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