Capture One Pro as an alternative/upgrade to Aperture

JDDavis said:

Virtual Rain...and other C1 users,



I just got back from a trip to Wyoming and decided to download the C1 Pro trial and give it a shot with the new pics. So far I do find it similar to Aperture in many ways but a more powerful editor. I like how it handles RAW (NEF) better than Aperture but not as well as Capture NXD (Nikon). It's close enough to NXD to be trivial though.



Anyway, here's my question to C1 users. Are you loading everything into a single C1 Catalog (much like using the Aperture Library) and then creating folders or are you creating different catalogs for different events? It seems the purpose of Catalog in C1 would be to keep completely unrelated groups of photos separate. Perhaps more necessary for a true "Pro" but for an enthusiast perhaps a single catalog will suffice?



Interested to here what others are doing for their organization strategy.

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It seems like Catalogs are nearly identical to Aperture Libraries. So the great thing is, you can do what you did previously if you prefer, or change your approach to file management.

In Aperture, I used managed photos so all my photos were in the Library Package... It made it easy to move, backup, etc. I just prefer to not have to deal with the file system if at all possible

Unlike many who have huge Libraries, I start a new Aperture Library at the beginning of each year. This kept the Library file size reasonable, enabling me to keep the current year on my SSD drive for optimal performance. Past years Libraries were stored on an external drive that was only connected when needed.

I'm going to stick to the exact same structure with C1... New Catalog every year, stored on my SSD with the photos stored in the catalog. It's clean, fast, easy for me.

JDDavis said:

Makes sense. I'll have to think it all through. My Aperture library is around 100gb on the internal HD and I haven't noticed any effect on performance due to size. The only slow down I've seen in Ap is going to the larger D750 files. I like you're idea of yearly libraries but I tend to organize by topic or subject and group images that cross multiple years. Like, Library/Wildlife/Birds/Eagles...or such. I do plan to upgrade to an SSD (and replace my optical drive on MBP with an additional HD). That may change my organization plans.

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In your case, with organization by subject, one Library is ideal. And your libraries aren't that big. Mine are 300GB per year and mostly trips, so organizing by year is ideal for me.

JDDavis said:

I'm still trying to get a feel for C1. My initial impressions are good and it is a more featured editor and it does certain things better than Ap (like RAW conversion and shadows). I may hold out to preview LR6 if I can.

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I'll definitely have a look at Lightroom 6 as well since it's just around the corner.

JDDavis said:

Two things I can't figure out is sometimes when I switch images the preview won't fully render (pixelated). If I toggle the little safe borders button up top it all comes back normal. This happens a lot and is annoying when culling through keepers. The other thing is I haven't discovered an easy way to compare the edited version to the original. In Aperture you could toggle the original button and go back and forth. In C1 you can toggle individual edits on/off by holding option and hitting the back button on that edit tab. So far the only way I see is to create a duplicate version of the original and keep it beside the edited version.

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I've had a couple of preview issues on my 4K displays as well. It seems to work most reliably if your preview image size is larger than the viewer area. The largest preview size you can set is 2880px. On a 4K display, depending on how you size the browser, etc. you can end up with a viewer larger than that... which it really doesn't know what to do with. If you're on a retina scaled screen (pixel doubled), I'm not sure how this might behave. At any rate, something to try... make sure your preview images are larger than the viewer dimensions (in px).

And you're right about the compare edits... The only way to compare before/after is using a new variant. It seems like there's a lot of people complaining about this so I would be very surprised if this feature is not added in an upcoming release.

Here's another example of how capable C1 HDR controls are, in this case we're going to make shady areas almost look sunlit... get out your shades

The original RAW of this church has the bottom half in deep shade.


5DM32662 2 by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

Here's the outcome from just a few minutes in C1... No local adjustments at all... just the normal sliders (saturation, highlights, and shadows) along with the color editor on the sky to get it a bit darker blue (it was a bit towards cyan otherwise).


5DM32662 by Chris-VirtualRain, on Flickr

Now you probably wouldn't get this carried away, particularly with saturation, but it's a good testiment to the capabilities of C1 at lifting shadows without noise (which can be a big challenge with the 5DIII).

The other thing to note is the incredible detail you get with the Clarity and Structure sliders in C1 here... It's awesome for bringing out the details in these old buildings. Much more satisfying than the Structure control in NIK... Night and day better in C1.

Now of course, you might be better than me with NIK, but I'm finding the results with C1 to be far better than what I was getting with Aperture/NIK.

I spent some time today exploring the shadow adjustments and clarity in both Capture One and Aperture NIK today.

Using the same image as above, I started with new variants from the original, hit the magic wand in Aperture or "auto" adjustment in C1 and then maxed the shadow slider in both programs.

Here's the original RAW for reference:


5DM32662 2 by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

Here's the result in Aperture...


Aperture by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

Note how the highlights seem brighter? HUH? Looking at what the magic wand had done, I noticed it had boosted the highlights using the curves adjustment, so I went back (reverted to the original), and without using the Magic Wand, I just maxed the shadow slider... no other adjustments at all... WTF?! (What is Apple thinking here?!)


Aperture2 by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

Bizarre! It turns out that adjusting the shadows slider, not only pulls the shadows, but it pushes the highlight! Wow. Nonsense. It means you've got to recover those, but if you try that contrast really suffers, and it's a lost cause.

Here's the result in C1...


C1 by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

This seems much more natural looking to me.

Note... I tried to lift the shadows in NIK Viveza instead of Aperture, and while that's better in that it at least doesn't affect the highlights, the result of the lifted shadows didn't look any better than Aperture... noise was horrible and the whole shadow region just looks a bit cooked. Since the shadows weren't any better than I could do in Aperture, I didn't even bother exporting it. In my experience, NIK Viveza is good for local structure, contrast and color control, but don't try to lift shadows with it.

Next I tried dealing in some clarity/structure/definition (essentially micro-contrast) to see how that worked.

The following are 100% crops of the front of the church.

Here's C1 with Clarity 40 and Structure 40... very nice detail...

C1100 by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

Here's using NIK to add Structure (40)...


Nik100 by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

And here's Aperture with the Definition maxed out...


AP100 by Virtual.Rain, on Flickr

Capture One is a winner here also. The details just pop out of the image without any noise or artifacts. Amazing really.

However, I probably should do this test with a normally exposed photo as the highlight nonsense from Aperture is clearly killing contrast in the sunlit areas.

I'm sorry to say this, but I think anyone still clinging to Aperture is missing out. Maybe C1 is not the best choice for you, but at least look at Lightroom then. Aperture is worse than I ever considered.

simonsi said:

Thats bizarre - most noticeable on the grey roof of the turret on top of the bell-tower, Aperture is losing the detail in blown hi-light

Never mind, I'm convinced, trigger pulled, Capture One subscribed, Library converted and Aperture Library only exists on my backup drives now....

Have to say I'm quite enjoying revisiting old images to see what new life C1 can bring to them

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Yeah me too... it's breathing new life into old images and it's fun doing post again.

Amy Pond and me said:

They are very useful, but not the same as having a full list of your edits. Variants can also be useful for dealing with unsure steps in your editing but I find Edit History a very strange omission since it should be very easy to implement and seems to have been requested by many users since long.

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Hmm. The only app I know that has this is Photoshop... (so I'm guessing LR has it too)

C1 (or RAW converters in general) are not like Photoshop where you can make changes to an image without a record of it. That's why Photoshop has a history. In an App like C1 (or Aperture) the adjustment bricks are a living record of every change you've made. It's probably better than a history record from that perspective. A simple glance at your adjustment bricks IS your history. And if you're like most, you'll probably order your tabs and bricks in the order you normally make adjustments so they are effectively your history.

I suspect LR has a history for folks familiar with Photoshop, but I'd suggest it's not really necessary for the reasons I just stated.

In C1 the adjustments clipboard is a great summary of how you've adjusted an image, taking this one step further than many RAW converters.

robgendreau said:

Nik stuff also has history IIRC. Even with a PIE like LR it's useful. You might have changed something, backed off, then continued adjusting. Then you wonder, hmm, did I already try changing the exposure? By looking at the history you can see you did.

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My point was that by looking at the adjustment brick, you can see that you did. You can not only see you adjusted the exposure, but that you increased it 1 stop, and you can now decrease it without undoing everything since then. Or you can undo anything and everything you feel may have taken your image in an undesirable direction. In this way, the living history in the adjustments, is more flexible than a simple history list.