Phase One verses Adobe
What is the biggest advantage of using Phase One over converting in Photoshop? Is it really worth the extra investment ? Help me decide. Camera used - Nikon D1X -
I am just getting started in the photography business - I shoot funiture in a studio setting and hope to branch out as my skills grow.
Thanks
I am just getting started in the photography business - I shoot funiture in a studio setting and hope to branch out as my skills grow.
Thanks
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It's a big advantage of using C1 soft versus PS camera raw. Just download a trial version and try it 0 -
I guarantee the Phase One software will do wonders for your D1X. We were about to give up on the D1X when we stared running the files through the Capture One software. Its like getting a new camera. Highly recommended. 0 -
I'm sitting here with a $500 piece of specialty software and a $200 contract for 3.7 plus 5 upgrades after that. Response time from Phase One is slow on bugs and there is a hell of a wait between upgrades. PO's \"affiliate\" (agent? sales rep?, resller?- anyway, some connection) who ran a support site in the U.S. has now switched to selling a competing product for Windows, and nothing for the Mac. Oh yeah, and many of us felt the need to purchase camera profiles from a third party, because CO's were insufficient.
Photoshop, which is only slightly more expensive than CO, and which most photographers NEED anyway, keeps getting better. Upgrades aren't all that expensive (cheap for the package). ACR also just keeps getting better, and now batch processes.
CO has a great workflow. Once you get used to it, sessions are pretty good, and stay with the files. I am not ready to say I don't prefer the CO conversions (but the competition is close or equal).
What's my point? Fair question. CO has to get off the stick. Cut out those 35 hour work weeks folks. If you just want to sell backs-fine. If you want to sell software to DSLR shooters you need the following, and you need it fast:
1) Fix the bugs in 3.7-NOW
2) Make sure it handles tethered shooting for Canon-and faster than DPP-NOW
3) It needs to run faster, and needs to use less disk space for profiles and thumbnails.
4) I shouldn't need to buy profiles-yours should be excellent right out of the box.
5) Make sure that your employees (who need to read flawless English for the US market-and flawless everything else where you have markets) monitor your support forum and respond-FAST. This is a premium product-support it.
So, to answer the original question, CO could be a worthwile addition to photoshop. If they improve their performancce, that is. Also, since you are a Nikon shooter, add tethered shooting for Nikons.0 -
Hi Jane,
There's a couple of things you need to consider before you buy and each program has strengths and weaknesses (as they all do).
First, I recommend downloading trial versions of each program and dive in. Give yourself plenty of uninterrupted time,too.
C1DSLR has an excellent algorithm for computing the colors from a raw file. Most everyone agrees that the qualities of a C1DSLR file look better than one from an ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) file. However, the evaluation is very subjective and ultimately you need to decide for yourself.
C1DSLR uses a combined histogram and curve, with input/output values, to modify an image. ACR uses sliders. I prefer the tools of C1DSLR, but once you get used to one way of working, you'll begin honing your skills and you'll be comfortable with what you do.
C1DSLR never touches a raw file. That means that for every raw file on your hard drive there will be a \"settings\" file, a \"thumbnail\" file and a \"preview\" file. All this stuff is organized in a folder system that can baffle the casual user. If you want to copy a file from one folder to another, you must do so within C1DSLR so that it will move the associated files with the raw file. Many people hate this, but I don't mind. The computer does all the work and it's no big deal. ACR, on the other hand, uses one of two methods to associate settings with a raw file: and XML \"sidecar\" or by acturally changing the raw file itself by adding the appropriate ACR info (this might have changed since v2.4, though). I don't know what Nikon's software does, but Canon's software modifies the raw file also. This is frowned upon becuase years down the road you may want access to this data and the \"extra\" information may render the file useless (this is the basis for the \"digital negative\" file format standard that Adobe is pushing for).
C1DSLR uses camera profiles to get images into an ICC profiled workflow. Adobe uses a \"calibration\" panel because they believe that all cameras & lenses are different, even between the same models. In the circles of \"color professionals\" there is much heated debate over this. So far, results are subjective and must be evaluated by each user on their own. Adobe's approach is probably more technically correct, but I haven't used the calibration panel enough to know.
Photoshop will cost you about $200 per copy every other year if you want to stay on the upgrade path. C1DSLR has cost me $700 ($500 new + $200 for 5 upgrades) in the last 3 years I've used it. I don't know what they will charge once my upgrade license expires. I don't think anyone does.
Adobe is a huge company and Photoshop is a cash cow for them, but it's not their only program. They've got some real smart people working on Photoshop and the ACR program will only improve in time. Phase One knows this and, if this forum is any indication, they are slowly beginning to focus on customer service with their existing user base. Many people, however, are not very satisfied with them (like user \"RUP\" for example).
It's strange, but people don't complain to Adobe like they do Phase One. Perhaps they perceive Phase One as a small, nimble company and Adobe as a walled fortress. I just hope Phase One realizes that many, many more people will buy and use DSLRs than Phase One backs and that, with good programming and customer service in this market, they can realize its value and generate a fair & honest profit from us.0 -
Jane, I agree with most of what cbphoto has to say. Just for the record, though, the newest version of ACR has added a curves control. This is a good thing. You can imbed ACR conversion data in a DNG rile (as metadata) so that the RAW image is not altered. DNG is new, and I guess we'll find out how good it is as we go.
cbphoto, there are lots of adobe forums, on adobe's website. There are wish list threads, bug threads and tons of help threads. I've seen plenty of complaints about Adobe on those forums. You are dead right on the DSLR point.
One more thing: I couldn't get by without sharpening, and post conversion image work in Photoshop. I don't know how many photographers use CO alone.0 -
My post processing varies. At the very least I tag the image with my metadata & copyright then clean up the image (dust on the set, complexion, etc.). When the client calls for it, I provide compositing and effects but don't consider myself a retouching specialist like these guys.
As for sharpening, I use C1DSLR's algorithm and find it worthy. You don't?0 -
Actually, I prefer to sharpen in PS. Up until just recently, I used PK Sharpener (PS plug in)for all of my sharpening except for ISOs above 1000 where I needed the noise removal of Neat Image.
The 1ds2, however, can stand a great deal of sharpening, and I have been playing with a setting of about 25. I don't like the CO noise results. Also, I have not had a chance to play with the new \"Smart Sharpener\" in PS.
I have always prized CO for three things: portraits (flesh tones can be great), the batch processing, and the hope that I would be able to shoot tethered. But the real keepers always need that final tweak (or at least output sharpening) in PS.0 -
I am a user of C1, not because i chose to, but because i have to. i own a P25 digital back, and the only way i can process my files are through C1. and i am not happy with that. at least most of you can choose from several other applications out there but i cant even use iview to sort or rename my P25 files because no other app can render previews from the P25 other than C1.
i didnt bought a a $500 copy of C1, i bought a $30,000 must use C1. its as simple as this, and allow me to make another comparison. when you buy the best digital camera, with the best optics, best sensor, best mechanics... but.... the firmware is bad, making the camera slow at random, etc.... then the camera is not good enough. you need the best firmware for the best camera. right? in my case, C1 is like the firmware of the digital back. with out it, i cant do anything with my P25.
i cant say that the software is completely awful, because its no. it is very nice, great quality, excellent colors, but it doesnt perform as expected. not in a high demand workflow. it works great when you have a lot of spare time and just some frames to process, but when you have very tight time, 500 or more 22megapixel files, then you have problems with it.
i have just one suggestion to make to the guys at phaseone. please, when testing C1, take it to the limits, or even better, try to test it in a high stress working studio. look at the real problems. try to process hundreds of frames of the P25 (im not trying to be egoist and only think of the ones who bought a P25, but beleive me that if this thing works ok with 22megapixel files, it will be really really fast for the smaller files) and look at the time it takes.
its not nice to be shooting kids for a fashion campaigne, with the client looking over your shoulder and then having problems with the software and missing the shot. or to just spend a lot of time to render the thumbnails if shot to the memory card instead of tethered.
please make enough tests to check if your software is ok and ready to go. its a little detail that happened a couple of days ago but for me it is a sample of the way how the guys programing C1 handles their job:
the new C1 3.7 image file was posted and announced. i, and a lot others, eagerly downloaded the file just to find out that the image file was not able to mount. i had to download it 5 times. phaseone knew about this because of the posts here. supposedly fixed the file and informed this replying to the posts. again, the file was not mounting.
check, and double check your software. and then... check it again. please
our jobs depends on that.0 -
As I read through all these posts, and other from other forums such as this one, I see two common threads. One is that the hardware interfacing is not primo. The other is that the Phase One software has continued to become more bloated, slower and buggier as it \"matures\". For US$33,000 this is not acceptable.
I'm sorry for your frustrations. It sounds terrible.
Hooking up a P25 to a Hasselblad seems like trouble to me because Hasselblad and Imacon just became one company and it's in Hasselblad's best interest to provide top priority support to the users that buy into that package. I can hear a Hasselblad support rep now: \"Oh, a Phase One back. Sorry, we don't support those. Give them a call\".
And the software issue is a strange one to me. Currently Macs have hardware that's just as fast as PCs. Clock speeds, drive speeds, RAM speeds. In addition, the Mac OS is far more efficient (executions per clock cycle) than the current Windows OS. Yet, Phase One software continues to slow down. In another post, a long time ago, I asked the question: Does Phase One use the new XCode programming environment and compilers? I never got an answer. My fears are that they may be using a single programming environment to port programs to both Mac and Windows. It's more cost effective, but the efficiency of boths programs produced can be very poor.
Perhaps now that this forum is the \"official\" Phase One forum we'll get better support.0 -
I am with you on this. It's funny that there has been so much noise lately about Nikon locking their color balance info on the new cameras. People are pissed at the idea that they would be forced to use a proprietary app and not "fully own" their own images. We P25 owners are in the exact same boat. What if Phase goes bankrupt? What if they get bought by some company that discontinues the app? In other words, what if something bad happens? All our RAW files would be useless of course. And we paid A LOT more than those Nikon owners did for this privilege. I've been asking for Phase to adopt DNG (or at least open a path to DNG) since Adobe announced it and have been amazed that others haven't been as anxious about this as I have. This is a big problem. Leaf and Imacon provide for this, but Phase does not. [quote="superbomba" wrote:
I am a user of C1, not because i chose to, but because i have to. i own a P25 digital back, and the only way i can process my files are through C1.0 -
I DIDNT THOUGHT ABOUT THAT!!
this makes me consider to sell my P25 and buy a Leaf or Imacon
god!! DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!0
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