Skip to main content

⚠️ Please note that this topic or post has been archived. The information contained here may no longer be accurate or up-to-date. ⚠️

Newbie - Questions, Aperture to C1

Steve Mallett
Hi All, Day three of the learning curve of migrating from Aperture. God it's steep! Trying not to force it into "being Aperture" but treating it as a new tool that is different.

Using 8.1.1 trial on 27" iMac running Yosemite 10.10.2

A couple of questions:

First off, importing from my Olympus E-M1 the image quality is astonishing. Compared to Aperture and LR 5 the colour is richer, less noise and more detail. I had always assumed RAW converters were all about the same. Is C1 applying camera specific algorithms, sharpening, noise reduction etc, and if so where can I find the settings?

Secondly, I have created a metadata preset and saved it but can't find any way of applying it to existing images or using it on import. I'd expect to see a User Preset menus somewhere but I can't find it. Am I missing something really obvious?

Just thought of a third: How do I switch between before and after adjustment views? (Equivalent of keyboard m in Aperture)

Thanks

Steve
0

Comments

7 comments

Date Votes
  • SFA
    Welcome Steve,

    This, being Aperture comparison related, may get more responses in the Mac forum where no doubt opinions will abound.

    But meanwhile, from a Windows persons ....

    In C1 each camera (and lens where applicable) combination may well have lens adjustments applied (where known and created) and some default level of exposure and colour balance, etc. You can keep, change or obliterate according to your preferences and set up the import process to apply your own settings if you prefer via preset for each tools and a base "Style" (a group of presets) that you pick from those provided or create yourself.is

    The easiest way to see what applied to an image via the import process or the Auto Adjust feature is to open the image, Copy Adjustments (either the arrow that points up to the right or right click and Copy Adjustments) and then open the clipboard to see which tools have tick marks to indicate they have values applied. Then you can check each of the tools to see what is different. Some will be entirely obvious of course - just what you would expect. Other may be less obvious.



    For your metadata Preset you can just go to the preset, copy it (to clipboard) and apply it to the images you have preselected or select the images one at a time and apply it in various ways, the arrow pointing down and left being the most obvious one. You can toggle between applying to a single or multiple images (if selected).

    On import you should see a section in the import window near the bottom left called Adjustments. There you can apply Styles and presets as part of the import process.

    In the Adjustments menu there is a Styles entry within which you can do things with Presets and Styles. The Styles and Preset tool can also be added to any Tab where tools are grouped (Create you own tabs if you prefer) or opened on floated on screen.

    Capture One has variants. Rather than try to switch between adjusted and non-adjusted (always requiring a calculation) in real time the better option is to have one variant unedited (apart from initial load defaults perhaps) and a second variant on which you are working. Is it then easy to select both and switch between them, have both on screen side by side or, better yet, have several variants in view at the same time.

    I would check out the introductory videos and the help files for introductory guidance, probably on an "as and when you come to the question" basis because that's when it will make most sense.

    Enjoy Capture One - there is much to discover as you do.

    HTH.


    Grant
    0
  • Frank Gregorek
    Welcome the Forum. I am also an "Aperture refugee". You will find many here.

    Agree with your approach about not forcing C1 into "being Aperture". That approach has worked well for me, too. As to your questions:

    #2. You can create a metadata pre-set incorporating your copyright/contact info in the metadata tool tab. However, I do not believe there is any way to apply it on import. That would be a welcome feature addition.

    #3. There is no equivalent to the Aperture "m" key in C1. Another potential welcome feature addition. To do a "before/after" comparison in C1, the method is to create a new variant using the F2 key.

    Hope that helps. I agree with your observation about image quality.

    --Frank--
    0
  • Frank Gregorek
    Back again after a quick test with respect to your Question #2:

    It appears my initial response on this question was wrong. After you create your copyright/contact template, it appears you can apply it on import by calling it up in the Import>Adjustment>Styles "brick".

    Sorry for the original misstatement.

    --Frank--
    0
  • Steve Mallett
    Thanks for the quick responses.

    Found the camera specific stuff in Base Characteristics and it's applying a curve - rather a good one it seems so far.

    The Metadata presets are a major problem. I save user presets but I can't get at them as no User Presets appears in any of the menus. Using the diagonal arrow to copy to the clipboard seems to work but pasting it to another image doesn't. It looks like a bug so I'll move the discussion to the Mac area of the forum (should have started there really, my apologies).

    Thanks for the before/after tip. Seems a bit clunky to me but useable.

    Steve
    0
  • SFA
    NN635609837236953852UL wrote:

    The Metadata presets are a major problem. I save user presets but I can't get at them as no User Presets appears in any of the menus.


    Where are you looking?

    There should be several ways of getting to the Presets, bot the supplied and the User presets. At Import you need to open up the Adjustments tool from the tool stack. Then click in the Styles box.


    NN635609837236953852UL wrote:

    Thanks for the before/after tip. Seems a bit clunky to me but useable.


    You may find, after a while, that it's rather useful.

    If you select both variants you can move between them using a cursor arrow key, left or right does not matter, C1 will loop through the selection.

    If you select, say, the Original, and 2 variant with different edits you can easily switch between all three. I find it more powerful than a basic "Show me the original" button since I can also use it for wider purposes as I progress with an image edit.

    Have fun discovering ...

    Grant
    0
  • Neonsquare
    While I really like the m Key in Aperture, it also was sometimes better to create a new version there too. One example was comparing changes in the RAW fine tuning block.

    To me another thing would be much (!) more useful to steal from Aperture: instead of alt/option clicking the undo icon to temporarily remove an adjustment it would be cool to have a toggle button/checkbox. This way one could deactivate an arbitrary set of adjustments. If one uses layers this is possible of course - but I really would like to see that with normal adjustments too.
    0
  • SFA
    Neonsquare wrote:


    To me another thing would be much (!) more useful to steal from Aperture: instead of alt/option clicking the undo icon to temporarily remove an adjustment it would be cool to have a toggle button/checkbox. This way one could deactivate an arbitrary set of adjustments. If one uses layers this is possible of course - but I really would like to see that with normal adjustments too.


    I agree with that.

    Of course it is possible to some extent and there may be a way to refine how it works.

    I occasionally use another program where each adjustment in a stack can be turned on and off individually - as in the local Adjustment layers. Of course each time the results needs to be recalculated. One difference is that that program calculates cumulative changes based on the output from the previous tool in the stack whereas, as I understand it, C1 aggregates the changes into a single adjustment within the base (Background) layer.

    Having discrete delta values for each tool instance in the stack may make the turning on an off easier and quicker mathematically. It also allows for multiple instances of the same tool. In effect each tool is a layer and each "layer" can have local adjustments.

    The effects of using it can be very powerful but also sometimes rather unexpected. On balance the C1 approach gets me what I want from nearly all images more quickly and with less effort and input.

    Now, using C1 how might we emulate the ability to turn tools on and off?

    Well, take your image, copy the current setting to the clipboard. Clone a new variant. Remove or change the value of one or more tools. Compare the results side by side on screen or by toggling between the two.

    If you want to re-instate the changes either paste the copied setting from the original directly from the clipboard or just delete the variant and clone again.

    To be quite frank I have come to think of the Compare to original feature as a bit of a waste of time, especially for RAW processing. It's OK for the first iteration but once you have a few basic adjustments in place a Compare to previous makes more sense in my opinion and that is much more effectively achieved using Variants even though the idea of toggling individual tools on and off has a lot of attraction. The option to see the different variants side by side as will a toggling in an "overlay" is very powerful. Plus a lot of recalculation is avoided .... which should be good for performance.

    HTH.


    Grant
    0

Post is closed for comments.