Migrating from Capture One

Very nice! I tried your inspiration with Capture One but two things happened: First I realized how not enough I know about colour grading, second (not personal offense, @roadcone) I just could not connect to the picture itself. I see the potential and I see it’s made with an µ 4/3 body. Lots of space on the right side of the histogram, meaning the left side has not much energy in the shadows.

But there’s a takeaway: After seeing your crispy interpretation @platypus I can admit not each RAW converter is doing a great job on certain cameras. Reminds me of the time when I first tried Pl and also found the result often more crispy than I was used from C1 20. However, crisp is not always my main aim.

I usually start with global adjustments and add local adjustments later.
In this image, I revisited global and local tools in turns. I almost never use DxO ClearView Plus, but it made a difference here. If you look closely, the foreground local adjustments counteract each other partially in order to change saturation and clarity depending on distance.

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Capture One emerged as a software for Phase One’s heavy larger-than-FF sensor cameras used mostly for studio work. Early versions of C1 rendered images smoothly with almost powdery soft rendition of colours without losing sharpness or detail. They were wonderful imo. In recent versions (just tried 23) I find rendering closer to “industry standard” with higher contrast and saturation.

I try other software every few years, but I still prefer to learn one or two tools to hunting for the “best”…

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With reference to the distortion setting. I apply a zeroed setting with Distortion at 85% and it sticks and does not change, and the magic wand does nothing. What is interesting, is that if you apply the DXO standard preset The word “AUTO” appears and the magic wand works.
DXO Distortion Auto-1
DXO Distortion Auto-2

No offence taken. What you did not have is the following … we were half way through walking the Dales High Way in the UK; we had started in heavy rain and it was touch-and-go if we would brave the mountain due to lack of visibility, but we did; we climbed through the rain and mist and broke out, sopping wet, into this vista. It was bright with distinct shadows nearby, still threatening clouds and the mist and cloud was still rolling in the valley below. So, that is what connects me to the image.

Clive

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I may have used it too strongly, I find the default of 50 almost always too much, but down around 10/20 region can often help.

Clive

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IanS:

Thank you for the Zero preset starting point suggestions. Will certainly set one of those up. Re Clarity - I was referring to Micro Contrast as that seems to have broadly the same impact as CO’s Clarity. I have also been using small amounts of Clear View - but then again, I use small amounts of Dehaze in CO when there is no haze. It can sometimes help. Negative control points and being able to set up a control line then add positive and negative control points then adjust the whole thing using Chroma and Luma sliders is a lot to get used to!!

Egregius:

Thank you for the detailed suggestions about offsetting a reduction of Highlights with an increase in Mids and/or Exp. Yes, I have Film Pack - I was using a previous incarnation in PL4 (though have updated it recently) and yes, it help zone in greatly. I should have, but had not thought about offsetting some crunchiness by lowering contrast sliders - thank you.

Clive

The image is perfect to compare the different capabilities of PL and C1 as it is very challenging in the shadows. However, I‘m still convinced a landscape picture should not rely on explanations. I‘m just curious if it was taken in auto-mode with metering the bright sky? The histogram says 2 stops longer exposure could have been possible?

Ah - you are looking for a good photograph - understood. For me, it is a memory of a wonderful day.

Aperture priority, evaluative metering, third of a stop down to protect the highlights. Yes, I can increase exposure by 2Ev and there are no highlights blown.

I understood that, but the day wouldn’t become less wonderful if you could have taken a marvellous shot. On the contrary… :wink:
Or a least a better exposed one. I like your composition and I admire your effort of hiking in the rain. I’m also hiking sometimes and I came home looked at my pictures and thought “just a little bit more effort when taking that picture would make it one or two ★ better”. So I learnt not to rush and better walk by a “sort of interesting” tree, I have hundreds of them, and instead take a bit more time for a scenery which not only tickles my curiosity. And I usually hike alone as I don’t like to slow others down nor get rushed by impatient waiting of others. It’s not easy to find hiking friends with same interests, patience, fitness. It’s sometimes like stepping out of one rhythm and get into a a slower flow. Often it pays off.

I’m having issues at the moment with Fuji X-Trans.

I get better results with C1. PL6 appears to be smudged on fine detail. I am bit disappointed and have tried focus and unsharp mask but no luck.

Any advice would be appreciated

I totally agree with everything you said. A CO 23 current user don’t like CO pricing and latest news that smells like subscription only coming up fast. I was already eyeballing PL5 and now have a trial version of PL6. I would love to like PL but having similar reservations about some features.

  1. Selective tone tool totally unusable. Despite designations: highlights, shadows etc. the sliders “bleed” to other tones real fast. Workaround: drop a point on dark, light, midtone, extend the radius to the whole picture and treat is as a local adjustment. Not perfect but can work.
  2. Color. The way I describe it is “candy look”. Workaround: make sure there is no presets applied. Secondly I think there is a potential in trying to apply FP to “tame” the colors. I tried to check this out but
    although I downloaded both trial versions of PL6 and FP6, PL6 acts as if I didn’t have FimlPack so unfortunately cannot check it.

Hello @andrew1 and welcome to the forum, I made the move to PL 2 years ago and am meanwhile back at C1 23. At the beginning it was overwhelming how much tools worked “differently than expected”, but in this forum is gathered so much knowledge, so just be patient.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think, even the demo version of FP (and VP) needs a license code? Or a special download link for a 30 days version. And you need to tell PL about the license. Also helpful: There are few and sometimes big differences between Mac - and Win-version, so for the forum members it’s helpful to know on which OS you’re working.

There is a free 30-trial for all three programs in the suite. No license is necessary.

Mark

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Hi @andrew1 and welcome,

But you do still have to activate FP and VP from within PL if I recall correctly. You do not have to install(or even download) the standalone versions of FP or VP for them to work from within PL.

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I believe that if you download and install them, you get additional functionality in PL6. For example, FP bring a load of additional presets to PL6 and also enables separate microcontrast for Highlights, Midtones and Shadows (under Advanced Settings) and I think that VP adds ReShape.

Clive

All of those additional tools that you mention will be available in PL6 after activation of FP and VP within PL6. The standalones are totally separate. Download and install these only if you, for some reason, need the standalone functionality as e.g. a plugin for LR or PS.

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Ah - yes. My sloppy reply confuses things. No, you don’t have to download and install as Mark says … but you do have to buy! The last sentiment was my intention. I’m not complaining - but it is important to understand that ‘out of the box’, there are some features that PL6 does not have.

Clive

Very true.