Joeri's workflow

Sometimes people ask me how much time I need to edit a photo.

Well, it depends.

I very rarely only edit photos only in a RAW editing program like Capture One pro or Lightroom because these programs are not as powerful as Photoshop.

What if a woman has a bad skin? What if the eyebrows are not nicely plucked? What when she has a red skin because of stress? What if the dress is full of wrinckles?

After culling images (selecting the best) in Capture One (or FastRAWviewer) I drop the RAW files in the selects folder in Capture One Pro. This folder contains all the RAW files for editing purposes.

This is my workflow:

RAW editor (Capture One):

General exposure adjustments
Dodge & Burn using luminosity masks
White Balance correction
Skin color correction (equalize skin color only when necessary)
Edit width: Photoshop (16 bit)

Photoshop:

Copy the background layer (always)
Heal & clone distracting elements (also hair, nose hair, eyebrows,…)
Convert this layer to a smart layer
Liquify: Modify the dress and hair 'when needed.
Smoothen the background (only when using background paper)
FS 2.0: Smoothen hard skin edges & remove wrinckles on clothing (some fabric like satin)
Dodge & Burn: Make parts of the image darker or lighter
Give contour to the face and in general
Brighten the eyes a tiny bit but not always
Whiten the teeth when needed
Darken the eyebrows
Add glow (Highlights) like on the lips
Modify levels (midtones, shadows & highlights)
Dodge & burn more
Sharpen using a Highpass filter (except hair)
Modify color balance (too yelow, too red, …)
Add a touch of grain
Combine all layers to a smart layer (except the background)
Save as a PSB file (mot files are + 6GB)
Flatten image
SaveAs PSD

Final toch in Capture One:

Change general levels
When needed modify light with Luma masks
Color balance
Dodge & Burn (only small changes)
Export to JPG in several sizes

Here is an example of changing colors & luminosity in Capture One Pro.

Why "FastRAWviewer" is my favorite RAW viewer for culling images.

FastRAWviewer is not just an imageviewer like there are so many on the market today. Fastrawviewer lets you view RAW files really fast and the latest Beta version also supports the smaller Sony A1, A7IV and A7R5 RAW files. The support by the developper is really good! Finally someone who listens to customers.

You can view the exif data and even customize what is important to you in a seperate window.

All EXIF data you need. More can be added in the customize view.

Why would you use another viewer while we can view our images in Adobe Bridge, Lightroom, Capture One or any other application supporting RAW files?

Time is money and I don’t need any fancy viewer with a modern gui but a tool that gets the job done and I don’t need an application where I first have to import the files to be able to view them.

I do all my RAW editing in Capture One Pro 23. It is my favorite RAW editor but I also use it to finalize the finished photoshop files and export them in several formats.

But… As a viewer and for fast culling I use FastRAWviewer. Even when I want to view RAW files on my synology NAS (with gigabit connection) the viewing speed is top notch.

I do like the “Loupe” function in Capture One Pro. It is something FastRAWviewer does not have.

Maybe the developper can implement this in a future version?

After a shoot the first thing I do is to copy all RAW files to a fast SSD but before doing that I start Capture One Pro.

By default Capture One Pro creates four folders.

Capture
Selects
Trash
Output

Before I copy the images from SDcard I close Capture One.

Then I copy all RAW files into the “Capture” folder that has just been created by Capture One pro.

For culling images the selected files need to go into the “Selects”' folder. This is done in FastRAWviewer.

FastRAWviewer can display both embedded JPG and the RAW file.

I already told you the RAW images load really fast but you can also check for unsharp pictures by activating the contrast detection. Look how fast this goes.

I rarely rate my photos. When I like a photo I move the RAW file to the selects folder. This is done by selecting the “Move Selects” key on my StreamDeck XL.

I assigned the shortcut (CTRL + Shift + S) to this key.

Bad photos are also moved to the “Trash” folder.

The layout of the streamdeck XL.
Only the most important keys are assigned to a key. When culling images I just need to press “Move Selects” or “Move Trash” when I want to move the file to a specific folder.

Shortcuts in FastRAWviewer are fully customizable!

Not all software manufactors support this and for this reason not all software is really usable (like ON1 RAW) with a AZERTY Keyboard.

(For example bracket keys [ ] are used a lot as a standard for changing the brush size. Using an AZERTY (Belgian Keyb) you cannot use these bracket keys at all because we first have to combine this key with the ALTGR key.)

The keyboard shortcut editor.
CTRL + SHIFT + S moves the RAW file to the “Capture One Pro” **selects** folder.
CTRL + SHIFT + DEL moves the RAW file to the “Capture One Pro” **Trash** folder.

To be able to assign the keys you need to go into preferences and modify these two input fields.

..\Trash

..\Selects

These will also be visble when selecting a RAW file and pressing the right mouse button.

Use shortcuts or the right mouse button.

You can rotate images, zoom in & out or check for highlights and shadows.

If you want to view your image a stop brighter you can do this in thirds of a stop or even change the white balance.

Changes are stored in an xml file. Your RAW file remains unedited.

I guess the xml file is not fully compatible with Capture One Pro because the xml files are generated by Adobe standards. This is not an issue because I don’t need this anyway.

I also love the layout. Nothing fancy but it shows you what you need.

You can also compare files in one window by activating the Multi-Window.

Just drag the photos in the disered window with synchronious pan & zoom.

Conclusion:

This is not an indepth review of FastRAWviewer but my personal experience in every day use and my workflow with Capture One pro.

The software only costs 30 Euro and that is an absolute bargain.

When you quickly want to view your RAW images there is in my opnion no better software available on the market today.

I also tried “Photo Mechanic Plus” but it is far more expensive and less user friendly.

It is a RAW viewer and I understand the developpers goal was to create the best and fastest RAW viewer and he succeeded.

However I would love if one day fastRAWviewer supports Photoshop PSD and PSB files too like Adobe Bridge.

I don’t know if it is possible to configure the mouse wheel as zoom instead of scrolling up or down. Move to the position you want to enlarge and scroll and press the mouse wheel for panning. That would be nice.

The program cannot export to jpg or another format. When I deliver my converted RAW files to JPG to my clients for selection purposes I still need to use Irfanview and it does the job really well. I would love fastRAWviewer would implement an export function but with fully customizable text on top like free text but EXIF info and ratings too.

However, these are not disadvantages or shortcomings in the software, but only wishes to make the software even more complete.

Rating: 9/10.

Using FS 2.0 for retouching of clothing

I just finished my presentation for the lecture at Cameranu. I also added some short video’s like this one where I iron a Belgian flag using FS 2.0.

It makes a huge difference when you deliver a photo with a wrinckleless dress or flag or not.

Here is a 2 minute video where I brush, remove the wrinkles in Photoshop. In real life it takes more time but this is the video I included in my presenation and I think 2 minutes is the maximum to keep people interested.

This picture was send for participation of Dhenia Covens at the Miss Universe contest.

Capture One Pro 2x

This blog is to share my experience as a fashion photographer using Capture One since version 10 and why I prefer Capture One. This is not a full review.

Years ago Capture One offered cheaper versions like “Capture One Pro for Sony”. This version could only process ‘Sony’ RAW files (extension ARW). They don’t offer any specific brand versions anymore.

I eventually switched to the general version because I was asked to post process some pictures for a client who was shooting with Canon and my version could only post process Sony RAW files.

In Lightroom you are obliged to import your photos. Things like the lens you were using at the moment or the chosen aperture is all imported into the database. Using databases is smart. It’s fast and everything is stored in one place. However… Without taking time to add keywords to your photos I really don’t see an advantage over working with folders. Searching in a database is fast. Think “google”. You can filter what lens you have been using most of the time. Let’s say you photographed a model called Karen wearing a red dress, photographed in London. When you add these keywords to the photos it will be very easy to find all pictures with a ‘red dress’ with immediate result. The problem is that a lot of photographers don’t take the time to add these keywords with every import so a database becomes useless.

You can also work in Capture One Pro using a database but it is not as fast and reliable as the one Lightroom uses. Working with huge amounts of photos (and I mean huge) is not an ideal way of working in Capture One. Therefor I do not recommend to use a catalog (DB in capture One) at all. You can use smaller databases (for each year) but I personally do not use a databse in Capture One.

Instead you better use COsessions. Starting a new ‘project’ a .cossesiondb is created where most of the info is stored into. The previews of your RAW files are stored as separate files (cop files). *.comask files contain the layer mask and probably the local adjustments for that layer and its mask.

The directory structure I am using is ‘project based’: YEAR-MM-DD_project

P:\#SonyRAW\2022\2022-08-19_Davina.

Once you start a new session Capture One automatically creates four folders for you.

Capture
Selects
Deleted
Output

Just copy your RAW files in the ‘Capture’ folder. Then rate the best photos with stars or colors.

Then you can filter (like 5*) and move them inside Capture One to the selects folder.

The layout is fully customizable but you cannot change the color of the gui. Only the background color can be changed from white to black. I choose Medium (gray).

What I do not like is the scrollbar of the browser. It is also grey and I sometimes have trouble to find where I have to click to scroll through the pictures.

In the picture below the size of the scroll bar is large but if the folder contains a large amount of pictures it gets really small.

Capture One. Please do something about it.

For some reason I find the quality of the processed RAW files much better in comparison with other RAW editors like Lightroom. I am using the Sony A1 Pro standard ICC profile inside Capture One and RAW photos already look good without doing much in comparison with Lightroom for example.

Speed is a second reason. Even on slower hardware the processing speed of Capture One is top notch.

Stability. During all these years Capture One only crashed once! It is extremely stable.

Capture One also supports up to 16 layers. For most work 16 layers are more than enough but sometimes you need more layers. For example each gradient mask is a separate layer. You can adjust the opacity for each layer if you went to far.

Tethering. Flawless & the best. In the latest version Capture One Pro also supports wireless tethering for Sony. It works like a charm. The freedom to shoot without using a USB cable is just wonderful. I love it. The transfer speed is doable. Don’t expect fast transfer speeds but overall I can live with the time it takes to transfer a 50 MB RAW file to my laptop. In the studio it is very usable and I do not see a reason why i would shoot using a USB cable again.

Luma masks. The way luma masks work in Capture One is dead easy. I just love it. In the example below I selected the blacks with the purpose to lift them just a tiny bit. The selection only takes a few seconds. You don’t have to be very precise in your selection. Capture One finds the edges for you using the Radius value. It works differently and is not the same as the ‘feather’ function.

Create variants. If you need to deliver different color graded versions, a black & white version or different crops, you can use variants’. A very convenient way to create alternatives without copying the whole file.

Select by color. You can select any color you want and refine it on the fly. In the example below I changed the color of the nail polish to a color matching her red suspenders.

Skin color correction. This is huge. The way you can match a persons skin using the ‘Skin Tone’ function is something I have not seen in another image editor. I use it a lot. Some photographers just ignore color skin correction. Red ears for example are temporarily and should be fixed in post processing.

In this example I changed the skin color of her chest to match the color of the rest of her body. It only takes 20 seconds including masking.

Magic Brush & Magic Erase.

Selections can be done using the magic brush. Very handy because you do not have to mask what you need. Just a brush stroke is enough to select the part you need.

I hope one day Capture One can implement ‘object detection’ like in Lightroom.

I don’t use cloning and healing a lot inside Capture One. It works fine but when it gets more complicated I switch to Photoshop.

Export profiles (recipes).

You can create different recipes for exporting images. I can select the recipes I want (and have created) and Capture One converts the selected images for you. It is even possible to add a directory for each recipe where the files are stored. In this example I created a ‘FullHD’ recipe for web use. Files are stored in a subdirectory ‘FullHD’ and the ‘_FullHD’ is also added to the filename.

Conclusion:

Like I said I am not going into every little detail as it just would take to much time.

Capture One Pro is unmatched for image quality, color selections and tethering. This makes it the ideal RAW editor for portrait & fashion but also for other kinds of photography like food. It is not cheap but worth every penny.

Positive:

To work with sessions instead of a database

Image quality

Luma masks!

Color selections!

Stability

Changeable layout

Exports profiles

(wireless) tethering unmatched

Speed edit keys

Negative:

Color of scrollbars.

Only 16 layers (Sometimes I needed 24 layers)

Update policy. Every major version does not always have big improvements or new tools.

Image browser can get slow with large amounts of files. Even on fast SSD’s.

No object selection but the magic brush can help by selecting.

For some people more difficult to get the hang out of it but once you understand how Capture One works it is unbeatable.

No more vendor specific versions

Price: 300 Euro buy or 219 Euro subscription each year so less bang for the buck. (Photoshop & Lightroom is 145 Euro each year)

Overall score:

8,5/10

Calibrate your screen!

Are you a photographer and not using a screen that has been calibrated?

What would you say if you buy 1 kg of apples and you come home and you got only 650 grams. What if your car tells you you are driving 70 km/h but in reality it is 110 km/h? How can you be sure the colors of your photos are correct? By calibrating. It’s as simple as that.

We look at screens every day. A monitor, laptop, smartphone, tablet or even the digital screen in your car.

Let's assume 100% is the maximum of colors a screen can display. What if your smartphone only shows 27% of these colors?

The picture above is the color spectrum. The complete area are the colors a human eye can see. The purple triangle is the Prophoto color space while the black triangle is the range of colors defined as sRGB standard. Sadly a lot of screens aren’t even capable of showing all colors defined in the sRGB standard. Photos on my website are uploaded in sRGB color space. When I edit my images I do not work in sRGB. I use AdobeRGB because my 4K 32 inch monitor supports 99,5% of the AdobeRGB color space, a much wider color space compared to sRGB.

I export in my photos in sRGB. While AdobeRGB supports more colors it is not always a good idea to use this color space while exporting in this format (as JPG). Some browsers but also other (viewing) software do not support this standard and this results in flat colors. It just doesn’t look nice.

When we want our photos printed we can simulate the colors on our screen how they would look like on the print itself. We do this by importing the provided color profiles (of the paper) and then we activate it in software like photoshop, lightroom, capture one pro,….

In general, newspapers use low quality paper. If we simulate this kind of paper in our software you will see a lot of colors are out of gamut. In general: better paper results in better colors. This is logical. Rough paper absorbs more ink and when printed they flow into each other. High quality paper is very smooth so the ink does not mix that much during printing.

When we simulate the paper in our software we adjust the colors using the color profile of the printer and try to match the colors as close as possible. This is called soft proofing.

Not all print services provide the icm files (image color management) or icc files. Some print offices adjust the colors automatically. Sometimes you must deactivate this choice in the order proces.

You have to make sure the colors on your screen are correct!

If you have an iPad you can compare the photos on your ipad with your computermonitor. iPads are very good in color accuracy and well calibrated out of the factory. In general the colors of an iPad are mostly correct.
If you need to buy a monitor make sure you buy at least a monitor supporting 100% sRGB.

You also need calibration hardware and software. I use a Xrite i1display pro and I calibrate my screens using the provided software at least 4 times a year.

The process is very simple. Install the calibration software, run it and it will guide you through the process. It takes a few minutes to generate the color profile. During calibrating your screen will show different colors being measured and then compared to the ideal color value. When finished, a color profile is provided and stored on your computer.

The photo below is the screen and calibration hardware I am using now.

Displaycal is freeware and does an excellent job. You can use this as an alternative.

Picture below is the result of my Dell 3216Q: the color gamut (colored lines) of my screen is way more than the sRGB standard. (dashed lines)

http://www.displaycal.net

I do not understand why some big clothing companies use color graded photos where the colors do not match the real colors at all. It’s an artistic choice.