Start working with Capture One – Capture One

Installing and activation of Capture One

Once you have selected your preferred product variant, download Capture One from your account or from the Software Archive to start working.

Exploring user interface

When starting working with any software, it is crucial to explore the interface for easy navigation. It is necessary to note that Capture One has a highly customizable interface, so you can arrange the tools accordingly to streamline your workflow.

Sessions and Catalogs

There are 2 primary methods for working with images in Capture One - Catalogs and Sessions.


SESSIONS https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003115137-SESSIONS	CATALOGS https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003108698-CATALOGS
Folder-based organization (Capture One as folder viewer)	Virtual organization (only display known files)
Adjustment independent (adjustment stored as sidecar files)	Adjustments interconnected (adjustment stored as a part of a Catalog but not as sidecar files)
Session file describes Favorites, Albums, Capture Folder, Output Folder	Catalog file contains Albums and organization, adjustments, previews, and RAW files (optionally)
Quickly work on images	Manage existing work
Well-defined shoots	Jobs with undefined shoots
Good for most Digital tech situations (easy export of Raw files)	Remote work (can work offline)

Tethered shooting

Tethered shooting is one of the core features of Capture One. You can shoot tethered with a digital back or supported DSLR (see the list of supported cameras). When connected to the computer, you can import photos directly into a Session or Catalog and store them on the hard disk or an external drive, avoiding importing from a memory card.

Editing images

As Capture One applies a non-destructive approach when editing images, understanding the concept of variants is essential. Variants are used by Capture One to display the original RAW, JPEG, TIFF, DNG, HEIC, PNG, or PSD source files and to store the adjustments you have made. Read more about variants...

To learn about the variety of tools and how they work, we encourage you to browse the Capture One User Guide section. The tools in Capture One typically apply global adjustments to the whole image. However, there are times when you want to perform corrections to a specific part of the image so that layers and masks specifically designed for making local adjustments will come in handy.

For your convenience, we have created concise and comprehensive tutorials on how to use Capture One adjustment tools.

Processing and exporting images

Once you have finalized the image editing and want to share it with others, you may choose either to process or export them. Capture One creates new images from the source files during processing by applying all the saved settings and adjustments that you can use later again. When exporting, you have a choice of selecting originals or variants.

The guide describes Capture One for Apple® Macintosh® and it is also applicable to Capture One for Microsoft® Windows®, though some specifics are not listed.

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