Migrating from Aperture -- my story
Hi.
I just chose Capture One as my preferred replacement for Aperture 3. I am on OS 10.8
Can you help me with a workflow problem? I am finding importing and XMP files and "catalog" options confusing.
What I want to do:
I wish to put original NEF's in .../photos/NEF_folder/["various_events"] (where "various_event" would be a bunch of different folders for different shoots I did). I do NOT wish to have Capture One copy my NEF's, putting two copies on my hard drive.
Here's the problem: It works, I can see the various folders and the photos and work on them, but they do not seem to generate any XMP files and they do not create a new "catalog" file for every new folder. Is this something to worry about? Do I give anything up in terms of usability or reliability by not having separate XMP files or separate catalogs? I hope to add multiple thousands of photos to CO7 over the next year and I want to understand what I am doing before I find out my workflow might be less than optimal a year later. Can someone recommend an optimal/correct solution?
WHY CAPTURE ONE:
I REALLY liked Aperture; I am upset with Apple for discontinuing it. That said, what is done is done.
I looked at various alternatives. I have used Aperture INSTEAD OF Photoshop because 1) It did everything I really need. 2) I don't like Adobe (so I did not look at Lightroom) 3) I really don't like software subscription models (like Adobe's. It makes me feel I don't "own" the software even though I paid for it).
I looked at DXO. I love their handling of RAW, but they have very limited editing tools.
I looked at Darktable, but found it very difficult to decipher.
I looked at Aftershot Pro and found it pretty easy to use, but it had some fatal flaws. "Contrast" and "highlights" barely work in ASP. This is a huge issue.
Capture One: I like that 1) your company has been around a long time 2) contrast and highlights and etc work as expected. 3) more control over export (sizes, etc) than ASP. 4) Lens distortion correction (not in Aperture).
Capture One does MOST of what I need. And I love some of your presets-- split toning, etc.
Additionally, I am looking forward to trying a gradient mask next time I do a landscape shoot. I don't think Aperture had that. I am an advanced amateur; I do a lot of people shooting-- events, models.
What I don't like:
I REALLY NEED a real heal/clone tool. Sometimes I need to remove, for example, an electric outlet on a wall behind a model. Or overhead wires. Or a complicated blemish on a model's face. I do not wish to have to have Capture One AND Photoshop or a Photoshop knock-off. I shoot models a lot and need enough tools to "fix" the kind of problems I mention above.
CO7's noise reduction tool is, in my opinion, mediocre (but about on par with Aperture's). I thought ASP's noise tools were actually very good; I could easily clean shots at ISO 2500.
Capture One's registration process is annoying. I don't like having to connect to a server to activate software. I would rather just put in a number.
Like I said above, I don't really think I fully understand how I can achieve an optimal workflow for me yet.
I am hopeful Capture One will continue to improve with added features and will remain my choice for many years.
I just chose Capture One as my preferred replacement for Aperture 3. I am on OS 10.8
Can you help me with a workflow problem? I am finding importing and XMP files and "catalog" options confusing.
What I want to do:
I wish to put original NEF's in .../photos/NEF_folder/["various_events"] (where "various_event" would be a bunch of different folders for different shoots I did). I do NOT wish to have Capture One copy my NEF's, putting two copies on my hard drive.
Here's the problem: It works, I can see the various folders and the photos and work on them, but they do not seem to generate any XMP files and they do not create a new "catalog" file for every new folder. Is this something to worry about? Do I give anything up in terms of usability or reliability by not having separate XMP files or separate catalogs? I hope to add multiple thousands of photos to CO7 over the next year and I want to understand what I am doing before I find out my workflow might be less than optimal a year later. Can someone recommend an optimal/correct solution?
WHY CAPTURE ONE:
I REALLY liked Aperture; I am upset with Apple for discontinuing it. That said, what is done is done.
I looked at various alternatives. I have used Aperture INSTEAD OF Photoshop because 1) It did everything I really need. 2) I don't like Adobe (so I did not look at Lightroom) 3) I really don't like software subscription models (like Adobe's. It makes me feel I don't "own" the software even though I paid for it).
I looked at DXO. I love their handling of RAW, but they have very limited editing tools.
I looked at Darktable, but found it very difficult to decipher.
I looked at Aftershot Pro and found it pretty easy to use, but it had some fatal flaws. "Contrast" and "highlights" barely work in ASP. This is a huge issue.
Capture One: I like that 1) your company has been around a long time 2) contrast and highlights and etc work as expected. 3) more control over export (sizes, etc) than ASP. 4) Lens distortion correction (not in Aperture).
Capture One does MOST of what I need. And I love some of your presets-- split toning, etc.
Additionally, I am looking forward to trying a gradient mask next time I do a landscape shoot. I don't think Aperture had that. I am an advanced amateur; I do a lot of people shooting-- events, models.
What I don't like:
I REALLY NEED a real heal/clone tool. Sometimes I need to remove, for example, an electric outlet on a wall behind a model. Or overhead wires. Or a complicated blemish on a model's face. I do not wish to have to have Capture One AND Photoshop or a Photoshop knock-off. I shoot models a lot and need enough tools to "fix" the kind of problems I mention above.
CO7's noise reduction tool is, in my opinion, mediocre (but about on par with Aperture's). I thought ASP's noise tools were actually very good; I could easily clean shots at ISO 2500.
Capture One's registration process is annoying. I don't like having to connect to a server to activate software. I would rather just put in a number.
Like I said above, I don't really think I fully understand how I can achieve an optimal workflow for me yet.
I am hopeful Capture One will continue to improve with added features and will remain my choice for many years.
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Welcome to CaptureOne. Your story is interesting. As with you, I came to CO from a different product.
I used to be an Adobe user and was reasonably happy with Lightroom until I found Dxo Optics Pro. I was impressed with their camera-lens combination specific corrections and thought their noise reduction was really first class. I shoot with a Canon full frame and try to shoot, when possible, without flash. Thus many of my images are taken at ISO values above 12000 and thought that Dxo's NR functionality was the best I had seen. Indeed it did a very credible job on my ISO 25600 shots.
I was happy with Dxo although I thought their other processing was a bit less helpful than it could have been, so I gave CaptureOne a trial and found that I really, really liked what they did with the raw images. Like you I was not impressed with the NR functionality and thought that their auto lens correction functionality was almost nonexistent, but thought almost all of their other correction functionality was the best I had seen. But, not wanting to give up the NR and lens correction functionality from my existing Dxo OP I found a way to combine the best of both.
My workflow now is (1) run my raw files through Dxo using only the auto lens correction and noise reduction modules. Have Dxo write the outputs in dng format, (2) Open the dng files in CaptureOne, do my main processing there and, when I need any further work not available in CO (masking, layers, object removal, cloning, etc) call PaintShop Pro X7 to do that.
This process takes up a lot of space on my laptop but it does seem to give me the best of both worlds. I trust you will remain happy with CO.0 -
Mike,
Just out of curiosity, could you summarize what Dxo is giving you in the way of lens and noise corrections that C1Pro does not?0
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