Capture One mobile brings the Capture One editing experience to iPad and iPhone, built on the same rendering engine as Capture One desktop. Adjustments you make here are the same adjustments you would make on a workstation, and they travel with your images when you move between the two.
Contents
- Viewer
- Tools
- Fujifilm Simulations
- Layers and Masks
- Heal and Clone
- Import Styles from Capture One desktop to Capture One mobile
- Copy and Apply Adjustments
- Keywords
Viewer
Tap an image in your catalog to edit it in the Viewer.
Viewer recognizes a number of gestures:
- Tap on Viewer to see the Fullscreen Preview
- Two finger tap on Viewer to Show / Hide Histogram
- Long press on Viewer to see Before / After
- Double tap on Viewer to Zoom to Fit / Zoom to 100%
- Double tap on tool value or tool name to Reset Tool
- Pinch the preview to zoom
- Swipe left or right to go to the next image or the previous image
On iPad, you can see other images from the album in the film strip browser at the bottom of the screen. Long press the image preview in the film strip browser to create a New Variant, Clone Variant, Copy Adjustments, or Apply Adjustments.
Tap the three-dots (⋯) button to access additional options:
- Tools Right toggle on iPad
- Viewer Options (Histogram, Exposure Warning)
- Setting and Feedback
Some options with a dedicated button in the iPad Viewer are listed under the three-dots (⋯) menu on iPhone:
- Export
- Duplicate: New Variant option creates a new, virtual copy of the source image without any adjustments, while Clone Variant copies the selected image variant with adjustments to make another one
- Delete
- Copy and Apply Adjustments: allows you to copy all or selected adjustments from one image variant and apply them to other image variants. For details, see the Copy and Apply Adjustments section below
- toggle Next Capture Adjustments, for details, see Capture Images (iPhone).
- view image Metadata
Tools
The Tool Tabs store the main editing tools on the left side of the screen on iPad. There's a setting to show tools on the right side. On iPhone, Tool Tabs are at the bottom of the screen.
There are five Tool Tabs in Capture One mobile:
- Review
- Styles and Presets
- Crop
- Adjust
- Sharpening
Review Tool Tab
Tap the Review Tool Tab button to access the Star Rating and the Color Tag in Capture One mobile.
Star ratings and color tags are shown in the Browser.
Styles and Presets Tool Tab
Styles and Presets are tool settings that can be applied to images with a single tap. Presets are tool-specific settings, while Styles can contain any number of tool settings. Presets, as well as stacking multiple Styles or Presets, are available on iPad only.
Tap the Styles and Presets Tool Tab button to view available Styles and Presets in Capture One mobile.
Alternatively, tap the Preset button when using a supported tool to apply or create a Preset.
You can use the built-in Styles and Presets to optimize your workflow and save time, or create custom Styles and Presets in Capture One mobile on iPad or Capture One desktop.
Styles created in Capture One desktop allow you to fully utilize the desktop Capture One rendering engine on mobile. While not all desktop tools are accessible on mobile, the Style can still apply these tool settings, such as Advanced Color Editor adjustments. See Import Styles from Capture One Pro below.
Tap the Preset button when using a supported tool to create a Preset in Capture One mobile on iPad, then tap Create Preset.
Crop Tool Tab
Tap the Crop Tool Tab button to access the Rotation Tool (Angle), Keystone Tool (Vertical, Horizontal, Amount, Aspect), as well as the Turn Image button and the Aspect Ratio button (Free, Original, Square, 1x2, 1x3, 2x3, 3x4, 4x5, 5x7, 16x9).
Adjust Tool Tab
Tap the Adjust Tool Tab button to access core adjustments:
- Black & White Tool (Enable / Disable toggle with Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, and Magenta controls)
- White Balance Tool (Shot, Tungsten, Daylight, Cloudy, and Shade with Kelvin and Tint controls)
- Exposure Tool (Exposure, Contrast, Brightness, and Saturation controls)
- HDR Tool (Highlight, Shadow, White, and Black controls)
- Levels Tool (RGB, Red, Green, Blue)
-
Curve Tool (RGB, Luma, Red, Green, Blue)
- tap once to add a point, double-tap to remove a point
- Clarity Tool (Natural, Punch, Neutral, and Classic with Clarity and Structure controls)
- Dehaze Tool (Auto and Manual with Amount controls)
- Color Editor Tool (Color selector with Hue, Saturation, and Lightness controls)
- Vignetting Tool (Elliptic On Crop, Circular On Crop, Circular with Vignetting controls)
Color Balance
Capture One mobile 4.0 adds the Color Balance tool, letting you control color tones in shadows, midtones, and highlights — just as powerful as on desktop.
Choose Master to shift the color of the whole image, or Shadow, Midtone, and Highlight to grade each tonal range separately. You can use sliders for saturation (on the left) and for lightness (on the right) for that range.
Color Balance can also be applied on a layer. For instance, you can add a Subject or Background layer from the Layers and Masks menu, then grade it independently — warming a subject while cooling the background, for example, without either adjustment affecting the other.
For background on how the tool works and grading approaches that transfer directly to mobile, see The Color Balance tool overview and Simple and advanced color grading.
Sharpening Tool Tab
Tap the Sharpening Tool Tab button to access finishing adjustments:
- Sharpening (Amount, Radius, Threshold, and Halo controls)
- Noise Reduction (Luminance, Details, Color, and Single Pixel controls)
- Film Grain (Fine Grain, Silver Rich, Soft Grain, Cubic Grain, Tabular Grain and Harsh Grain with Impact and Granularity controls)
- Moire (Amount, Pattern controls)
Enhanced Denoise
Capture One mobile 4.0 adds Enhanced Denoise to the Noise Reduction tool, first released on Capture One desktop in version 16.8. It produces clean, natural-looking results at high ISO without over-processing.
Turn on Enhanced Denoise in the Noise Reduction tool. Capture One mobile processes the image in the background, so you can keep editing while it works. Use the Impact slider to control how much luminance noise is blended back in — the default of 50 keeps a natural look.
Enhanced Denoise works with Bayer-pattern RAW files only, and has the most visible impact at ISO 3200 and above. At lower ISO values, the Noise Reduction sliders above are the better choice.
Enhanced Denoise stores its processed results in sidecar files so they do not have to be recalculated. If you have turned Enhanced Denoise off for some images, or decided against the result, that cached data stays on your device until you remove it. You can delete it by using this button:
Only data for images that are no longer using Enhanced Denoise is removed, and your original images and adjustments are unaffected.
For supported formats, device considerations, and troubleshooting, see Enhanced Denoise
Auto Adjust
Auto Adjust is available for selected tools:
- White Balance
- Exposure
- Contrast
- Brightness
- High Dynamic Range
- Rotation (introduce in 2.7)
- Keystone (introduce in 2.7)
- Levels
Tap the Auto Adjust icon once to apply auto adjustments, tap and hold the Auto Adjust icon to see the context menu:
Retouch Faces
The Retouch Faces feature automatically detects faces and lets you apply portrait adjustments, making it quick and easy to enhance skin, remove blemishes, reduce dark circles and refine details naturally. See more here: Retouch faces in Capture One mobile
Tap the Retouch Faces button to access retouching adjustments:
-
Impact
-
Blemish Removal
-
Dark Circles reduction
-
Even Skin (Texture & Amount controls)
-
Contouring
Fujifilm Simulations
Fujifilm Simulation selection is available in the Adjust Tool Tab if you view a supported Fujifilm RAW image. The default setting, auto, is whatever was used in-camera when the image was taken. If this option is not present, then the camera you are using does not support Film Simulations, or the image is not in the original RAF format
Layers and Masks
Layers and Masks Overview
Use Layers and Masks to organize adjustments and make targeted edits.
Capture One mobile 2.7 introduces AI Masking for quick masking of distinct subjects like people or objects. Features include Select Subject, Tap to Select, and Draw to Select.
With the release of Capture One mobile 2.8, we've added People Masking to quickly mask specific areas of a person like body skin, face skin, eyebrows, lips, hair, pupil and iris, sclera. The Separate Masks option allows each toglable People Masking feature to be on its own layer.
Please note, Layers and Masks do not transfer with Cloud Transfer.
Access the Layers and Masks menu by tapping the Layers and Masks button, available in the Adjust Tool Tab and Sharpening Tool Tab. This button also shows the count of existing layers.
Tap the plus (+) button in the Layers and Masks menu to add a new layer:
- Adjustments (filled layer)
- Select Subject (AI Masking)
- Select Background (AI Masking)
- People (AI Masking)
- Tap to select (AI Masking)
- Draw to select (AI Masking)
- Linear Gradient (parametric mask)
- Radial Gradient (parametric mask)
- Brush (empty layer)
Tap the three dots (⋯) button on the layer to see available layer options:
- Edit
- Invert Mask
- Duplicate and Invert
- Duplicate Layer
- Rename Layer
- Remove Layer
Layer options vary depending on the layer’s contents.
Tap one of the layers and adjust layer opacity at the bottom of the Layers and Masks menu.
Edit Masks
A dedicated mask editing UI appears when you add a new layer or edit a mask from the layer options.
At the top of the mask editing UI, select either the add or subtract masking mode.
On the left, you can select a tool that you want to use to edit the mask. The tools may vary depending on the mask type::
- Gradient
- Brush
- Tap to Select
- Draw to Select
The Brush tool has additional parameters on the left:
- Size
- Hardness
- Opacity
- Flow
Adjust a parameter on the right screen using the wheel controls.
Adjust the Brush size or hardness values to see the brush preview.
Use Tap to Select by dragging the select cursor to your desired subject.
Drag your finger over the subject to select it using Draw to Select.
Heal and Clone
Capture One mobile 4.0 introduces the Heal and Clone brushes for retouching and removing unwanted objects, on both iPad and iPhone.
Use the Heal brush to remove spots, blemishes, and small distractions — it copies texture from a source area and matches it to the color and brightness of the destination. Use the Clone brush to copy pixels from one area to another exactly, which works better near hard edges.
Both work on their own layers. Tap the Layers and Masks button, tap the plus (+) button, and choose Heal or Clone. Brush size, hardness, opacity, and flow are adjusted the same way as the other brush tools.
Import Styles from Capture One desktop to Capture One mobile
You can import individual Styles and Style Packs that you created or own in Capture One desktop into Capture One mobile. This allows you to fully utilize the desktop Capture One rendering engine on mobile: while not all desktop tools are accessible on mobile, the Style can still apply these tool settings, like Advanced Color Editor adjustments.
- To find the Style files (.costyle or .costylepack) on your macOS or Windows machine, see this article: How do I back up my Styles?
- To find the Style files on iOS and iPadOS, open the Files app and go to “On My iPhone/iPad”, tap “Capture One” and then tap “Styles”.
- If the “Styles” folder doesn’t exist, create a new folder and name it “Styles”.
- Organize your Style files by nesting them within folders. The folder structure should be: “On My iPhone” > “Capture One” > “Styles” > “My Styles” > “Style.costyle” files.
Now that you know where to find Styles on desktop and where to place them on iPhone, there are several ways to transfer Style files into Capture One mobile:
Copy and Apply Adjustments
Use Copy and Apply Adjustments to copy all or selected adjustments from one image variant and apply them to other image variants.
Copy Adjustments
On iPad, tap the Copy Adjustments button (arrow pointing up) in the bottom right corner of the screen. Alternatively, long press the image preview in the film strip browser at the bottom of the screen, and then tap Copy Adjustments.
On iPhone, tap on the three dots (⋯) button, then tap Copy Adjustments.
Keywords
Capture One mobile 4.0 introduces keywords, letting you tag images with descriptive terms and find them again later — in the mobile app and in Capture One desktop.
Tap the Metadata icon (i), then tap the Keywords field and type in the keyword.
Note: Capture One mobile 4.0 supports flat keywords. Hierarchical keywords and keyword libraries remain Capture One desktop features, and desktop hierarchies appear on mobile as individual keywords.
Comments
5 comments
Is there any ”auto adjust” function as on the iPad app?
Another observation: the app does not seem to allow to apply multiple styles (i.e. ”Beyond Film” and grain). When applying the second style (the grain) the first style will be reset / deleted. Or am I missing something here?
hey Ekkehard Schwartz better late then never, heh! auto adjust was added in one of the updates and you are right about the styles on iPhone. both points are now covered in this article, thanks!
Denis Huk For the iPad version, I really wish they designed the tools tabs to resemble the desktop version of C1.
Honestly I only use Capture One mobile on my iPad for tethering. and whenever I try to edit on there is get so frustrated and just give up.
I would love to see a tools tab on the left hand side that resembles something we are more use to. Because its very hard to go back and forth between mobile and desktop.
I’ve just updated both my iPad Pro and iPhone 16 Pro, and on both devices, the brush options (size, opacity, etc.) cannot be changed. The opacity is not adjustable on any layer. The brush settings are not as shown in the image under the selected layer but appear as a separate popup, without the ability to modify them.
Also, with the layers, when I draw a mask, as soon as I stop, the brush mode is deactivated, so I have to re-select the layer each time to activate it again. Another feature that needs improvement is the ability to zoom while drawing the mask.
Lastly, it would be appreciated to have Apple Pencil pressure sensitivity, so the stroke can be heavier or lighter depending on how hard you press. thank you!! ❤️
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