Capture One 4 - user experience report
I am a Capture One user for several years now, and recently I've been evaluating version 4 from the earliest betas to the release version. My post concentrates on the user experience weaknesses, as I never found any problems with the image quality of Phase One products, and version 4 is no exception: images are sharp, detailed and vibrant.
The user experience of the new version is horrible for a longtime Capture One user: the good old (keyboard based) workflow is broken, the interface is cluttered and hard on the eyes and the general reaction and redraw speeds are extremely slow. I hoped that the release version would be free of these problems (maybe I should have reported much earlier).
My PC configuration running both v3.7 and v4 is the following: Intel P4 3.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 3 separate 7200rpm drives for OS, VMEM/TEMP and photos, Windows XP SP2, NVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra, latest drivers for all devices. I have tested the GUI slowness on my Core2Duo laptop and it's barely any better.
While I welcome the new features of Capture One 4, the badly designed user interface makes it unusable for me currently. My findings are below.
The best thing in v3.7 was that I could evaluate and tag a day of shooting very fast: my left hand was over CTRL-R and CTRL-T for quick rotation and tagging, while my right hand was using the mouse wheel to select the next image or go back one.
In v4 this takes much longer: there is no fast and easy way to rotate (CTRL-ALT-R is hard to press), to rate an image I should lift my left hand to reach for the number keys and the mouse wheel no longer steps to the next image, it instead scrolls the thumbnail window, which is not useful: I have to move and click the mouse each time I want the next image.
Working with images is much slower thanks to the slowed down reaction of the sliders and almost every available function. Even though thumbnail generation and processing speed is higher, the general feel of v4 is much slower and clumsier than v3.7.
The user interface is also harder on the eyes: the control panels are too dark so they dissolve into the image area, the good visual indicators from the past (red checkmark and green dot) are missing and the rating stars are making the thumbnail screen cluttered if you use 3 columns like I do.
There are a couple of welcome features, especially Variants, HDR and the Quick panel, which would be even better if it was editable as to which controls to include.
- mouse wheel for image selection should be settable in prefs (instead of thumbnail window scrolling)
- missing: indication of image previously developed (green/yellow dot was very good visually)
- missing: image tagging (red checkmark was very good visually)
- ctrl-r for rotation would be more sensible (reset is used less often, ctrl-alt-r is hard to press)
- ctrl-t and ctrl-r was fast and easy to operate with one hand
- grey stars make the thumbnail screen cluttered if 2 or more columns used
- red tag checkmark was much easier on eyes than grey stars
- user interface is too dark, control panels' and thumbnail backround brightness level should be selectable in prefs
- control panel headers are too thin: Auto and Presets are hard to click
- sliders are very slow to react, they should be decoupled from redraw (v3.7 sliders were fluid even if the action itself was slow)
- changing between images is much slower (v3.7 instant, v4 about 1/2 sec)
- reaction time for scrolling and zooming is much slower
- exposure warning is much slower (v3.7 instant, v4 about 1/2 sec)
The user experience of the new version is horrible for a longtime Capture One user: the good old (keyboard based) workflow is broken, the interface is cluttered and hard on the eyes and the general reaction and redraw speeds are extremely slow. I hoped that the release version would be free of these problems (maybe I should have reported much earlier).
My PC configuration running both v3.7 and v4 is the following: Intel P4 3.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 3 separate 7200rpm drives for OS, VMEM/TEMP and photos, Windows XP SP2, NVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra, latest drivers for all devices. I have tested the GUI slowness on my Core2Duo laptop and it's barely any better.
While I welcome the new features of Capture One 4, the badly designed user interface makes it unusable for me currently. My findings are below.
GENERAL WORKFLOW IMPRESSIONS
The best thing in v3.7 was that I could evaluate and tag a day of shooting very fast: my left hand was over CTRL-R and CTRL-T for quick rotation and tagging, while my right hand was using the mouse wheel to select the next image or go back one.
In v4 this takes much longer: there is no fast and easy way to rotate (CTRL-ALT-R is hard to press), to rate an image I should lift my left hand to reach for the number keys and the mouse wheel no longer steps to the next image, it instead scrolls the thumbnail window, which is not useful: I have to move and click the mouse each time I want the next image.
Working with images is much slower thanks to the slowed down reaction of the sliders and almost every available function. Even though thumbnail generation and processing speed is higher, the general feel of v4 is much slower and clumsier than v3.7.
The user interface is also harder on the eyes: the control panels are too dark so they dissolve into the image area, the good visual indicators from the past (red checkmark and green dot) are missing and the rating stars are making the thumbnail screen cluttered if you use 3 columns like I do.
There are a couple of welcome features, especially Variants, HDR and the Quick panel, which would be even better if it was editable as to which controls to include.
CONTROL PROBLEMS
- mouse wheel for image selection should be settable in prefs (instead of thumbnail window scrolling)
- missing: indication of image previously developed (green/yellow dot was very good visually)
- missing: image tagging (red checkmark was very good visually)
- ctrl-r for rotation would be more sensible (reset is used less often, ctrl-alt-r is hard to press)
- ctrl-t and ctrl-r was fast and easy to operate with one hand
VISUAL PROBLEMS
- grey stars make the thumbnail screen cluttered if 2 or more columns used
- red tag checkmark was much easier on eyes than grey stars
- user interface is too dark, control panels' and thumbnail backround brightness level should be selectable in prefs
- control panel headers are too thin: Auto and Presets are hard to click
INTERFACE SLOWNESS
- sliders are very slow to react, they should be decoupled from redraw (v3.7 sliders were fluid even if the action itself was slow)
- changing between images is much slower (v3.7 instant, v4 about 1/2 sec)
- reaction time for scrolling and zooming is much slower
- exposure warning is much slower (v3.7 instant, v4 about 1/2 sec)
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[quote="Tom C." wrote:
On this User-to-User forum we help each other voluntarily. Please be more specific if you have a problem. Generic complaints are not helpful for any visitor. Thank you.
It is my personal user opinion based on my own comparison between c1, silkypix and LR.
And no, I have no problems with c1 4.0 any more because I decided to remove it from my hd.
This is really the gist of it. Does Phase One consider that existing users will not upgrade their licenses when the product is no longer the 'work flow' leader. Phase Ones singular advantage has always been it's superior (fast) workflow. I only ever heard about C1 from other users who raved about how quick it was to use. It's the only reason that I still use the product. I'm just uncertain how much longer this will be the case considering the significant changes to v4 which have altered/slowed the workflow considerably. Why fix something that ain't broken?
JJ0 -
I like C1 4, I have no problem with the workflow. I compared it with Lightroom, because of many more parameters you can change in Lightroom, it usually takes longer to get a final image with it, but many parameters do not make improvements for image quality no matter how you adjust them.
Like all other RAW developers, C1 4's image quality is not perfect, I don't like its noise reduction performance, but it's slightly better than most of its competitors. I like it, I am happy with it, but yes, I also like to see improvements of it.0 -
[quote="edb" wrote:
I like C1 4, I have no problem with the workflow. I compared it with Lightroom, because of many more parameters you can change in Lightroom, it usually takes longer to get a final image with it, but many parameters do not make improvements for image quality no matter how you adjust them.
Don't use these parameters then and quicken your workflow in LR! It's simple.0 -
I find that V4 will not access Images stored on my Mac and available on the PC in 'My Network Places'.
I have to go to Explorer and download a copy onto the PC!0 -
... so text deleted. 0 -
I bought in during C1 V3.X and have used it extensively for images I wish to print as I like the conversion it does. For quick web photos I've always used BB or ACR because of the speed and convenience. I have to say that since upgrading to C1 v4 I have never spent more time doing searches on the internet on how to solve issues that I confront! This version definetly was not thought out well and was rushed to market "broken". It is still a beta version as far as I'm concerned. I sure hope some of the issues are addressed soon as I still like the quality of conversions, but am tired of looking for "fixes" and " work arounds" for problems. 0
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