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Need Capture One Help, Please!

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tonyroth

Guest
I have spend significant time learning how to perfect my photos in capture one. Now, for the first time, after a couple of months of shooting and learning Capture 1, I have taken the next step and started to process the files into jpeg's/tiff's. Unfortunately, when they show up on the other side of the processing step, they look terrible -- even if i process as a 16 bit tiff, and nothing like how they looked before "processing". They seem to loose all of their magic, they look soft (ie, loose all of their sharpness), less contrast, etc. Am I doing something wrong? Please help me, how do i get the beautiful images that I see in my C1 session windows into a format that I can post on-line and or use to make prints?

Thanks!
 

thomas

New member
I have spend significant time learning how to perfect my photos in capture one. Now, for the first time, after a couple of months of shooting and learning Capture 1, I have taken the next step and started to process the files into jpeg's/tiff's. Unfortunately, when they show up on the other side of the processing step, they look terrible -- even if i process as a 16 bit tiff, and nothing like how they looked before "processing". They seem to loose all of their magic, they look soft (ie, loose all of their sharpness), less contrast, etc. Am I doing something wrong? Please help me, how do i get the beautiful images that I see in my C1 session windows into a format that I can post on-line and or use to make prints?

Thanks!
First two things to check...:
- check view -> proof profile / "selected recipe" should be selected (what's the color space you are processing to?)
- as to sharpening: check the output tab -> process recipe; "disable shapening" must be deselected if you want the sharpening to be applied to the processed files.

In general you should view the images in C1 at 25% viewing size or higher.
First up from 25% a highres image is displayed.

Other things to consider:
1. C1 displays a preview, not the actual (final) image. This preview has far lower bit depth as the processed file. This is actually not an issue as the previews are very accurate. However the blacks may show posterization, i.e. below a certain value there is no differentiation anymore in dark tonal values. So if your images contain a lot of blacks and/or deep shadows these areas look very bold in C1 but in the final file in Photoshop they show more differentiation in the shadows; i.e. they look less contrasty.

2. C1 has quite a dark and contrasty interface. If you work in C1 for some time (half an hour or longer) you are adapting to these viewing conditions. Now if you open the files in Photoshop they may appear softer... simply because Photoshop by default is much brighter and softer.
My advice is to set a brighter background in C1 (preferences -> appearance -> color; set at least "medium" if not "light") and to set Photoshop's background to the same value. Too, I'd use the "proof margin" in C1 so that the image is always displayed with a border - if the image is next to the browser and/or the tools it is distracting.
You may find that sounds strange and superfluous... but in my experience a lot of "color issues" in C1 are related to the viewing in C1.
 
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tonyroth

Guest
Thanks Thomas for the reply.

I am processing to sRGB. Selected Recipe was not selected -- it is now, but doesn't seem to make a difference. Disable sharpening was not selected. But what seems to be happening is that the sharpening doesn't seem to be making its way through to the processed image. I tried LR3.0 (beta) and I have the exact same problem. I "develop" the image, get it looking nice and sharp, then output it and the result looks much softer than the developed version in LR, even if i save it as a 16 bitt tiff. Should this be happening? By the way, the output colors are more or less ok. Any other thoughts? Thanks, tony.
 
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tonyroth

Guest
By the way, I also tried using the mac Grab utility and the resultant JPEG, which is 330k as opposed to 110mb (tiff), looks great (ie, nice and sharp), though it won't scale up at all bc the resolution is so low.
 
T

tonyroth

Guest
Ok, some more information. If I process the image as a "JPEG Quick Proof", then all the sharpening is preserved and the image looks better than if I process it through the normal methods. Does this help diagnose whats happening at all? Thanks.
 

thomas

New member
what seems to be happening is that the sharpening doesn't seem to be making its way through to the processed image. I tried LR3.0 (beta) and I have the exact same problem. I "develop" the image, get it looking nice and sharp, then output it and the result looks much softer than the developed version in LR, even if i save it as a 16 bitt tiff. Should this be happening?
sounds strange.
The output of C1 and LR look soft in which software exactly... Photoshop?
 

thomas

New member
If I process the image as a "JPEG Quick Proof", then all the sharpening is preserved and the image looks better than if I process it through the normal methods. Does this help diagnose whats happening at all?
not really. The "quick proof" is a JPG at reduced size (the size is the same that you set for the previews in C1 under preferences->general->cache->preview size).
I guess there is something strange with the viewing/zooming in the application you use to view/edit the final image. So again: Photoshop? Are you using CS4 and is OpenGL enabled?
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Might help if you posted some of your jpeg examples so we know what you mean by "terrible" ;)
 
T

tonyroth

Guest
ok, thanks Thomas -- I need to play around with things based on your input but I am taking my family out for the day so i'll do it tonight and post my results -- thanks so much for your help!
 
T

tonyroth

Guest
Thomas (et al....). So here is what I did to try and figure out what is going on. I export a file as a 16 bit tiff from C1 to LR. I then import into LR and saved as a JPEG. I then import the JPEG back into C1 to compare against the original DNG (with adustments). I made no adjustments in LR, just ran it through and saved it as a jpeg. (I suppose I probably could have omit the LR steps all together, just processed a jpeg out of C1 and re-import it into C1 and would have observed the same behavior).

When i compare 100% crops of the two images in C1, the files look identical (or nearly so, no material diffs that I can discern). Same at 50% magnification. However, when I get down to 25%, the jpeg starts to show softness relative to the dng. By the time I get down to normal size (ie, no magnification), the dng looks much sharper than the jpeg. This all seems sort of "ironic" to me as i had thought that may programs (eg, raw developer) actually do not show the sharpening being performed on raw files unless you are displaying a 100% crop. But here, for some reason the dng is showing the sharpening all the way down to small size and the jpeg somehow is not.

So I'm sure this is all perfectly normal, but I don't understand it. Can anyone pls explain what's happening here?

Many thanks, tony.

ps: happy to post images if necessary, but I would image this behavior applies to any capture run through the following steps and those more knowledgeable than myself will understand what's happening without needing to look at images....
 
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