New Raw Editor - Capture One

New Camera, New RAW Editor

I recently upgraded my camera and thought this was a good opportunity to re-evaluate my choice of RAW editing software. In the past I tried a few open source options, RawTherapee and darktable. They are both pretty good but I was missing a few features that forced me to keep falling back on Photoshop plus Camera RAW and I never got used to the in my view slightly confusing interfaces.

Eventually I gave Phase One’s Capture One 30 days demo a go. It loads quick, the interface is super responsive and most importantly everything was just were I would expect it to be. One of my main criteria when testing a new tool is usually how far along do I get until I need to ask Google. In the case of Capture One pretty much everything is self-explanatory. I watched some tutorials to improve my workflows but that’s about it.

There’s one big drawback and that is the price. Capture One is more expensive than most of its competitors including Lightroom. That been said, as a Sony or Fujifilm user you can get a discounted version that only supports their RAW files. Since I’ve been using Sony cameras for the past 10 years I’ve decided to go with this option. There is also a free Express version which is missing layers, masking and tethering features but has most of the grading tool. So if you are just starting out with RAW editing or generally limit your editing to grading this might be your choice.

As always there’s a few features that would be nice to have such as merging different exposures and stitching panoramas inside Capture One. Hopefully plug-ins will provide solutions in the near future.

Coming Soon…

I’m about to start writing an overview of the Capture One features. It should pop up here in the coming days!