Capture One Pro 11 Mac

From Phase 1, the maker of top-terminate photography equipment similar the 150-megapixel IQ4 150MP, comes Capture One Pro 22 photo editing software, sometimes known as C1. Capture 1 offers digital photo importing, raw camera file conversion, image adjustment, local and layer editing, and some organizational features. Capture Ane Pro recently got a few new tools, such as HDR merging, panorama stitching, Dehaze, and a clever new organization for quick editing called Speed Edit. The software supports tethered shooting (aka capturing, hence the software'southward proper noun) with a live monitor view and focus tools for controlling a camera with the app. Capture Ane is a strong competitor to Editors' Option winners Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, DXO PhotoLab, and others in the pro photo workflow space, thanks to its deep armory of professional photo editing tools and flexible interface.

How Much Does Capture One Cost?

You lot can buy Capture I Pro outright for $299 ($199 upgrade) or subscribe for $24 per month or $179 per year. These prices are steep when you consider that you can get Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic and Photoshop for a $9.99-per-calendar month subscription. With Capture I Pro, you practise get three activations for your coin, which is more than Adobe's two-computer maximum. A costless, fully functioning 30-day trial version lets y'all test the software before purchasing.

Depending on the camera you have, yous can relieve money on Capture I considering there are editions specifically for Fujifilm, Nikon, and Sony cameras that cost $199 ($149 upgrade). These versions are full-featured but only support raw files from cameras of those brands. If you shoot exclusively with hardware from one of these makers, it's a much ameliorate bargain.

Using Capture 1's recently released iPad app requires a subscription ($iv.99 per month) for the online storage needed.

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For comparison, DxO PhotoLab goes for a one-fourth dimension price of $219 for three activations; CyberLink PhotoDirector costs $99 1-time or $54.99 for an annual subscription that includes a good helping of stock images; and ACDSee Photo Studio costs $99.95 for two perpetual license keys or $eight.ninety per month equally a subscription.

System Requirements

Capture One Pro is available for macOS (10.15 or afterward) and 64-fleck Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 11. Both the Mac and Windows versions crave a motorcar with at to the lowest degree a dual-core processor, 8GB RAM, and 10GB of free deejay space. Apple Silicon-based Macs become native support.

I tested the Windows version, which took upwardly a little less than 1GB of infinite on my hard drive, significantly less than Lightroom Classic's 3GB. I had to upgrade my image itemize on commencement running the update, but doing then was quick. You activate the software using a Capture I account as well as a serial number. In all, installation is no harder than getting going with Lightroom.

What's New in Capture One Pro?

Here are some highlights of new feature recently added to Capture One:

Magic Eraser. The Magic Eraser gives you a way to select and remove areas selected by the Magic Brush tool.
Updated Tool Icons. The icons for the left-panel control tabs have been enlarged and now include text. Role of the idea of the redesign was to make them consistent with the bear on-friendly interface on the new iPad version of Capture One(Opens in a new window).
Cloud Transfer. The Deject Transfer tool lets you transport photos dorsum and forth between your desktop and Capture I'southward iPad app.
Speed Edit. Speed editing lets you edit using keyboard shortcuts, saving you from finding the adjustment slider yous want. Concur down the keyboard shortcut, and a slider appears over the prototype for adjustment, or yous click and elevate to adjust. Helpfully, all the most common adjustments utilise the four leftmost keys—effulgence, contrast, and so on.
Panorama Stitching and HDR Merge. Other photo editing apps have long offered panorama stitching and HDR Merge, which finally are available in Capture One Pro.
Dehaze. The Dehaze tool, co-ordinate to Capture One documentation, "uses deep analytic algorithms to appraise and automatically suit dissimilarity, saturation and a matrix of other parameters to remove brume."
Enhanced Tooltips. Enhanced Tooltips are like to the photo thumbnails in Photoshop that appear when you hover the mouse over a command button. They offer a quick way to show you what the tool does. If that's not enough, there's also a new Learn button that accesses tutorial videos.
Faster Nugget Management. According to company literature, "functioning on Windows has been heavily improved, making it significantly faster to browse, filter, and search albums and folders."
Improved Import. You tin at present specify that all subfolders be included in an import, thumbnails are college-resolution, and you can perform backup during import. It now also supports HEIC files, commonly used past smartphone cameras.
Wireless Tethering for Catechism and Sony. It does seem something of an oxymoron to say "wireless tethering" (where'south the tether?), but in whatsoever consequence you tin at present connect some Canon cameras directly to C1 and control shooting from the software. Sony wireless tethering support is even newer, calculation popular models similar the a9 II, a7r IV, and a7 IV.
Capture One Alive. Capture One Alive is an online service for sharing photos either during capture or from the catalog. Information technology's been updated with commenting, an important lack upwardly to this point.

Interface

When you first run Capture One, the Resource Hub pops up and shows y'all tabs for What'southward New, Tutorials, Webinars, Support, and Plug-In Shopping. If you dismiss it, you can get it dorsum upwardly from the Aid carte. Merely about everything in the hub opens a webpage in your browser, so I'chiliad not sure why there isn't just a link on the program window to a web alphabetize page with the same information.

Despite some interface tweaks, the app is still recognizable to longtime Capture One users. The dark (adjustable) gray window features three large buttons for Import, Export, and Capture (for tethering). Next to those buttons are articulate Undo, Redo, and Reset buttons, which I capeesh in the fault-prone field of photo editing. A split up view shows a before-and-after comparison; the Dissever View push (top right) too offers full-screen before and later views.

Unlike Lightroom Classic's interface, Capture One'southward is not modal. That is, it doesn't present dissimilar workspaces for dissimilar functions, such as organizing, editing, or output. Instead, yous exercise everything in one interface. Yous use buttons on top of the left-side control panel to switch between eight views based on what yous're doing at the moment—Library, Tether, Shape, Mode, Conform, Refine, Export, Quick, Colour, and Metadata.

Some of these names take changed recently, but you lot can revert to the legacy layout from the Window menu if you prefer. A 3-dot overflow bill of fare lets you add or remove the icons. Dragging them reorders them. And you lot can move the whole carte to the right side. You tin can also elevate out whatsoever panel to have information technology bladder freely on the screen, which is ideal for dual-monitor setups.

Forth the top, a dozen always-present toolbar buttons switch y'all among Select, Pan, Loupe, Ingather, Straighten/Rotate, Keystone, Mask, Healing Mask, Erase Mask, Dropper (for white residual and other adjustments), Apply Adjustments, and Draw Annotations. Just equally in Photoshop, correct-clicking (or click-and-holding) any of these buttons opens a drop-down of more cursor choices, including Zoom and Pan. The Apply Adjustments cursor lets y'all re-create and paste adjustments betwixt images. The paste functionality is smart enough to non include spot removal and cropping.

The programme offers expert right-click menu options and keyboard shortcuts. For case, you can employ C for crop, Ctrl-T to hide or prove the Tools carte, and Ctrl-D to consign to deejay. Yous can even create your own shortcuts for any of the program's carte du jour options. Question marking icons in every tool have yous to the appropriate assist entry—very helpful indeed.

A uncomplicated roll of the mouse cycle speedily zooms your photo. Capture I tin can't zoom to a specific percentage. Instead, it stops at prepare amounts, such as 25%, 33%, 50%, and so on. There's no indication whether the photo you're viewing has been fully rendered (Lightroom gives you a Loading… bulletin). In my testing, however, photos rendered faster than in Lightroom Classic.

A total-screen view in Capture One shows both the side console and your image, but it's less useful than Lightroom Archetype's true full-screen view. I as well find that the basic activeness of switching between gallery and image view is less intuitive than it should be. Sometimes I hit the multi-image button and the programme keeps me in single-prototype view. In Lightroom, it'southward a simple matter of double-clicking an image.

Importing Images

As an alternative to the Import button, you tin can set Capture One as your default AutoPlay option when plugging in camera media. The import dialog is powerful. Information technology lets you lot choose the source, destination, file renaming, and copyright metadata. You can also perform a simultaneous backup during import, and even utilize adjustment styles and presets such as Landscape B&W, midtone boost curve, and sharpening. Autocorrect is also a useful import option. You can zoom the preview thumbnails, view single images, and choose which images to import. You can't rate or tag them before importing, unfortunately. The program'due south duplicate detection (similar that in Lightroom) saves you from having unnecessary copies on your drive. I had no trouble importing raw files from recent camera models such every bit the Nikon Z fc, the Catechism RF, the Fujifilm X-T4, and the Sony a7 Four.

Like Lightroom Classic, Capture One stores information (including any edits) for your imported photos in a database called a catalog. The actual image files can be stored in a different folder location from the itemize, or correct within information technology. Keeping them separate ways you tin can accept the large epitome files on a NAS drive, for example. Unlike Adobe'south app, Capture Ane lets you take multiple catalogs open up simultaneously. The default is to open the itemize you lot're importing to as soon every bit the import starts.

A double progress bar shows both the overall import and current file operation progress. (Run into the Functioning department below for a comparing of import speeds. To summarize, Capture I imports faster than Lightroom, PhotoDirector, and ACDSee Pro.) You tin start working on photos before the whole import finishes, which is handy.

Raw Photographic camera Files

Many raw camera files I tested in the plan expect noticeably better than the unadjusted Lightroom and ACDSee equivalents, and even improve than in the excellent DxO PhotoLab. Capture One supports DNG images created by Adobe programs, treating them as original raw files. Even with them, I see more detail in Capture One than in the Lightroom'south initial conversion in some photos for some photographic camera models. Lightroom sometimes tends toward oversaturation, though increasing Sharpening brought the detail up to Capture Ane's initial level in my examination epitome. Capture One's documentation states that its raw conversion process "uses an extremely sophisticated and patented algorithm."

Above you see Lightroom raw conversion on the left, Capture One on the right, using the Adobe Color contour. The Capture One image has more than detail in the back feathers and more than accurate colors; both have no adjustments applied.

I can normally become a result that is every bit good or better looking using Lightroom Classic's tools, even though Capture One gets more detail and more-natural colors at initial raw conversion. Capture I at present uses magic-wand icons for autocorrect adjustments in both the summit toolbar and each adjustment section (white balance, exposure, and so on). Y'all can undo the autocorrect changes of any given setting individually, without undoing the others.

You tin switch the Curve presets in the Color department for rendering among Automobile, Film Extra Shadow, Film High Dissimilarity, Film Standard, and Linear Response. The outset few modes are more saturated, and the last two give the most particular.

Import Speed

I tested import speed with 200 raw images (a total of 5GB) from a Canon 80D. My test computer was a 64-scrap Windows 10 PC with 16GB RAM, a 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Cadre i7-6700 CPU, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 745 discrete graphics card. I import from a Class 4 SD card to a fast SSD on the PC. With an import time of two:35 (minutes:seconds) Capture One beats out main rival Adobe Lightroom Classic, which took 2:fifty on the aforementioned test. Lightroom (non-Classic) took 3:02, and the less-known ON1 PhotoRAW too took 2:fifty. Look for more than comparisons as I update the testing for other applications. Note, too, that some apps—such every bit DxO PhotoLab and Skylum Luminar—don't bother with an import procedure, instead letting yous work with photos wherever they're stored.

Organizing Photos

Capture One lets you add star ratings in the bottom of thumbnails and at the lower-right corner of the main photograph view. It likewise lets you lot apply color tags for system, but there'south no uncomplicated Pick or Decline pick for people with less-granular processes.

The Keyword tool accessible from the Metadata tab lets you add keywords to build a Library. The next time yous start typing in the text box, whatsoever matching entry in the library is suggested. Y'all can even import or export keyword libraries and add together hierarchical keywords. The program doesn't, all the same, offer you a prepopulated keyword library. A new issue is that later calculation a keyword to an image, the focus switches to the next image, which isn't helpful when y'all're trying to add multiple keywords (though you can plough off this beliefs). I prefer the treatment of keywords in Lightroom Archetype, which offers exhaustive help and presets for organizing your photos.

You tin can create your ain albums (including smart albums based on ratings, colour codes, or search criteria), projects, and groups (which can include any combination of the in a higher place). Only forget virtually integrated geo-tagged maps or people tags, such as you make it Lightroom. Capture 1 does offer practiced search options by date, filename, rating, and keyword.

One helpful organizational tool in Capture I is called Variants. Like to Lightroom Classic's Snapshots characteristic, Variants let you lot create multiple copies of a photo with dissimilar adjustments and edits.

Adjusting Photos

Organization may not be Capture One'due south forte, but in its selection of standard adjustment tools—exposure, contrast, shadows, highlights, white residuum, and so on—Capture I is up there with the best. The program likewise lets you adapt the histogram, white remainder, exposure, HDR, and clarity. Clarity offers a few modes of its own, with Punch, Natural, and Neutral being more effective than Classic mode, which but seems to sharpen images.

A couple of Lightroom Classic tools have fabricated it into Capture One in recent version updates: Vibrance and Dehaze. The haze-removal tools in DxO PhotoLab and Skylum Luminar work ameliorate than the one in Lightroom, which adds a colour cast. Capture One's Dehaze tool lets you adapt the shadow tone with a dropper, which yielded a vastly superior effect (left below) compared with the horrific color cast created by Lightroom's Dehaze (right).

In the example above, I set the correction to 100% to emphasize the deviation. You'd probably employ a more than judicious corporeality of Dehaze, but you'd nevertheless see more color bandage in Lightroom compared with Capture (or DxO Photolab and CyberLink PhotoDirector for that matter).

The program'due south High Dynamic Range section includes sliders for Highlights, Shadows, Black, and White. These tools let you create an image with better contrast. Adjusting highlights and shadows alone often results in a done-out looking image. The tool'due south purpose is not to deliver special effects, but rather to perfect an image, and for that it's useful. By comparison, CyberLink's PhotoDirector can create HDR images with extreme and artsy impact.

The Levels and Curves tools in Capture 1's Exposure panel are far more than useful for making vivid images. Capture One is all about prototype fidelity, though at that place are styles that utilise color and black and white furnishings, as well as a Film Grain tool.

True HDR takes multiple images of the same scene shot at dissimilar exposures and creates one paradigm from them. To use this tool, you select multiple images and choose Merge to HDR from the correct-click context menu (y'all tin besides go to it from the Image menu), with Auto-Align and Auto-Adjust options. You lot become a DNG file that uses the nighttime areas in the overexposed shot and the bright areas in the underexposed for detail. In that location isn't much in the way of options like those you get with ON1 Photograph Raw and PhotoDirector. Note that True HDR and panorama stitching, mentioned next, each took virtually twenty seconds to complete on my test PC.

Panorama stitching, a technique that's been around for more than a decade, is likewise new in Capture 1. You get to it by selecting multiple images and either correct clicking or choosing the characteristic from the Images carte du jour. Options for the projection include Spherical, Cylindrical (the most convincing option in my exam shots), Perspective, and the ambrosial-sounding Panini. Unfortunately, information technology lacks Photoshop and Lightroom's ability to fill up the incomplete parts of the rectangle with AI-generated content. A simple choice to outcome in a rectangular image would exist welcome, but you can of course use the Ingather tool for that later.

Capture 1 includes profile-based tools for correcting lens-geometry distortion, though the EF 70-300mm Canon lens for my Canon DSLR withal isn't included. Chromatic aberration correction comes nether this lens-correction subset. A generic option did quite a skilful task in my testing. The Purple Fringing option is also constructive. DxO PhotoLab remains my top pick for really doing abroad with chromatic aberration, though Lightroom has besides gotten very good at information technology, too.

Capture Ane improved its noise-reduction tools in the latest release. I found that some images had less dissonance in initial raw conversation, to the point that I had to apply fifty% racket reduction in Lightroom to go the dissonance level down to Capture One'southward initial rendering. It turns out that's because Capture One applies that much noise reduction past default. Fifty-fifty and then, the Capture 1 result with the same settings was more than detailed than the Lightroom effect, with the same corporeality of smoothness. DxO PhotoLab offers the ultimate in noise reduction, however, with its time-consuming Prime tool.

Cropping in Capture Ane is improved in the new version. Y'all can at present hit Enter later on selecting the rectangle you want; the ingather will still as well take effect if y'all switch to another cursor. You tin also simply start drawing the ingather wherever you want, rather than having to start by adjusting the selection box edges, every bit you have to practise in DxO PhotoLab. The crop tool helpfully shows yous each side's dimensions in inches or pixels. The straighten tool has yous describe a line that volition become the horizon, or yous tin can manually tilt your photo while using the Limerick panel's Rotation tool, and the Car Conform magic wand button figures out the horizon in your shot and straightens things out automatically.

Color direction is a special strength in Capture 1. You tin can suit color ranges or individual colors, and you can also fine-tune skin tones, in particular, using a color picker. Other skin helpers are the Clone and Heal tools, which do a very expert job of blemish removal. They work just virtually the mode Photoshop'due south similar tools take for years, but Adobe's content-enlightened tools are more than effective. The Mask From Color choice in Capture One lets y'all create adjustment layers based on color-selected areas for local adjustments.

Color Wheels

Capture I offers a wealth of color-editing proficiency, with viii colour ranges instead of half dozen, and a Straight Color Editor tool that lets you accommodate the colour past dragging up and down right over the color y'all desire to change. When I did this, I couldn't come across the image being affected until I chose to view the groundwork layer instead of the adjustment layer.

Masks and Layers

C1 is well behind Adobe's software when it comes to masking. Capture 1 doesn't have auto subject area or object select options. That said, the programme does offering masking with a feathering tool and refinements for difficult selections like pilus or trees. Another selection tool called Magic Brush, which automatically selects objects of similar colors, and the newer Magic Eraser lets you remove areas selected by the Magic Castor easily. Still, it doesn't arroyo the Adobe tools.

Y'all can mask by luminosity as well as using linear and radial gradients. The luminosity mask pick (called Luma Range and accessible from a push button on the Layers dialog) is practiced for isolating bright or dark areas and especially helpful for selective noise reduction. In that location's no blur tool for selective focus furnishings, but you can reduce sharpness and clarity using the mask. The gradient options are skilful for selective focus treatments. The Levels and Colour Residue tools work in layers, and you tin adapt the opacity of each edit layer.

The Annotations feature is useful for collaborative editing, so the initial photographer or editor tin can send notes to a retouching professional or client about areas on the photograph. It's basically a drawing tool that creates a layer, which you can hide or display and include as a split layer if you lot export to PSD. I am sorry to run into that the tool doesn't work with touch monitors, which would be a perfect fit. You can, however, choose pen size and color, and an eraser tool eases fixing mishaps.

Layer editing is the ability to re-create specific layers to other images, even if the second image has different dimensions. Information technology'southward not a unproblematic matter of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, however. You need to cull Copy Adjustments from the Adjustments menu and and then afterwards switching to the second image, Apply Adjustments. This adds the copied layer on top of the 2d image'due south layers. To exist honest, I prefer Adobe's strategy of hiding layers from you in Lightroom, for faster, simpler editing. If you demand to work with layers, caput to Photoshop. I suppose for some workflows it might be helpful to have both capabilities in i plan.

Capture One includes a capable printing characteristic. It lets you select a colour profile and offers standard layouts such as contact sheets and A3/A4 formats. You can customize layouts with your selection of cavalcade and row counts and spacing, and text and image watermarking are options. You lot can likewise salve your own custom layout templates. The View carte offers a good number of Proof Profiles to evidence how your image will expect on a option of displays and print output types, but it doesn't highlight nonprinting colors the way Lightroom Archetype'due south Soft Proofing feature does.

Capture One Live lets photographers share albums, either from live sessions or in their catalog, via the the web in any browser. The service requires a $nine.99-per-month subscription, just you get five free sharing sessions to effort it. To use it, yous tap the new Live push button (I had to add together this by correct-clicking on the top-left toolbar and choosing Customize) and its dialog lets y'all choose a Drove to share. Y'all go a link, optionally countersign-protected, that opens a webpage showing your Drove. Collaborators can view larger versions of the shots, color code them and rate them from i to five stars.

Aside from that, it's limited. There's no keyword tagging or downloading, let alone editing or markup. A contempo beta update did add commenting for Live, but it only appears in the web view, not synced to the plan.

Live photo thumbnails appeared in the web view quickly after I started sharing, and my edits in the installed app appeared nearly instantly on the web version. Not quite the same, just related, Lightroom's web access has the Discover customs of photo editors you lot can follow and meet before-and-afterward edit views of their work and collaboratively edit. Lightroom even offers web-based photo editing.

One weakness in Capture 1'due south usefulness as a workflow solution is its lack of sharing to established online photo venues. In that location's a Make Web Contact Sheet option that creates HTML for a web server, merely aside from that, you're on your own. There's no built-in export to popular services like Flickr, Instagram, Lightroom on the web, 500px, or SmugMug, nor is there any integrated book layout and export tool, both of which yous get in Lightroom Archetype.

For professionals who need tethered-shooting capabilities and serious amateurs who want excellent raw camera file import quality, Capture One is a fine choice. Its developers continue to improve it and add useful features. Layer fans and those who need to mark up photos for collaborative editing volition also capeesh it too. Just the program withal trails our Editors' Choice pro photo workflow application, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic, on the footing of interface fluidity, organizational tools, and profile support for cameras and lenses.

The Bottom Line

Capture One offers professional and prosumer photographers first-class detail from raw camera files, likewise equally local adjustment, advanced color, and layer tools, merely it still trails in photo-organizing features.

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