The first steps.
Capture One Pro 12 is an unique image editing software (perhaps the best for me) and one of the few that let us choose the way we want to work, the way we want our workspace. This is helpful for those who come from others softwares and it’s done easily.
Cmd+Shift+T and we switch places between the Tools and the Browser. Cmd+Shift+B and we place the Browser either at left or bottom. Cmd+B, we show or hide the Browser. Cmd+T, same for the Tools. Cmd+Alt+V calls the Viewer and so we understand that everything is in one place, in Capture One Pro.
Tools tabs can be reordered (Cmd+Drag), deleted and added. Tools in each tab can be reordered, deleted, added, duplicated and transformed into floating tools.
Why these two last options ? Because, as above, we can then stack the same tool and show different tabs at the same time. Above all, because we can expand the tool and be more precise. Both useful for Curve and Color Balance tools.
Once we find our perfect workspace, we save it and we will be able to load it on other computers to feel “at home”. Now we are ready for the next crucial thing, the Proof Profile.
The Proof Profile.
Capture One Pro works in a very large color space, similar to that captured by camera sensors, but displays images in the Viewer in a defined color space, which we have to know. Capture One Pro allows you to select it either permanently or by the selected process recipe and it is a crucial thing to set, especially for those who work on a large gamut monitor.
My choice is to select permanently a Profoto RGB color space, or the more advanced ProStar RGB and eciRGBv2 color spaces, by View > Proof Profile and Relative Colorimetric for the rendering intent, by Preferences > Color. Then we can create our first process recipe as for instance an Jpeg sRGB export and use the Recipe Proofing with Cmd+Shift+ to display temporarily the images in sRGB color space. We understand now that we can create many process recipes in order to display temporarily our images in different color spaces we need.
Don’t forget that all keyboard shortcuts that I write here are by default but can be changed. And I changed them a lot, saved them and load them on other computers to feel again “at home”.
The appearance.
The appearance of our image is important, crucial. Our eyes work in relative mode, not absolute. What does it mean ? Have you ever experimented a bad image becoming a good image just by looking at it in a continuous and stable manner ? To properly evaluate our image, we need to compare it frequently through different ways to look at.
In Preferences (Cmd+,), we can under the appearance tab choose the color surrounding our image in the Viewer, from black to white and the size of the Proof Margin, from 0 to 900px. So every 10 minutes, I change these values in order to refresh my eyes.
The Exposure Warnings.
With Cmd+E, we call the exposure warnings but by default Capture One Pro don’t show us the shadows one. By Preferences > Exposure, we can add it and choose for both the thresholds, 250 for highlights and 5 for shadows being a good starting point.
The different Histograms.
In Capture One Pro, we don’t have one histogram but four !
The Exposure Evaluation tool show us the actual RAW data information with the selected Film Curve and the White Balance. The Levels tool, add exposure, contrast, saturation, brightness, HDR, Vignetting and Clarity settings to the histogram. However, it excludes itself. The Curve tool, add any adjustments done to the black and white point.
Lastly the Histogram tool reflects all adjustments applied on top of the RAW data and ICC profiles.
I wish you the best.
Capture One Pro 12 is my number one software to edit my images, because of its ergonomic and its science.
I wish you as much pleasure in your post-production work as I have.
