Tangent Element thoughts

[gerald.d]

Hi all -

This week I took delivery of the Mf and Kb panels, and am really impressed with the integration with Capture One. To be able to go full screen and hide all panels but the Viewer and then start working on the RAW is a real game-changer.

As with all first releases, there are a few things that I've come across that I feel could be improved. I've fed back the below thoughts to my dealer, but I think it's worth using the forum to share them for end-user feedback and also to gather other people's thoughts in one place as well.

So here's my thoughts after a few days...

• Overall, really really happy. A real game-changer for processing RAWs - going full screen and getting rid of all the panels except for the viewer is amazing!
• It seems that not every option can be programmed to a button. Specifically, it would be great if all toggles could be mapped. Unless I'm missing something, Chromatic Aberration, Diffraction Correction are amongst those missing.
• One thing I would really appreciate is the ability to map more things to the wheel and trackball on the Mf. Specifically, I'd like to be able to set the wheel to zoom (this works), and then use the trackball to pan around the image (can't see a way to do this). Basically I'd like to go completely keyboard and mouse-free, and use the Tangent for all settings and navigation, and then use my pen purely as a brush or for selection of a point on the image (I use a Microsoft Surface Book).
• Is there a way of implementing the ALT-Undo functionality on the knobs? For every panel in C1, you can ALT-click on the undo button to toggle the effect of the edit in that panel. To be able to do this at the knob level would be massively useful. Currently clicking the knob resets to 0. Maybe a long-press could be implemented for the ALT-undo functionality (i.e. whilst the knob is pressed in, the setting reverts to the default; when you release the knob, the setting reverts to what you had it set at.
• The value shown on the panel for Kelvin is not the same as the actual colour temperature setting. Not sure what is going on here.
• Finally (for now - I'm sure there will be more thoughts to come!) - there definitely needs to be some way to turn off the Tangent input to Capture One when the Capture One window is not the active desktop window. As it works at the moment, I can minimise Capture One, but the panels are still fully functional. It's all too easy to accidentally change a setting without realising you've done it!

Look forward to others sharing there thoughts. Additionally, if anyone has any questions about functionality, please don't hesitate to ask.

Kind regards,


Gerald.

 

[Christopher]

I have all of the panels and love it. Not only for capture one. Even in photoshop it's really nice to have.

The one thing I REALLY find missing in C1 is that there is NO mapping for the Color correction tool...

Otherwise it has changed everything and is making image editing so muc more fun again. Now if C1 would have a debate function at well I wouldn't need to go through one addition al step....

 

[MILESF]

I have the Element package but am only using Mf, Bt and Kb so far.

I have been working on culling 16 years of digital images and buidling a "Best of" catalog in C1. The Tangent products have made this so much easier and I am very pleased with the product. Over time I will probably build three different Control Maps. One for thinning out the archive, one for Sessions and one for final editing of individual images. (I tend to work in Sessions for each trip, subject or project and bring everything into a Catalog some time later for the final archive).

I agree that there seem to be some options that can't be mapped. For instance it is easy to add layers but I can't find a way to map the "Minus (-)" to delete a layer.

One other feature that I would like is to be able duplicate or copy and paste Banks. I don't think the P1 webinar mentions that you can add Banks by Ctrl Clicking on a Bank in the Mapper tool. At present it seems you have to populate a new bank from scratch. Rather like with C1 workspaces I can see myself having three different Control maps for the threee different workflows mentioned above. You can use Save As to create a new Control Map and then edit that but it's a bit clumsy. The few times I have used the panels for subtle, final editing so far they have been very useful for making for minor adjustments. I found myself quickly moving away from the Default Control Map that P1 have developed which I think means even more flexibilty for the C1 user.

There have been occasions when the panels seem to have had trouble keeping up with the speed at which I was assigning Ratings and Colour Tags. This was because I had Colour Tags on the main screen and the Rating on the Alt button. So it was easily solved by programming the buttons slightly differently.

I can't see a need for Modes but perhaps they come into their own for systems with multiple users.

The Mapper app seems to work well and changes show up immediately on the panels. The iPad app is only so-so. Buttons work well but knobs are not so easy on the touch screen.

Overall, I am very happy with the purchase. i don't think they work yet with Photoshop though.