Perspective
Implemented
Pls make this
a) quicker to use by making it possible to click and drag on the line (1 click) instead of only having to click both endpoints (2 clicks), as I sometimes just want to move it parallell to where it was.
b) Making it possible to use 3 lines also, not only 2 or 4. There are not always four places available to click onto.
(this is how Lightroom already does it)
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b) requested here also.
The keystone tool is generally a mess and rudimentary at best. In most cases, when using the adjustment points you don't get the vertical/horizontal lines you should expect (see this thread), an issue that Capture One has consistently neglected to address.
Apart from not working as it should, the keystone tool is obviously crippled by the adjustment points being locked together in a four-sided figure, rather than having four independent lines / eight adjustment points (see the first link above).
Making this tool additionally frustrating to use is the fact that the position of the adjustment points isn't retained after Capture One has been shut down.
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I couldn't agree more.
The lack of a good (Lightroom) Upright alternative in C1 is the main reason why I find it hard to switch.
There are so many discussions regarding switching from LR to C1 but in the end it comes down to which fits your need.
I found several things I miss but in most cases I can do a workaround, like opening multiple photos as layers in PS. This is something I do constantly. Unfortunately C1 doesn't have this but I can fix it using scripts.I also find it difficult to get used to cropping in C1 because it works the exact opposite way as LR. In LR moving moves the image which I have gotten used to but I guess that would just take some time.
Even the fact that rotating is not as fluent as in LR is something I can live which (although it really is annoying).
But what I can't live without is some sort of automatic keystone correction.
After culling a weddingshoot which leaves me with 500-700 photos I crop, straighten and rotate then in one continuous session.
So I would leave my crop on, then rotate and crop and use a key on my mouse to go to the next photo. This process never takes more then 1-3 seconds.
There are a lot of photos which have easily defined horizontal and vertical lines. Like when I shoot groups in front of a wall or building. In those cases I just press my button for Upright on which the photo aligns both horizontally and vertically. This just takes 1 second on which I only have to crop and move on to the next photo. C1 doesn't have a quick way for doing this which would cost me way too much time. For some this might not be a big deal but I am cropping, rotating, straightening around 70000 photos per year. So an automatic keystone correction tool is even more important to me than any quality improvement.Second best thing would be a guided keystone correction but like Thomas mentioned this is terrible in C1. Mostly because the lines are bound together.
This is especially terrible when wanting to correct both horizontal and vertical axis.I really don't understand why the tool doesn't work just like in LR where you can simply draw a maximum of 2 horizontal and 2 vertical lines. You would think it wouldn't be too much work for the developers to make that.
Because C1 only offers the bound lines there is one thing which we can't do and that is to use 3 lines instead of 4.
In some cases I want to align the horizontal lines but I want to keep some vertical perspective. Like looking up at something. But what I sometimes want is to run 1 vertical line telling the grid which is the middle line which should be on a 90 degree angle which the horizontal lines. For instance if I hang a wedding dress in a doorframe. I want the top of the door to horizontally align with the floor so I need 2 horizontal lines for that. Then I just draw 1 vertical line through what I think is the middle of the doorframe and dress. The result is that you still look up at the dress but the left and right sides matched perfect.1 -
Hi John,
Thank you for feedback on Capture One - we appreciate the time you've taken to contribute towards the development of the software.
I have forwarded your comments and suggestions on to our Product Management team as something to consider in a future release. Hopefully your feedback contributes towards a future version of Capture One.
Though we cannot comment on future releases and the features to be added, we recommend keeping an eye on this article - click Follow next to the title of the article to stay up to date with new features and improvements.-1 -
Interesting. The keystone tool isn't mentioned in the overview Lily linked to above (The history of tools and features added to Capture One), so I assume it was introduced before version 8.3, which as far as I can see was launched in 2015. As the keystone malfunction doesn't appear to be a bug that was introduced at a later time, this must mean that Capture One has been sold with a broken keystone tool for at least five years.
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@John Hellström
Would it be easier for you to use the full Keystone tool and grid facility rather then the guided alignment option?
It may also be worth considering asking for a different tool, one that deals with graphics style pixel manipulation specifically rather the current options which, so far as I recall from old information, has always been intended to correspond to technical camera tilt and shift type adjustments. Also referred to as "movements".
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"It may also be worth considering asking for a different tool, one that deals with graphics style pixel manipulation specifically rather the current options which, so far as I recall from old information, has always been intended to correspond to technical camera tilt and shift type adjustments. Also referred to as "movements"."
What's the point of these repeated attempts at deflecting criticism from the keystone tool? Using the adjustment points is supposed to work, otherwise what's the point of having them? Even supposing that the current keystone tool worked as it was supposed to, I haven't yet seen one good explanation of what it's supposed to do and what it isn't supposed to do. Likening it to a tilt-shift lens certainly doesn't shed any light on this distinction. Assuming that you mean by this that it can only be used for adjustments along one axis, like the shift function of tilt-shift lens, this isn't the case either, as you should by now be aware. And if this was the case, there's no reason it should have a vertical and horizontal mode.
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Thomas,
Mainly because I think it is likely to be a more successful approach to getting what you want - which as far as I can tell is not easily encompassed by the existing functionality that you do not like.
This may be a useful suggestion for anyone making a fresh post without reference to the very long history of your requests. And John's suggestions would probably be easier to accomplish via a completely new development than try to adapt the existing functionality to do what it currently does (for backwards compatibility) AND what you want it to do.
So far you have spent a year chasing this without satisfaction. Maybe a different suggestion and a possible simpler application for pushing pixels around to a new shape (but without the "mesh" sort of functionality found elsewhere) would be a more attractive investment of time for the developers.
I have no idea what good old "LightRoom" does but John seems to be suggesting that its functionality could simply be copied and he would be satisfied.
I checked affinity Photo and that seem to have 2 approaches.
A Perspective tool that offers some sliders to hack the perspective around. That certainly deals with the verticals and horizontals but not what you want and even the "Help" example looks somewhat unpleasant to my eyes.
They then have the Mesh Warp option for further creativity.
So suggesting a 2 tool approach might be a way to persuade C1 to more quickly undertake the development you, John and the others require?
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SFA,
It's not clear to me how you would divide the tasks of the two tools. Neither is it clear to me what the current tool, in your opinion, is supposed to do. I've asked about this several times before, but I have yet to see any actual reply: what are the exact limitations of the current tool? (I am aware that you can use the sliders rather than the adjustment points, but then what's the point of having adjustment points?)
Why you keep defending and deflecting criticism from a feature that is so obviously flawed I have no idea. I'm clearly not the only user who has requested improvements to the current tool as regards both its flaws and its limitations. Yet whenever there's a new request/complaint, you, who have no need for such improvements, keep arguing against any change or improvement. For what purpose?
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Thomas,
Partly to provide some alternative "perspective" - please excuse the poor pun in this case.
And in the case of John's comment, to bring up the point about using the main tool if the visual controls are not to his liking. ust to be sure that it is recognised that there is another way to do things.
Also in John's example of what he would like to see ... it just reads like one of those software development cases that shouts out "START AGAIN" rather than attempt to modify something that already exists and, I strongly suspect, was initially developed to emulate an entirely different approach to a selected problem than the the problem you perceive.
The point of the adjustment points is to have a quick way to set some approximate adjustments that, in many use cases, will be sufficient for the purpose. But that approach will not always work to the visual satisfaction of a 2 dimension representation of a 3 dimensional subject that our brains are capable of processing in a different way. Indeed not just capable but trained to do so by experience.
For example, as I sit here looking down at the laptop screen part of my visual area contains all sort of objects that offer obvious straight lines that I know are horizontal or vertical (more or less) but do not look horizontal or vertical at my viewing angle. This does not bother my brain since it is completely able to process this information without concerns. In fact it can even compensate for the additional distortions of wearing reading spectacles.
However, if I was to take a photo of what I see and view the result in 2 dimensions and out of context I would see leaning verticals and non-horizontal horizontals and might choose to correct those because, as an image, it would not look "right".
And having corrected I might be very happy that the verticals are vertical in the image and the horizontals are horizontal in the image and that might be enough to let me accept without question, that the image is in fact horribly distorted compared to how I see it, peripherally, sitting on my chair.
Eyes, of course, are not "fixed" views They move as we look around and focus on different parts of what we can see. With each movement the brain reinterprets the incoming light and shade and colour information and adjust the interpretation accordingly. It cannot "get inside" a 2 dimensional captured image in the same way. Or at least not as easily.
If I look at any of the examples I have found on line about how to use the Keystone type adjustments in Lightroom they are certainly producing realigned verticals and horizontal lines for selected part of the image but also completely distorting the content. We tend to accept that, especially for architecture, as a sort of styling effect that is somehow meant to enhance the result and make it more dramatic even if not necessarily more accurate.
A similar example is shooting interior shots of rooms for Real Estate sales brochures where a wide angle lens and a bit of careful position of the camera (or keystone type adjustment in post processing) can make a room appear much larger than it really is.
Whilst I mention LR the same is true for other applications. Pushing the pixels around can indeed create straight verticals and horizontals but not necessarily something that is visually corrected to be "as seen" by an observer's eyes in place of the camera.
That is why I think you would be better asking for a new tool - just as tools like Affinity Photo (in its pixel editing mode) offer separate tools for what it calls "perspective correction" and "mesh warping", though the last named clearly has purposes beyond or other than geometric realignments and the pixel pushing rules needed to make them work.
You seem to have an especially "black and white" view of the way the current offering works or does not work which would be fine and I respect your drive and energy to seek out the solution that you want but I also suspect that it may not be the best and fastest way to get it. Partly because the existing functionality and the legacy it carries as a burden to be respected do not fit easily with your suggested revisions.
Therefore proposing a new tool with different design criteria could be an advantage, even if the new approach was implemented as a different "mode" of the existing tool in order to attempt to avoid user confusion over why there seem to be two tools that appear to be doing the same thing. They would not be doing the same thing in the same way but there is no reason why people would need to know that to be able to use them.
When your path is blocked by a brick wall and beating your head against it does not provide a what through the best option is likely to be to find a way around it.
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Hi guys...
I thought it might help everyone out if I made a short movie demonstrating the feature.
If you like to see it, it can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0w1pq0gbmju4dow/Upright.mov?dl=0
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The question of how actual 3-dimensional space is perceived is not directly relevant here and there's no need to keep bringen it up.
The keystone tool is supposed to be able to adjust an image so that the lines between specific points become horizontal/vertical. Whether you like the result or find it distorted is irrelevant. I'm sure that most tools in Capture One could produce results that you would find distorted; that's how they're supposed to work, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with them.
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Hi Thomas,
I agree.
It's not a discussion about distortion or the creative results. It more about the functionality in the tool.
As I understood, C1 does a auto keystone correction for Phase One camera's. It does that using the gyro data. Therefore I understand that the current tool has to be rewritten because it has to identify straight lines and do a correction based on them.As you can see in this movie: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0w1pq0gbmju4dow/Upright.mov?dl=0 Lightroom does it purely on a pixel base.
The current keystone tool just is way to cumbersome and takes so much time to get a good result and in a lot of cases it's just impossible to find a square part in the photo that is the baseline for the correction. Because the tool has a zoomed in window it is also possible to exactly find the spots you want. In C1 you have to manually zoom in and then zoom out again.
Try doing a manual keystone correction on 100's of photos in a row. You'll go insane :)
And no, I am not saying that auto keystone correction is something you need for a good photo or that it makes every photo better. Again, that's a totally different discussion.
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Thanks, Brian. That's a very good demonstration of how well Lightroom's keystone function works. I don't use the auto function myself, preferring the guides, and as this video illustrates, Lightroom's guide/adjustment point function is vastly superior to what you find in Capture One – not only is it much more flexible, it actually works.
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I support Thomas' view.
It really is very simple: Any four points designated with the keystone correction tool should, after correction, form a rectangle. End of story.
If that's not what someone wants because they have particular ideas about how, say a door, should still look somewhat distorted from some assumed camera position, they need to achieve such effects manually. A keystone correction tool neither has the relevant information (relative position of camera to nominated shape) nor the artistic license (what proportion of distortion should be left in place) to make any decisions that go beyond simply correcting the distortion.
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Thomas, you're welcome :)
Yes, the guided upright function works amazingly well. And to be honest, I would really think this would be so easy to implement in C1.
In my demonstration I over did the usage of the tool just for demonstration purposes.
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As it says here, the keystone tool was introduced in version 6, which was released in 2010. Apart from a few minor bug fixes (see release notes for version 9), it appears to have gone unchanged since it was introduced 10 years ago. Assuming that its current flaws (disregarding its limitations) haven't been introduced at some point in between, Capture One has had a faulty keystone tool for 10 years. It really must be time for an update.
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I'm all in for a similar functionality of Keystone in Capture One like Lightroom has. It's one of the biggest things I miss from my Lightroom days.
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Brian's video demonstrate exactly why I think it would make more sense for people to make a proposal for a new tool rather than a "fix" for the existing tool.
The existing tool would still have a place for those that are used to it and like what it does and especially for anyone with a library of images that have previously been edited with its adjustment abilities as they currently exist.
All of that said, will the LR tool deal so quickly and satisfactorily with Thomas's specific test requirements? (As posted in one of the other threads on the subject.)
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"All of that said, will the LR tool deal so quickly and satisfactorily with Thomas's specific test requirements? (As posted in one of the other threads on the subject.)"
I don't remember ever having any trouble with Lightroom's keystone tool. As mentioned above, I don't use the auto function, only the Guided mode.
Here are two schematic test images that Capture One is unable to handle – you can try for yourself:
Here they are zipped.
As you can see below, Lightroom has no trouble with them:
I fail to see what place the current – faulty and crippled – tool could have for anyone after the introduction of a new tool. Corrections that have already been made should, of course, be retained after the current keystone tool has been replaced. And apart from the malfunctioning of the current tool, a new tool should obviously be able to do the same.
I've requested a new keystone tool here.
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Here's a quickly made screen recording of the above adjustments in Lightroom: video.
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Hi Thomas,
I wanted to tell you that C1 should do the same because it has that boxed keystone tool.
So I downloaded your images and made a video too. But then something really strange happend.When using the 4 line keystone correction in C1 and aligning it with those shapes in your images it really did a very strange correction. I am trying out C1 for a good week and mainly found that the whole keystone tool was just very cumbersome and slow to use but now it also looks like it just doesn't even work.
Both of your images aren't perfectly horizontal AND vertical after te correction.
I made a video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x5cd61ykaff5c4x/C1%20keystone.mov?dl=0
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Hi Brian,
Exactly. You get parallel sides, but not 90° angles. When making simultaneous vertical and horizontal adjustments, this is most often the case.
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Keystone issues in Capture One is my #1 biggest issue with it, as someone who photographs paintings I need to be able to ensure the final image is exactly square if the camera was at a bit of an angle. It seems fairly obvious the keystone tool in Capture One is _supposed_ to work just like the perspective lines in Lightroom, but in Capture One it almost always fails to fully correct the perspective even when placing the corners pixel-perfect.
This is a case of "should work like Lightroom. Looks like it would work similar to Lightroom. Doesn't actually work for any use case. Must be a bug" in my opinion
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@Thomas Kyhn
Capture One - being a raw editor - chose to use an algorithm to correct the perspective which relies on the focal length information embedded in all files coming through a camera (raw, jpeg, exported tiff). In your example you drew the trapezoid using a pixel editor - hence this image does not include any focal length information.
I made an experiment with your sample image - I simply took a photograph of it with an actual camera, and imported the raw file. As this image has now proper lens information, Capture One's algorithm had no problem fixing the simulated perspective issue.
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@Katrina Niolet may I ask you to elaborate a bit more on your problem? May I ask you to share a screenshot of how the original image looks like, and how does it look after you applied keystone correct? Please make sure that the Keystone tool is visible in your captures.
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@Tamas Nemeth
As I get similar results with actual photos I don't think your explanation holds up. The reason I made the schematic examples in the first place was that I encountered this issue again and again when editing photos.
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@Thomas Kyhn,
Well, I'm looking at the code doing the perspective correction, so I guess my explanation for your particular drawing holds. If you see similar problems with actual photographs, please provide that as example. This drawing is not a good example because of what I explained.Meanwhile I have found your 'Borgergade' image in our archives. Let me try to see what is the problem with that.
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@Tamas Nemeth
Here's an old example.
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More examples.
Before applying correction:
After applying keystone correction, left:
After applying keystone correction, right:
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I can see that it is definitely not correct for the Borgergade label, and I guess it is very similar issue with this images as well. Did you use the same tele lens for this examples as well?
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