Selective Editing
Disclaimer : I understand feature suggestions should also be submitted as support tickets 😉
Hi everyone,
I'm relatively new to C1 Pro, but over the last few weeks I've been using it intensively.
I really love the software, but I'm a little frustrated with a few aspects.
Probably the biggest issue I find with C1 is the lack of selective editing. I know that this is one of the most controversial feature request. Reading through the forums, it seems some people view the idea almost as blasphemy. But C1 already has many selective editing tools! The color editor, the curves... For some reason, tools that select certain parts of the image based on pixel values are accepted as core features, while tools that select parts of an image based on pixel position are dismissed as "Lightroom gimmicks/keep that crap out of C1".
My background is in animation and VFX. One of the first fundamental lessons I learned with regards to color correction is the concept of "Primary" and "Secondary" corrections. In the majority of cases, different parts of an image require different corrections. This is simply an unavoidable fact. A high ISO image will need more aggressive NR in dark areas than in bright ones... Fleshtones are often impossible to isolate only with color selections and require area masks/selection... you get the point.
The purpose of C1 as far as I'm concerned is to be able to apply all exposure/color/detail adjustments directly on the RAW source maintaining the highest quality. In this respect, selective area editing is not only useful, it is actually essential if C1 is to realize it's full potential as a high-end image developing tool. The only reason we used to need Photoshop for more complex adjustments was because computers were not powerful enough for real-time complex RAW editing. There is no reason today to insist on maintaining this arbitrary division IMO.
What a waste of time and quality, with all these great powerful tools in C1, ending up having to go to Photoshop just because there's a small area of the image that needs a different adjustment and there's no way to isolate it in C1!
So please, Phase One - don't simply mimic ACR's rather limited and clumsy adjustment brush. What I would like to see is a "Selection" Tool Tab. By default, it will have only a "Primary Correction" enabled - C1 works exactly as usual.
But those who want it, could add "Secondary Selections".
The selection should be achieved through :
1. A value picker (in the same way the advanced color editor's selections work) for color/luminosity
2. A selection brush (like Photoshop's Quick Mask)
3. a bezier tool.
All three tools could be combined to achieve a selection.
Each selection should have options for : mode (add/subtract/replace), feathering and opacity.
Once a selection is activated, all the other image adjustment tools (including details tools!!) in C1 work as usual, except they affect the selection rather than the entire image.
For maximum versatility, selections could be duplicated, inversed, intersected; and you could activate multiple selections at the same time.
I'm sure this is a feasible concept, and it would NOT add any unnecessary complexity for the end-user who doesn't want to use C1 for this kind of work.
I hope this strikes a chord with some of you out there and with phase one developers.
I would love to hear your opinions
Hi everyone,
I'm relatively new to C1 Pro, but over the last few weeks I've been using it intensively.
I really love the software, but I'm a little frustrated with a few aspects.
Probably the biggest issue I find with C1 is the lack of selective editing. I know that this is one of the most controversial feature request. Reading through the forums, it seems some people view the idea almost as blasphemy. But C1 already has many selective editing tools! The color editor, the curves... For some reason, tools that select certain parts of the image based on pixel values are accepted as core features, while tools that select parts of an image based on pixel position are dismissed as "Lightroom gimmicks/keep that crap out of C1".
My background is in animation and VFX. One of the first fundamental lessons I learned with regards to color correction is the concept of "Primary" and "Secondary" corrections. In the majority of cases, different parts of an image require different corrections. This is simply an unavoidable fact. A high ISO image will need more aggressive NR in dark areas than in bright ones... Fleshtones are often impossible to isolate only with color selections and require area masks/selection... you get the point.
The purpose of C1 as far as I'm concerned is to be able to apply all exposure/color/detail adjustments directly on the RAW source maintaining the highest quality. In this respect, selective area editing is not only useful, it is actually essential if C1 is to realize it's full potential as a high-end image developing tool. The only reason we used to need Photoshop for more complex adjustments was because computers were not powerful enough for real-time complex RAW editing. There is no reason today to insist on maintaining this arbitrary division IMO.
What a waste of time and quality, with all these great powerful tools in C1, ending up having to go to Photoshop just because there's a small area of the image that needs a different adjustment and there's no way to isolate it in C1!
So please, Phase One - don't simply mimic ACR's rather limited and clumsy adjustment brush. What I would like to see is a "Selection" Tool Tab. By default, it will have only a "Primary Correction" enabled - C1 works exactly as usual.
But those who want it, could add "Secondary Selections".
The selection should be achieved through :
1. A value picker (in the same way the advanced color editor's selections work) for color/luminosity
2. A selection brush (like Photoshop's Quick Mask)
3. a bezier tool.
All three tools could be combined to achieve a selection.
Each selection should have options for : mode (add/subtract/replace), feathering and opacity.
Once a selection is activated, all the other image adjustment tools (including details tools!!) in C1 work as usual, except they affect the selection rather than the entire image.
For maximum versatility, selections could be duplicated, inversed, intersected; and you could activate multiple selections at the same time.
I'm sure this is a feasible concept, and it would NOT add any unnecessary complexity for the end-user who doesn't want to use C1 for this kind of work.
I hope this strikes a chord with some of you out there and with phase one developers.
I would love to hear your opinions
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Just don't see the point, myself.
My workflow always takes me outside of Cap One, so I'd get no benefit from selective adjustment capabilities in Cap One: I can do that kind of work (and additional NR, and work involving plug-ins, and adding a signature/copyright) where I'm going to end up anyway - in CS4.
So unless Cap One changed so that I can do everything in it that I currently do in Photoshop, the introduction of selective editing will be - at best - an arbitrarily-chosen half-way house.0 -
Hi Keith,
My point is exactly this... why do you want to use Photoshop for every image?
If it's because you want to use some special filters on every image, or the watermark tool in C1 is not powerful enough for your needs in terms of text overlay - can't argue with that. I'm not suggesting C1 should become a Photoshop clone.
But as far as selective area adjustments and advanced NR in Photoshop - I think this is more a force of habit, because historically RAW softwares were not expected to be used this way. Not because it is actually the best way.
I'd argue that even if you do use Photoshop for every image, all exposure/color/detail adjustments are best done on the original RAW in C1, purely in terms of IQ.
The division for me is very clear and non-arbitrary : fire up Photoshop only for graphics, text, painting, special FX filters and image compositing. Image adjustments should be kept to within C1.
Just my 2 cents 😉0 -
FWIW, I agree with you about selective editing in C1. Bibble and Lightroom make it more possible to avoid the need for going to an outside app for additional tweaks. I'd love to be able to do that within C1 even for my non-pro needs. That, and also improved noise reduction would save me some editing time and loss of quality connected with the 8-bit conversion I often have to perform to be able to access some of the features of my pixel editor. 0 -
[quote="JonS" wrote:
The division for me is very clear and non-arbitrary : fire up Photoshop only for graphics, text, painting, special FX filters and image compositing. Image adjustments should be kept to within C1.
Interestingly, I completely agree with this premise, which is why I don't consider selective editing to sit well within a RAW converter.
I've always held that a RAW converter's job is to provide an excellent starting point for - if you will - cosmetic, creative or aesthetic work on the image: I want to be able to create a file in which WB, shadows/highlights, EC, levels etc. are taken care of at the RAW stage, and that's pretty much it - that, for me, is a converter's job.
As soon as we start to look at things like selection brushes, bezier tools, selections to allow selective edits and so on, we're crossing from image conversion into image manipulation, and to my mind that's not what a RAW converter is for.
I don't use these tools in Lr 3 either (and nor do I use it's DAM functions, incidentally - I use is purely as a a RAW converter too), and likewise with Bibble 5.
Bibble 5 is an interesting case in point, actually, in that (subjectively) its implementation of selective adjustment tools is horrible - I don't like their way of doing things at all.
But here's the rub: the time and resource they've put into creating selection tools, clone stamps, brushes and whatnot is time they didn't put into fixing Bibble 5's awful demosaicing algorithm: for all its bells and whistles, it is essentially unusable with Canon 7D files. The toys are useless if the image quality isn't there.
My fear is that if Phase One decides to throw resources at "extras" instead of core functions tied directly to the production of high quality conversions, something will have to give in current areas of functionality which I think do warrant further development.
There's already an interesting - if brief - thread on here about how Cap One would be improved if it licenced the NR technology used by Topaz DeNoise; and, good as it is, I think the demosaicing in Cap One could bear improvement. Highlight recovery could probably be better too.
The point being, these three are unquestionably core IQ functions, and if Phase One is going to pick on an area to improve, then for me it needs to be things like these: processes inextricably linked to the quality of the conversion, and by far best achieved at the conversion stage.
Everything else is just "extra" as far as I can see, and not necessarily done in a RAW converter at all.
I hope that clarifies my view.
Don't get me wrong, if we could have everything, I'd take it, happily enough: but the Real World ain't like that, and so I want Cap One to focus on core conversion functions, and I'll do the rest where I think it's done best.
Incidentally, I need to add sigs etc. outside of Cap One because I don't run Cap One Pro; and the plugins I use in CS are Topaz DeNoise and Topaz Detail, neither of which are to add "effects" but to further enhance basic IQ, by dealing with any noise I need to address after Cap One is done (and which I always need to do, because Cap One's NR is good but not perfect); and Detail because as a bird photographer it allows me to bring out fine feather detail in a way that Cap One - or any other RAW converter - can't do on its own.
So unless exactly analogous functions were added to Cap One I'm still going to end up in Photoshop.
And this is what I meant by "arbitrary" in my first post: any choice to add "extras" to Cap One would be arbitrary simply because you - or I - might or might not get to see the changes we'd want to see. Whatever choices Phase One might make in that regard would almost certainly appear arbitrary to the person who didn't get the enhancements he wanted...0 -
I need to add sigs etc. outside of Cap One because I don't run Cap One Pro; and the plugins I use in CS are Topaz DeNoise and Topaz Detail, neither of which are to add "effects" but to further enhance basic IQ, by dealing with any noise I need to address after Cap One is done (and which I always need to do, because Cap One's NR is good but not perfect); and Detail because as a bird photographer it allows me to bring out fine feather detail in a way that Cap One - or any other RAW converter - can't do on its own.
So unless exactly analogous functions were added to Cap One I'm still going to end up in Photoshop.
But these functions do exist in the pro version! (granted, the detail tools - even in C1 pro - need some serious improvement...)
You use C1 for conversion and basic ("primary") adjustments, PS for advanced ("secondary") adjustments and text overlay. By your logic, many of the tools that already exist in the pro version - like the advanced color editor, the advanced NR tools, RGB curves - are also redundant because you can do these steps in PS.
I'm not concerned with "toys" or "cosmetics", I just believe there is a very clear IQ advantage in doing all color and detail adjustments directly on the RAW files. I do not want to use Photoshop at all unless I want to do compositing, FX or graphics. Interestingly, on the website, Phase One describes C1 Pro as "Capture One 5 PRO - RAW Conversion and Image Editing Software "...
My reason for starting this thread was not to convince you or anyone else to change your work flow.
To each his own 😊.
But if you are using the pro version, and using C1 for advanced "secondary" corrections, it is very frustrating to have almost all the necessary tools, only to be forced to process the RAW file and open it in PS, just because you can't isolate a certain portion of the image within C1.
So again I point out that C1 Pro already has selective editing tools - it's just that all these tool select pixels only by value, and not by area. The features you listed as essential - NR, color balance, luminosity levels - will all improve from having the ability to apply different settings to different portions of the image.
In regards to priorities, I 100% agree with you that de-mosaicing, color profiling, camera support and overall software stability and speed should always be the top priority.
But I strongly disagree that advanced color and detail editing do not belong in C1. The Bibble example proves nothing - ACR has quite a few selective editing tools missing in C1, and Adobe still managed to dramatically improve de-mosaicing and color profile quality in the latest version.
Yes, adding/extending features does take time and money. But the fact is the competition is closing the gap in terms of conversion quality, and offering a fuller feature set - that does not depend on PS "finishing" - for a lower price.
In the long run, by ignoring this trend, Phase One will start losing customers and attracting fewer new ones.
Less customers also means less money for development 😉
I hope I've clarified more my position on this. Cheers, Jon.0 -
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