Capture One 21 Update: What's in a dot?
UPDATE 2: After digging, it seems the issue happens only on manually sorted albums. I say “only” but this is a gigantic issue for me—in fact, it’s the entire point of album creation: sequencing. So I’m hoping this gets resolved asap. If you haven’t updated and this is as important to you as it is to me: wait. Right now, the only way to export images that respect a custom order is to do it one file at a time (with the export counter changing between each one).
IMPORTANT UPDATE: I’ve just realized that the new export window doesn’t respect the sort order of images AND doesn’t offer sort options. Unless I’m missing something, this is a terrible bug or omission. I’ll update when new info becomes available.
When Capture One’s last major update came out, I’ll be honest, it left me a bit cold. Speed Edit—one of its biggest new features—didn’t much appeal to me, and still doesn’t. Custom brushes, while interesting, never found their way into my regular workflow either. I use them—just not very often.
Looking back, however, the reason behind the less sprawling update becomes clear: C1’s codebase was undergoing a major overhaul for Apple Silicon, a revision which ended up extending to all versions of the application, on every platform. As an M1 Air owner, I can tell you that this, alone, was worth a few less bells and whistles on that initial release. And as we now know, the work that was done for this transition will have important repercussions on the future roadmap.
It’s also becoming increasingly obvious that the era of the yearly cycle is coming to an end. With subscriptions more and more prevalent, users expect features to trickle out as they become available, regardless of how sweeping they may be. We expect iteration. It’s much less spectacular than a grand reveal on an appointed date, but it’s probably much easier—and safer—to manage in terms of software development.
Which brings us to today’s release of Capture One 21 (14.3.0)—and if you’re confused by the naming scheme, don’t worry, so am I. Bottom line: it’s the latest one.
It also packs quite a punch.
Output is dead—long live export
Capture One’s Output tab was always extremely powerful: using recipes (presets in LR speak), the app could export to multiple locations and formats at once, creating naming schemes and generating subfolders along the way, all of this using a vast array of metadata-based tokens. Mind-boggling possibilities for anyone willing to dig deep enough. But all of this power came at the cost of a mostly confusing interface.
Much, much simpler.
The main source of this confusion? The fact that recipes didn’t include naming or export locations. Obviously, there were workarounds: we could talk about Sub Name tokens vs Output Naming, and the Root Folder tab, and how this would supersede Output Location even though it wasn’t active…but I won’t because none of that is relevant anymore: every export recipe now includes an individual naming scheme AND a save location. Confusion, be gone: when you create an export recipe, you decide everything in advance, including where the files will be saved.
For new users, this is an important change. The same goes for existing users who never bothered deciphering the Output tab’s dark arts (it certainly took me a while). And for those of us who’d gotten used to C1’s quirks, nothing is lost: the power’s still there (1). The experience, however, is cleaner and simpler—for everyone.
One change I’ll personally need to get used to: Export is no longer part of a tab, but launches in its own, individual window. I’m not crazy about this, mainly because that window doesn’t appear modal, but it behaves like it is: Capture One’s interface is mostly unavailable while the export window is open. Lightroom users will be used to this—but I preferred the old way.
The change may be due to the proofing viewer ability of this new export window: by default, images automatically display how exported files will appear when you select a recipe. This was possible in previous versions (and still is) by toggling the Recipe Proofing function, but this approach is much more obvious and natural. So, I can live with it.
Overall, Export is a big improvement.
Magic Brush: get yer masks on
Capture One’s masking was always extremely powerful. Wait…didn’t I just write those same words about Output? Yup. Because there’s a thread flowing through this release: power, revealed. Advanced C1 users knew how to create complex layer masks, using the myriad of tools available in the app:
Auto Mask, in brushes.
Luma mask, in layers.
Refine Mask, in layers.
Feather Mask, in layers.
Colour-based masks, in the Advanced Colour Editor.
It’s all still there. But the Magic Brush takes all of those functions (2), and rolls them into a single, easy to use tool. We’re talking Auto Mask on steroids. It’s also faster and much more intuitive, which will make masking, as a whole, a lot easier for a lot of people.
Here’s an excerpt from the release notes:
The new Magic Brush makes brushing areas of similar color fast and simple. Simply draw a line or a doodle on the area you wish the mask to cover and Capture One will fill the area automatically.
That’s about it. I’ll probably write more extensively on this feature once I’ve spent more time with it, but here’s a quick video I made to give you an idea:
If you leave Sample Entire Photo unchecked, the Magic Brush will only select contiguous areas, which is also very useful. Below is a test image on which I created two Magic Brush layers:
On the first layer, I checked Sample Entire Photo and brushed part of a face in the foreground: all faces were automatically added to the mask and I dropped the saturation.
On the second layer I unchecked Sample Entire Photo, brushed the red area on the Shoppers Drug Mart sign and dropped the brightness.
These images are screenshots btw, so forgive the lower quality.
Original image.
Layer One: skin tones.
Layer two: the red sign.
I’ve always used gradients and luma masks extensively when I’m making local adjustments, much more than the brush. But I’ve remapped the B keyboard shortcut to Magic Brush. I expect a lot of use from this tool.
Conclusion
There’s more in this update:
Show images in subfolders (a behaviour most people expected, so this removes potential confusion for new users).
Synchronize new subfolders (which I will likely use extensively). (3)
Tethering improvements (some of which are specific to Fujifilm cameras).
Capture One Live (which I couldn’t test at the time of writing, so I’m not clear on what it brings beyond the description).
But the takeaway, for me, is that I’ll actually be using most of these new features daily. These aren’t additions I’ll forget after a few days, as I go about my usual workflow. So, what’s in a dot? A lot, actually. It turns out that Capture One 21—as of July 2021, with this and previous point updates—is a pretty massive release.
It just needed a bit more time to get there.
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FYI: if you’re interested in the software, or any other product on the Capture One website, you can use the code LAROQUE10 for a 10% discount (this is part of their affiliate program, so I’ll get a small kickback as well).
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Make sure to activate the “Show All Options” button at the bottom of the new export window: this provides access to the advanced features we’re accustomed to.
Well, Luma Mask is based on luminance so that one’s a bit different.
We could already synchronize an existing folder, if it existed in a catalog. So let’s say you’d imported images from a Cancun folder on your hard drive: if you later added images to this folder (outside of C1), hitting Synchronize would scan for new images and import them into your catalog. But if instead you added a Beach subfolder with new images, inside the Cancun folder, the Synchronize function wouldn’t detect them. Now it will: the new subfolder and its images will be detected and added to the catalog. This opens up nice possibilities in terms of workflow and organization.
