A Very Quick Look at Capture One 20
And I do mean very quick. I’ve been using Capture One 20 exclusively since its release and the transition has been absolutely painless—as it should be. There are obviously several enhancements throughout but as far as I’m concerned, the update contains three standout features i.e things that have immediately made an impact on my workflow.
The Crop Tool
It’s a small detail but the crop tool now displays clear, easy to manipulate corner handles. I had gotten used to the cursor hunting of the previous versions but damn...finally. Another change? Hitting return applies the crop. Let me repeat that: hitting return applies the crop. 'Nuff said.
The Scrolling UI
Customization has always been one of the hallmarks of the Capture One interface: from keyboard shortcuts to every single tool the app offers, it can all be transformed to fit a user’s preferred way of working. Capture One 20 now introduces scrollable areas in every tool tab. So not only can we create tabs containing specific tools, but it’s now also possible to either pin them at the top or make them part of a scrollable area.
In order to use this, you’ll need to revisit workspaces to add the functionality (click on any tool’s ellipsis and select Move Tool to Scrollable Area). I’ve already eliminated certain tabs as a result of these changes.
The New High Dynamic Range Tool
This is the big one as far as I’m concerned: a complete overhaul of this extremely important tool. If you’re not familiar with C1, the name of this tool can be a little misleading: it has nothing to do with what is commonly know as HDR. Sure, you could push this like crazy and get seriously garish. But it’s basically always been a more refined set of controls over shadows and highlights. Now however, the tool has been enhanced with two major changes: the addition of black and white sliders, along with the ability to use negative values on each of the four sliders. If you’re coming from LR this likely feels a lot more familiar. There’s nothing here that couldn’t previously be achieved with either levels or curves in previous versions—hell, anything can be achieved with levels or curves. But the point is always to get results quickly as much as accurately, and I’ve already taken to using all of these sliders in tandem. They all complete one another. A few examples below of the Black and Shadow sliders interacting on an image...
As you can see, the range of the new Black tool is more subtle than the Shadow slider.
So these are the features that have made their way into my day to day workflow. Of course there are others: copying/pasting layers no longer replaces existing layers on the destination (which is pretty huge) PLUS individual layers can be checked/unchecked during the operation; noise reduction has been improved; background colour can be changed by right-clicking anywhere in the viewer window (love this); and there’s a new mouse-driven basic colour editor—I still prefer using the Advanced panel but this is nice.
More info about all of this is available on the company’s official website (affiliate link).
…
Five days to Christmas. Yesterday Day One showed me last year’s post from December 19th, a bittersweet reflection on the final loss of Santa in our household. I’d forgotten already. Crazy how easily we move with life’s inevitable currents, how everything quickly becomes our new normal. We are adaptive animals, forever mutating, searching and hoping for happiness. So I’ll wish you all just that, as cliché and conventional as it may be: happiness. Go crazy if you need to—’tis the season after all.
Thx for everything and see you all soon :)
