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.