Capture One raw conversion

[LESider]

This is hopefully a conversation starter.
I've seen numerous threads where people are trying to figure out how photographers get the skin tone and color shifts in the shadows. We are talking about photographers such as Camilla Akrans, Guy Aroch, Steven Klein ect.
The discussions are always about how to do these adjustments in Photoshop but many fail to realize that the digi-techs for the past 5 or so years have been doing a lot of this color shifting in Capture One during the raw conversion using the channel mixer and curves in the conversion software and this is giving a completely different look than you can get with the same tools after conversion in Photoshop.

I would really like to see some of the Retouch Pro Live events be of the Digi-Techs that are on set with the photographers and how they manage the capture thru conversion of the raw files that they then deliver to the retoucher.

[kav]

Plenty of people use both for conversions, but photoshop is probably more accessible. I like capture one personally, but it's yet another item you pay to keep updated.

[andrewrodney]

Capture One or another raw processor, if the data IS captured in raw, the place to get the best possible non destructive color and tone from the data is in the raw conversion stage.

[LESider]

I guess what I'm getting at is that instead of trying to process the cleanest file from raw is that they are doing major color moves with the converter instead of post conversion in Photoshop and it seems to be done across the board with the major fashion shooters that favor this type of look.

[DJSoulglo]

Every shoot I've been on/retouching project I've been involved in we've looked at the RAW file as a starting point. The digi-tech usually does do some whitebalancing, but mostly just storing and making sure everything is well organised. I've never used their adjustments and I don't know of anyone that has, so I'm not sure how much this happens.

[Tom_Tom]

Ok I am inspired by the tone of Camilla Akrans Numero series seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/inspiri...na/3006795348/

I notice that the shadows are a bit blue but somehow it makes the rest of the skin tones and other tones a bit warm and creamy.

Any idea how to achieve this look though capture one or PS?


I realize proper lighting and exposure play a huge roll but this seems to be an interesting effect.

[RobertAsh]

Looks a bit like split toning, esp. if you click the Older and Newer tabs to see more of her work. She might have added some blue in the shadows, which would automatically make the midtones and highlights appear warmer.

A couple of others look like there might be cross-processing layer at low opacity. I suspect she's using not just a RAW processor but some Photoshop as well.

[LESider]

From what I understand it started with Chad Pitman when he was assisting Greg Kadel, he would play with the Capture One color curves to get an idea of what they wanted while shooting and not having to go into photoshop (I believe Greg was not amused at first), they then realized that they were getting better results doing these major color shifts in C1 than in photoshop. A few other photographers then started doing this, one being camilla akrans.
I believe that this all can be done with photoshop but that some photographers like the look of C1 and that they can be looking at the conversions quickly while shooting tethered.

[RobertAsh]

Understood and agreed. I'm not a Capture One user of the current version (I used Capture One 5 but I moved to DxO Optics Pro when Capture One 6 came out) but the product does a lot. I'm sure I remember it does split toning. You can tone the shadows blue then tone the highlights warmer, and also do image softening. That should approximate the effect pretty well the effect Tom Tom is looking for in Camilla's images.

That said, it's pretty likely Camilla uses Photoshop as well as a raw processor, some of her images look slightly cross-processed and you'd have to manually simulate that in Capture One if it can do it (I've never tried that).

I found Capture One does a better job of rendering colors than Adobe products do, especially skin tones. Adobe products (Lightroom and ACR) also change the camera's JPEG way too much and it's a devil of a time trying to approximate that look again. Capture One does a much better job.

DxO Optics Pro to me gives the nicest, most natural color rendering out of the box and does lens corrections the best I've seen in any product by far.

Also, unlike Capture One, DxO Optics Pro always gives you a fully functional product no matter which product you pick. The only difference in price is in what model camera you use. Full-frame camera version costs more, crop-sensor camera version costs less but both versions have the same full range of functionality.

Capture One only offers crippled functionality in their lower-priced package and saves most of the interesting functionality and flexibility for the more expensive package.

[Tom_Tom]

Thanks Guys,

I tried out the method of independently manipulating the color channels and levels in capture one. After some time I achieved some interesting and pleasurable results.

The most compelling was slightly dropping the red channel curve from middle and then slightly increasing the green and blue with the same middle curve pull, the significantly warming though WB kelvin. The result seemed to add more color depth to the skin tones without changing the overall look very much (except the blue shadows)



@ LESider: Wasn't the independent channel adjustment only available since version #5 ? Less than 2 years ago I believe?


@ Robert Ash: I agree with you about Dx0 It does a great job of conversion especially for colors, distortion and chromatic aberration control. When I tried the demo though, I found that the program could not resolve nearly as much detail and capture one or arc. Do you find this to be true as well?

[RobertAsh]

Originally Posted by Tom_Tom

@ Robert Ash: I agree with you about Dx0 It does a great job of conversion especially for colors, distortion and chromatic aberration control. When I tried the demo though, I found that the program could not resolve nearly as much detail and capture one or arc. Do you find this to be true as well?

Hi Tom,

Actually, I've had great experience in that area as well. I experimented with DxO Optic Pro's sharpening, then did my normal sharpening in Photoshop afterward.

The results were fantastic. In fact, I won a Merit Award in print competition with that print (my first landscape entry into print competition) and none other than the great Hanson Fong (who was a judge that night) told me afterward it looked like I shot it with a 4x5 view camera. I was able to resolve detail and get sharpening using DxO as a starter that I couldn't do with Photoshop alone.

Moreover, I'd used a Nikon DX lens, not a full-frame lens.

That said, I'm a very recent customer of the product and have not used the product long enough to know what kinds of images it consistently works on or doesn't. But it saved my sanity with that image and some others.

[RobertAsh]

Originally Posted by LESider

I guess what I'm getting at is that instead of trying to process the cleanest file from raw is that they are doing major color moves with the converter instead of post conversion in Photoshop and it seems to be done across the board with the major fashion shooters that favor this type of look.

This is an important point.

One factor I suspect may play into this decision is the initial quality of the raw conversion. All raw converters re-render the camera raw file's embedded JPEG - some more, some less. Capture One did a much better job of this for me than Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw did -- especially with skin tones. Lightroom used to ruin my skin tones. I could see the initial JPEG, then see Lightroom re-render it before my very eyes. ACR did the same thing. And I could never fully correct the color cast they imposed. I'm using an Expodisc consistently now for studio work so it's not as big of an issue any more even with Lightroom.

Capture One did re-rendering, too. But it wasn't as obvious and it did a much better job with skin tones, which typically really looked good. When its rendering was off for some images it chose a less offensive path of error (usually some oversaturation and warming) than Adobe's product did.

DxO Optics Pro has a very natural-looking rendering and doesn't do much if anything to the original JPEGs. I haven't tried DxO Optics Pro for skin tones yet, only for landscapes and travel images. Would be worth it for me to give skin tones a try as well at some point.

[LESider]

Originally Posted by Tom_Tom

@ LESider: Wasn't the independent channel adjustment only available since version #5 ? Less than 2 years ago I believe?

I don't know, I do know that Camilla only uses an older version of capture one specifically for highlight and shadow coloring. Apparently on the older versions you can fine tune the individual curves a bit easier.

I am sure that the final coloring/toning and contrast is done in Capture One and photoshop is used for retouching.

[kav]

Originally Posted by LESider

I don't know, I do know that Camilla only uses an older version of capture one specifically for highlight and shadow coloring. Apparently on the older versions you can fine tune the individual curves a bit easier.

I am sure that the final coloring/toning and contrast is done in Capture One and photoshop is used for retouching.

Thinking..... version 5 added the independent channel adjustments. Version 4 was the basis for capture one 5 and 6. Version 3 and before used a bit different layout with a lower resolution preview. It did have a slightly different look to color/contrast and the resolution output numbers were just slightly different. I would guess this would mean something like version 3 although it lacked individual channel adjustment. I could be wrong on this though. The default settings on version 3 and before are a bit too processed for my taste. If you adjust the sharpening though and tone down the noise/banding reduction it can still look really good. I just hated it when I'd receive over processed files with blown highlights rather than a raw.

[ftp-Jeff]

Capture one is a great tool... The DigiTechs may play around a tad to get a look for the client. But they rarely get into processing the images out. I do that for my clients.

It can be used to great effect... I am lucky, I always have the latest version given to me. Capture One use our studio to promote and train... So I get free upgrades and training on each release!