Capture One Pro just released its newest version 9.
https://www.phaseone.com/en/Products/Software/Capture-One-Pro/Highlights.aspx
Check out what’s new:
https://www.phaseone.com/en/Products/Software/Capture-One-Pro/Whats-new.aspx
Capture One tutorials with version 9.
https://www.phaseone.com/en/Products/Software/Capture-One-Pro/Tutorials.aspx
Looks like they made some nice changes and took steps in the right direction as a more robust DAM. Seemed snappier too in the brief moment I had to play with it. I'll have to load it down and see if I'm right.
What would you say are the most notable changes? I just downloaded the trial and this is the first time I’ve giving it a thorough workout.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/studio460/
Derrick Story says C1 version 9 will probably be his Aperture replacement. Has a Lynda Tutorial coming out as well. Will still use Photos.
Capture One is a great Aperture replacement. It's more like Aperture than Lr. It's gradually filling in DAM holes that make it a better replacement. It also has features that people wanted to see in Aperture. The new tool enhancements and additions are pretty cool. And the look out of the RAW processor is beautiful.
But after spending a long time away from Aperture, I recently came back for a specific need. You quickly realize what you miss. Software changes fast and we probably won't miss it in two years. But Aperture was just a well designed tool. C1 is powerful but it's also quirky. Aperture, by comparison, is elegant. As they keep adding to Photos, I hope we see some of that return over there. Those Macphun extensions to Photos are pretty fun and compelling already.
I have to agree with both of your points. It’s the closest thing to Aperture we’re ever going to get. At first, I was like “WTF?” with its interface–I couldn’t just double-click, for example, to switch from the browser to the viewer, but now I actually really like the scrolling browser window at the bottom of the screen–and being able to make it disappear. Different approach, and not necessarily a bad one. But, now I get it a little more and actually like it. I also really like the disappearing adjustments/inspector panel (or whatever you call it). I think that’s a very successful UI design element because I can from “adjustments” to “full-screen” very quickly, and without a key-press. I just wish the entire screen weren’t so f’ing dark (makes it more intimidating).
One good thing to come of all this is that I’ve realized what a poor RAW developer OS X’ built-in conversion engine actually is for getting accurate skin tones under certain conditions. C1 is far better at rendering pleasing skin tones than the Aperture/Photos developer is under more varied lighting conditions:
The series from which the above image was taken was particularly difficult to get the skin tones to render correctly for whatever reason (shot on a Nikon D800E with a standard studio strobe). Aperture’s default RAW conversion kept turning the subject’s skin reddish-brown. As detailed in another thread, I still had to send an exported 16-bit TIFF back to Aperture so that I could use Imagenomic’s Portraiture plug-in (which further helped the overall skin tonality).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/studio460/
Hi, just FYI
I downloaded the 30 day trial version, and I spent 5 days trying to import my Aperture Libs into C1. But I gave up.
I must admit that the tools to enhance an image look and work great.
But importing an Aperture Library is a pain…
First I tried a small one (5.000 images), after 2 or 3 tries I succeeded.
I did found some irregularities in the Aperture Lib that made C1 “unexpected quit”.
After I solved those, I succeeded.
But my main Aperture Lib (55.000 images, referenced) I failed to import.
Either C1 quit during importing, or C1 used so much memory my system (2011 iMac with 12GB) stalled and I had to kill it.
Once I got through importing but during preview generation Activity Monitor said it was using 80GB of memory, and the system halted.
I then decided to export my Aperture Lib into smaller Aperture Libs, of about 15.000 images.
But when importing the second one C1 “unexpected quit” again, and I was unable to start C1 again. No matter what Catalog I tried to open.
So I have given up for now.
I did enter a ticket at Phaseone stating so, and promised I would try again with a newer version of Release 9.
So for the time being I am back at Aperture again.
What a lovely program it is…..
Jan Wessel
The processing engine is stepped up and you have a few more controls to get at it. I put an old crappy image through it and came away with something much better than I expected. Some great lens corrections and fixes. It's not DxO ViewPoint but I'll reach for that far less (if ever) now that C1 has stepped up its game. That's the thing overall. I'm reaching for outside tools less and less with C1.
BUT if you're bringing over old Aperture or C1, I've found it isn't working well with some of my libraries/catalogs/sessions. I'd stick with 8 and let it settle down a little first. 9 is still a bit rough. New stuff is fine. But I've had to go back to the backup and 8 on several converted collections.
Sorry to jump in so late. I’m trying to squeeze another year out of Aperture, but I don’t know whether I will be able to use the program with the D5, and since it’s a new year, maybe it’s time to look seriously at beginning with something new.
I do mostly high-volume event photography, and rely heavily on Aperture’s DAM aspect, as well as its ability to create adjustment presets and then stamp images with them (I shoot all RAW). Could either of you comment on C1P9’s ability to handle this task?
Thanks in advance
Gordon
I do volume work (mostly school portrait and some affiliated sports leagues) and it has been a mixed bag. Part of that is I'm running on rapidly aging iMacs. I've had speed issues (that began with Ps) and that required moving to SSD's and SSHD RAIDs to get a little more out of my older hardware. SSD's are my boot and transfer “cartridges” (via Firewire). The bulk of the images sit on SSHD RAIDs so it's unstable (I'm religious about backup) but faster than my old HD configurations. So with that in mind…
I think it is a good solution and will get better as catalogs gain maturity and I'm able to upgrade to faster machines. It does suck on the machine but its not the dog I find with Ps and Lr. Does wonderful processing and is just short of DxO in noise reduction when you work it. I'm reaching for supporting tools less and less. And our return rate hovers at something like .02%. People remark at how our product is so much better than previous providers. Aperture and now C1 has been a big part of that.
I've grown to appreciate Sessions as a volume work solution. Moving catalogs back forth as I used to move libraries is not quite as developed in C1. You can export and import but it seems to not quite sync up. But sessions have a lot of advantages over the library approach. You get much of the organization of a library without the mass. It's also instantly accessible when you need pull something out or do some weeding for long term archiving. I can slap a session on a SSD in a lot less time than I used to do with Aperture libraries. So my longer term goal is to archive the best from my sessions into a unified catalog but I need more time to fiddle with that.
Meta info has improved but I'm still in Photo Mechanic for the bulk of that. It's just better than Aperture ever was and has more oomph than C1. But I'll do more with barcodes off the screen and directly into C1 next fall. C1 9 did catch up with a lot of Aperture meta features.
I find application of any settings across a batch of images easier in C1. Some of that is just getting used to the tool. But it's also fast. Select, click, and go and it's faster than I ever was with lift and stamp.
They aren't in a cloud based solution but I love being able to slap a batch of images into C1 and instantly have access to rating hundreds of images on the iPad on the internal network within seconds. No waiting for it to sync online. Theoretically you could run it on an internal NAS as a shared environment but my tests showed that as incredibly slow. But the software supports the possibility.
We're our own lab but I still find that Aperture has the best printing engine I have ever used of any tool. Far more accurate than Ps once calibrated. C1 printing is pretty similar but a little more quirky in layout adjustments. I haven't nailed down the workflow yet. Aperture is starting to slide out from underneath me with each system update so my printing machine is not on El Capitan yet. Colorsync is broken somehow for Aperture in El Cap. I'm going to miss Aperture for printing. Once you knew the best approach, Aperture was just rock solid across thousands of prints.
If you work volume, you know that you'll find bugs when you are doing the same things over and over again. C1 has bugs like any package and you'll scratch your head at them. I hit an export quirk in C1 8 that drove me nuts until I realized what was happening. It's probably fixed by now. The Aperture interface is far more elegant and well thought out. But C1 is extremely powerful and configurable. Loves multi screens. Lots of approaches that replace Photoshop. Lots of workflow options once you leave PSD behind. Give it a trial and some time to learn it and I think you'll appreciate it for the volume work you are doing.
Tim, thanks for taking the time to post. There’s a lot of great information for me to consider. I moved from Nikon Capture/View the first day our local Apple store started selling the original Aperture boxed program (I think is was $500) and I have never used any other DAM program since.
One other major workflow item I forgot to touch on is importing in the field. I have my laptop set up backstage, and during the event I will dump cards directly into a preconfigured library on my travel drive (I import and save the files (jpg/nef pairs) as managed files). Aperture saves a backup copy to a second drive during import.
Does C1P9 handle this task pretty quickly and reliably? My cards are a mix of 128, 64, and 32s, and I’m getting around 1.25 to 1.5 TB of data per show. I’m sure it will go up of course with the D5.
Thanks again,
Gordon
I'm probably not your best source of info on this since I'm running through Photo Mechanic at that stage. PM will handle all that very quickly and efficiently and it leaves me with exactly what I want, where I want it, and with all the critical and detailed meta information taken care of. It's light and should run fine on your laptop while dumping your backup copy to a second drive. After that PM stage, I import into C1 while leaving the meta labelled “originals” untouched. In doing so, all my images are sorted, filed, and somewhat application agnostic. While I second guessed this extra step for a while, that doubt ended when Apple discontinued Aperture.
At a glance, C1 does appear to have what you likely need for import with back up. You can set up import templates for organization though I personally like and use the session defaults. I am shooting in pairs as a rough failsafe but these days my JPEGs never leave the card or ingest folder unless I'm doing something out of the ordinary. My rough memory is that C1 does not handle pairs as efficiently as we had in Aperture.
I suppose you can do this in other ways in other tools but I do really like the capture->selects->output workflow built in to in C1 sessions. It makes it easier to deep archive old stuff, keep the valuable stuff handy, and have ready access to your finals. It's more work (and more unstable) to do this in Aperture libraries. If Apple brought back Aperture, C1 sessions would be the one thing that might make me pause. I think it's great for volume work and now prefer it.