Capture One is a program that little by little has been conquering photographers. A long time ago, there were very few of us who worked with him. But in recent years its popularity has been increasing. The new version, Capture One 22, adds two options highly demanded by professionals: HDR and panoramic. And you hear many things, good and bad. So we have started to test them in Engadget Foto.
We are facing the update of a program that has been based above all on the possibility of making panoramas and HDR without having to leave it. It seems that it was something in high demand by photographers.
The challenge is important. There are programs specialized in these tasks and then Adobe does a perfect job for the simplest cases. The goal had to be clear: outperform the competition. The problem is that the Californians have years of advantage.
And also that there are programs like PTGui for panoramas and Photomatix Pro for HDRs, which are very difficult to reach due to all the options they offer. What they have to offer to their potential clients is a middle ground and some other interesting extra that we have discovered …
We are in the first version of these tools. Y undoubtedly with the passage of updates it will improve. They offer few options and are slower than the competition. But of course I have not seen other problems that many complain about on social media.
I still can’t enjoy my main computer. So the tests I have done with a laptop with a 7th generation i7 with 16GB of RAM and an integrated graphics card. So times will be noticeably longer than on much more modern equipment.
I am going to use photographs that I have taken these days in the El Retiro park with a Sony A7 III and a 35 mm. They are made with a tripod and following the Capture One guidelines in both cases (we will see it below).
And I think the most fair thing is to compare the results with Adobe Lightroom to see the quality and the processing times. But let the time pass because surely the results improve. We are facing a version 1.0.
HDR in Capture One 22
With today’s cameras, offering a high dynamic range tool may not make much sense. But if you want to reach the limit and get images with detail and without noise in the shadows, you have no choice but to bet on it.
The advice they give on the Capture One page itself to achieve the best results is very surprising, because of how specific they are:
Three images with a two-step separation between them.
Take the shots with a tripod.
The underexposed and overexposed image should have detail in the highlights and shadows, respectively, to avoid the appearance of rare artifacts. That is, everything must be well measured.
In addition, they recommend the usual: work with a low ISO, with a manual focus and that the photographs are taken in the following order: under exposed, well exposed, overexposed (something I will never understand).
The steps to follow in Capture One 22 are very simple:
We select the three photographs (Ctrl + click).
We are going to Image> Fuse to HDR (damn bad translation).
In the window that opens I recommend forgetting to mark Auto tuning (I prefer to do it myself) and point out Automatic alignment.
We give to Fusinoar (But why don’t you meet with a translator sometime?).
On my computer I have the DNG (file that returns you) in 22 seconds. If I do it in Adobe Lightroom Classic I see it in 15 seconds. A time difference that we hope will be reduced with the new updates of this version.
The development of this file is exactly the same as the others. I have neither more nor less options. The noise in the shadows disappears somewhat if I try to lift them up and unsurprisingly I have more information in the highlights.
During the test I wanted to go a step beyond HDR. In the shadows the noise always disappears with this technique … What if in Capture One they had chosen to use an algorithm to eliminate noise with high ISOS if we combine several identical shots? And so it is.
If you have to shoot with a high ISO, you can start your camera engine and combine all these files as if they were HDR … The noise disappears without having to do anything else.
If you have to shoot with a high ISO, you can start your camera engine and combine all these files as if they were HDR … The noise disappears without having to do anything else.
The pity is that they have not delved further and we do not have the option to combine different files to generate a new one with the silk effect. As some of you know, if we work in Photoshop we only have to choose a stacking mode, which is nothing other than
combine groups of images with similar reference frames, even if there are differences in quality or content within the group. Once combined into a stack, you can process the different images into a composite view to eliminate unwanted content or potential noise.
I hope these things will be taken into account in the next update of this version and we will have a much more versatile program.
The Panoramas of Capture One 22
The other great novelty of Capture One 22 is the possibility of taking panoramas without having third-party programs. For the first tests that we have done, the new tool is on par with Adobe Lightroom.
Few options, but a perfect result for simple panoramas without major complications and as long as we respect the basic rules that they remind us of:
Shoot with a focal length of 35mm or greater.
Use a tripod.
Manual focus and exposure.
Overlap the images between 20-40%.
It is possible to work with multiple rows.
So let’s see how we have to work to get the best possible panorama:
We select the images that will be part of the panorama.
On this occasion it would be interesting to go to the tab Lens corrections to prevent vignetting (darkening of the corners) from complicating image formation. So we have to check all the options to achieve it. Don’t forget to check the icon Edit selection so that the changes occur in all files.
Let’s go to the menu Image> Stitch to Panorama (but why don’t they look for a good translator …)
We have the option to choose the projection: Spherical, Cylindrical, Perspective and Panini.
If we can wait, we can generate the four options and then choose the one that best fits.
- Section size It exists to change the size of the panorama and to prevent it from exceeding 600 MB, because then the program would not be able to move the file with ease.
Now we only have to give to Link so that we can work with the panorama.
We cannot crop or deform the result. It took 33 seconds to create the file that this article illustrates. And Lightroom takes 20 seconds longer… So the myth that it is slow does not seem very accurate.
The best of all is that the spaces that have been left empty by the deformation to which each file is subjected can be filled, whenever possible (in the example photo it is impossible), with the tools Draw healing mask Y Draw cloning mask. Therefore, the image does not need to be cropped.
How good would be the option Fill edges that Lightroom offers us or to be able to cut directly in the same window. They are options that we hope will appear like May water to improve, little by little, these new tools.
If Capture One does not become more popular, it is simply because of the price. Costs more than double the Adobe Creative Cloud photo license. Right now you have to pay € 29 / month for the monthly subscription, or € 219 for a year or € 349 for the perpetual license. If you only want to work with the files of one brand (Sony, Nikon or FujiFilm) the price drops to € 23 / month, € 169 or € 229.
But we can already do with it all the good things that Lightroom does. It would only need to improve in the section on file management, where the Library is still unbeatable. With Capture One the development is more natural and direct. With the other programs we achieve the same, but never so fast.