[acoufap]

Hi everybody,

in summer last year I moved from Aperture 3 to Capture One Pro 7.

I very much like the flexibility of the user interface, the raw development tools and the image results. The organizational features I rate weaker than Aperture 3’s. Unfortunately there often appeared crashes at startup (~10.000 images). I sometimes had to restart the app up to 3 times and it took a lot of time before I could properly edit my images (raw & referenced).

Now Capture One Pro 8 (COP8) is released. I read that besides some functional extension (for example local white balance, film grain utility, ...) it’s more stable. So I ordered the update. And it really seems to be great. Very fast at startup. Also the import speed seems to be much approved. And I had no crashes within some days of work!

In one PF thread I read that people were not happy with the icc-profile delivered for K-3. Meantime there are two available - Pentax K3 Generic and Generic V2. Maybe the last one now delivers better IQ. Since I don't own a K-3 I can't say anything out of practice about it.

Another nice feature of COP8 is that you can import Aperture 3 libraries. I’ll check if it works.

The update from Capture One 7 (and earlier) - non Pro - seems to cost the same as the update from a Pro version!

Maybe these information help if you want to switchover to another raw converter. I think COP8 is worth a try.

acoufap

[6BQ5]

Hi everybody,

[snip snip]

Another nice feature of COP8 is that you can import Aperture 3 libraries. I’ll check if it works.

[snip snip]

acoufap

Wow! I don't mean to hijack your thread here but your text here caught my attention! Have you tried this? Does the library get imported with all the adjustment settings? Or, does the process create TIFFs with all adjustment applied and it is these TIFFs that get imported?

[Trycko]

I am currently trying out Capture one 8 Trial. I also think it is more stable with a large number of photos...
Im using K3 and the color profiles for K3 are the same that where in the last version of capture one 7. K3 generic v2 profile is a bit better than k3 generic but reds are still over saturated I think.

I imported lightroom 5.5 catalogue to Capture one 7 earlier. It worked fine. No adjustments however came along but my collections and taggings did.
Raw files are only read so its easy to migrate the catalogues between different applications and compare them without raw files being affected. Even working with lightroom and capture one at the same time with the same raw files is possible.

[acoufap]

Have you tried this?

I now tried it with a small library. A panel shows some information and says that this function is in beta status.

Does the library get imported with all the adjustment settings? Or, does the process create TIFFs with all adjustment applied and it is these TIFFs that get importe

You get the information that the library will be imported with the following attributes: projects, folders, albums, crop, rotate & flip, exposure, brightness, definition, saturation, black and white. Your images are not converted to tiff. COP8 takes over the original pef-, dng- and jpg-files/references. Color adjustments are approximations. Smart albums are not transferred. I'm not sure if everything works as it should. But I think Phase One will fix problems if they occur.

[wizofoz]

I'm trialing COP8 and so far I really like what it does for the k-3 files. I agree that they have a different look to say acr development, but thats the point isn't it?

I'm just beginning my evaluation, but so far the colours are rich, the interface improved, and it has only had one lock up/crash, but that may well be an operator error cause I had too many programs running.

I think the biggest downside of CO is the local adjustment tool, it cannot even come close to the selection possibilities of LR, but it is sort of analogous the the adjustment brush in LR. It takes a lot more work to make an accurate selection in CO v PS.

I like the colour functions, the auto settings give a great starting point, and most things are easy to use once a small learning curve is overcome

So far so good, it looks like a keeper.

[I need to settle on a workflow. Currently I have CO, DXO pro 9, LR and PS. I'm not only a gear whore-der, I'm a software addict as well. ]

[theraven871]

I've tried many different pieces of software.
They all do the same thing, just go about it in different ways.
Of course, they each have that one thing that they each excel in doing.

I find that its not as important what software you choose. Just that you know how to use it very well.
Personally, I believe that Lightroom and Photoshop are the industry standard.
Unless there is a substantial cost difference, I would chose those first.

[emalvick]

I've seen people's results using Capture One (not 8 yet), and I have to say that the results I see are usually quite impressive. I tried out 7 and could not get a grip on its file handling, so I gave up. I didn't want yet another RAW developer software insisting it should be a DAM software too. Capture One makes it really difficult to understand what it's library or sessions are doing with your files. If they work out a few things I don't like about it, I'd likely try it again.

As the previous poster put, we can pretty much do anything with any RAW processor. However, getting the same results can mean more work in one software than another. The effort depends on the image more than anything. One program may be good for one image and another for another image. CO does a nice job with the color from our Pentax cameras, better than LR, by default. LR, however, can work out ok if we know how to.

[acoufap]

I think the biggest downside of CO is the local adjustment tool, it cannot even come close to the selection possibilities of LR, but it is sort of analogous the the adjustment brush in LR. It takes a lot more work to make an accurate selection in CO v PS.

Interesting - I love the local adjustment tool. Why? In my opinion it's easy to use and offers things that I missed in Aperture 3. For example named layers with gradation filters and a lot more.

If you like to learn some tricks and how to use COP7/8 have a look at "The image professor's blog". One example dealing with the local adjustments tool: Ramp up your efficiency with Local Adjustments | The Image Quality Professor's Blog

[wizofoz]

Interesting - I love the local adjustment tool. Why? In my opinion it's easy to use and offers things that I missed in Aperture 3. For example named layers with gradation filters and a lot more.

If you like to learn some tricks and how to use COP7/8 have a look at "The image professor's blog". One example dealing with the local adjustments tool: Ramp up your efficiency with Local Adjustments | The Image Quality Professor's Blog

Thanks acoufap, I'm a subscriber to the Image Quality Professors blog, but I had missed that episode, and just learned a trick or two. Kudos to you.

I described the local adjustment tool as analgous to the brush in LR, and I still think this is true, and that there are vastly more ways to make selections in PS, and of course once a selection is made in PS it can be converted to a mask and then adjustment layers can be applied to a masked layer. The posibilities are endless.

I tend to use each of the tools to do a specific job. I'm thinking that as I really like the CO raw converter I would start there, make whatever adjustments I can do quickly and easily and then process and export a tiff to PS if it needs further refinement. In other words, use CO in lieu of ACR.

DXO, On One and LR all have better cataloging/file retreival features than CO ( I still cant get my head around their sessions and catalogues) So i use one of them when browsing files, depending on my mood and purpose.

[acoufap]

I tend to use each of the tools to do a specific job. I'm thinking that as I really like the CO raw converter I would start there, make whatever adjustments I can do quickly and easily and then process and export a tiff to PS if it needs further refinement. In other words, use CO in lieu of ACR.

In very few cases I use PS Elements. For my purposes the local adjustment tool is mostly sufficient. I didn't test it until now, but COP8 now also includes local cloning and repair layer. Maybe this is another new improvement.

DXO, On One and LR all have better cataloging/file retreival features than CO ( I still cant get my head around their sessions and catalogues) So i use one of them when browsing files, depending on my mood and purpose.

I think retrieval isn't that bad. You also have a tagging tool and you can create intelligent albums (collections based on tagging). But when you've reorganized and renamed folders on OS level it's a very hard job to adjust the image references within the catalog. Aperture 3 does a much better job in this respect. Another downside is that the meta data doesn't show the lens you used to take the image (in case of my K5 files - raw and jpg). Only the focal length is shown. On the other hand some lens correction profiles for pentax lenses are offered. The main reason I use COP is the high end quality of the raw converter and the flexibility of the user interface.

---------- Post added 2014-09-26 at 06:38 ----------

I've seen people's results using Capture One (not 8 yet), and I have to say that the results I see are usually quite impressive. I tried out 7 and could not get a grip on its file handling, so I gave up. I didn't want yet another RAW developer software insisting it should be a DAM software too. Capture One makes it really difficult to understand what it's library or sessions are doing with your files. If they work out a few things I don't like about it, I'd likely try it again.

Sessions are more dedicated to events. Creating a session yields to a specific file structure on operating system level. This fixed structure also includes the images. Catalogs can contain images, but they also can reference the images in the OS directory structure you defined (I use this feature). Before version 7 of CO Sessions were the only „organizational unit“. In my opinion it fits perfectly on studio/event situations. I sometimes use Sessions when stacking images. The resulting Helicon Focus images I import into my CO Catalog.

CO’s Catalogs are similar to Apertures Catalog structure - but not the same. They support intelligent albums based on the whole catalog image „universe“. Used with tagging it’s directly comparable with Aperture and also with LR (I think, no experience). I mainly take photos in the area of plants, animals, landscape, macro, … So most of the time I’m working subject driven and not event driven. This is the reason why I mostly use one Catalog. The images get their subject oriented tags, and using these tags I create my subject-oriented image collections (intelligent albums). By the way, CO Version 8 has a separate Keyword tool. In COP7 this was part of the general Metadata tool. Based on the collections I generate the appropriate jpg-albums.

If you want to include a Session into a Catalog, you can import it. Within the catalog it becomes a Project. The original Session stays unchanged. Changing things within the original Session doesn’t reflect in the catalog project. So Catalog and Session are completely independent.

Maybe the lines above help you to understand the difference between CO Catalogs & Sessions?! Starting with CO I had the same problems.

[robgo2]

I was a user of C1-7 until Photo Ninja came along, so I was intrigued by the v8 release and downloaded a trial version. As before, it produces good looking K-5II files with pleasing colors and does so without much user effort. Creating previews for folders with large numbers of images is a very slow process--and I'm using a new MacPro. I have not yet tested the noise reduction feature, which was a weakness of v7 (lots of cross-hatching). As for me, I'm sticking with Photo Ninja, because of its superior IQ. I can live with its limited feature set, as I prefer to do much of my editing after raw conversion in Perfect Photo Suite 8.5, and I use Photo Mechanic for file ingestion and management. The three programs integrate very smoothly, and the output is superb. Will I purchase C1-8? Probably not. I also own DxO 9, which seems to be comparable to it, at least in terms of IQ, so I don't see much need for another application.

Rob