glances, but that's easy enough to do with a filter if you want that look. I want the raw image processor to give me the sharpest most detailed image possible, I'll dumb it down later if I want.

The only issue with C1 Pro is that the program itself is a mindf%#k to use at first with a much more steep learning curve than Lightroom, I almost gave up on it after a couple hours just because it's so intimidating when you first open it. However, if you stick with it long enough to learn it you'll be glad you did. The shots straight out of C1 Pro with only the very basic adjustments like lens correction and white balance are stunning, every single one of them looks better than Lightroom with a few of them looking significantly better. C1 Pro has all the adjustment settings you'd expect, mostly mirroring what you get in Lightroom, but with the better images straight out of the box I find myself turning to them less.

I do still find the adjustment tools in Lightroom a bit more intuitive whereas I'm still having to think about how to do things. I attribute much of that to me just being more familiar with Lightroom, but also give Adobe credit for being around so long and having so many iterations of photo software that they've seemed to perfectly nail down the options and how they get used. A key advantage that C1 Pro has though is that you can customize your interface, so I can drop the half dozen or so adjustments I typically make into one panel and keep my interface really clean and simple.

This experience got me into checking out other raw image processors as well. I haven't played with them as much, but have tested out Silkypics and Dx0mark as well. Those both offer up excellent results as well but neither offers anything unique to pull me away from C1 Pro.

My initial plan was to just to the raw conversion and basic adjustments in Capture One Pro and export as a tif to Lightroom to do the more advanced stuff. But as I've played more with C1 Pro I've learned how to do all that stuff there and have removed Lightroom from my workflow completely. On the very rare occasion I need more advanced touch up I always use Photoshop anyway, and C1 Pro has the ability to import as a PSD directly into Photoshop so I'm good there.

Capture One Pro isn't cheap at $300, but for those of us serious photography guys that comes as no surprise. If you happen to be shooting Sony you're in luck though as they have a version of the program strictly for Sony cameras that's only $50, you get all the features of the normal program it's just all limited to Sony cameras. There's also an express version for Sony cameras that's free, it looses a couple features from the Pro version and I haven't tested it but uses the same raw processor.

I don't work for Phase One or anything (I wish I did as I'd love to have one of their medium format cameras), just thought I'd pass along my impressions.

vcwatkins

Some very cool features. Thanks @AsSiMiLaTeD !

vmaxer

Hey, post a few photos from it.

coolsax

thanks for the suggestion.. i may have to take a look..