A new keystone tool
Implemented
Updated April 5 2022 (with the release of version 15.2.0).
The previous malfunctioning has now been fixed, and some of the limitations have been removed (the visibility of lines and adjustment points has been improved; default vertical keystone amount has been changed to 100; auto-keystone has been added). Though the most acute limitation, the lack of independent adjustment points – see 1) below – is yet to be addressed.
This is an attempt to summarize in one place the requested features for an improved keystone tool.
1) Independent horizontal and vertical adjustment points (four independent lines, rather than four lines locked in a four-sided figure; eight adjustment points in all). (See these: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)
2) The option to only place three lines (six adjustment points). This would be useful in a cases where one of the axes only has one line you can use for alignment. (See this topic.)
3) Retain adjustment point positions after the application is closed (see this).
4) Loupe showing the exact position of adjustment points while you drag and place them.
5) Option to move an entire line between two adjustment points (as opposed to one adjustment point at a time) (see this, for instance).
6) Maximize crop when using auto-keystone (see this: unnecessary cropping).
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I've also had problems with the current keystone tool where even if the lines are placed pixel-perfect on the corners of a rectangle it is still leaving some skew after being applied.
edit - ok now I see this thread: Perspective – Capture One
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Thank you for your extensive post Thomas.
These are also the features I would like to see in a new keystone tool.
As you've said, an overhaul of this tool has been long overdue.
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The perfect post! Thank you for listing the most important things that needs to be changed ASAP. I love C1, but this tool must be updated to be really useful.
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Thanks from me too, Thomas Kyhn, for your post. I have occasionally taken shots for Real Estate agents and use the keystone tool to correct the verticals (to 100%!!!) in most of the shots. Sometimes this can make the top part of the shot look a bit squashed while the bottom half can look stretched. I've attached a rough illustration to show this.
In this particular shot the extensive windows height needs to be emphasised more than the kitchen island unit. In such cases I have to use the Photoshop Warp tool to correct the verticals in the manner indicated to give a more natural and balanced result.
It would be good if this useful feature could be added to the keystone tool. If this were technically too difficult then a Warp tool would (at least for me) be a welcome addition to CO.
However I'd prefer if this additional feature could be added to the Keystone tool as this would keep CO as a specialist Raw editor - the last thing I'd like to see is CO going the way of Photoshop and adding more and more "features" to justify the continuous rental expense.
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Totally agree! Please unlock four closed lines into four separate lines in the keystone tool. And shortcut for quick zoom into the circle would be also nice!
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From Architectural Photography Almanac on the Capture One 21 update:
More in the comments section.
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I've also made a couple requests for this over the past two years. It's such an obvious and long overdue feature update, that I beginning to wonder if Adobe has a patent on the transform feature. Why else would C1 lead the way on so many levels yet leave such an embarrassing Keystone feature on their software.
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I'm sure they're aware of the rudimentary state of this tool, but it doesn't appear to have any priority at all. And when you look at the sort of photography they usually present – mainly of people – as well their "ambassadors" you can easily get the impression that keystone adjustment isn't really of much importance.
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I recently started at least a partial switch to Capture One after years of Lightroom, and as much as I love working with color, the Keystone tool is a real vibe killer. It's unintuitive and often doesn't work. For the last few sessions, even the lines disappeared, and I can only work with sliders. I'm surprised that there are so many threads with keystone improvement and fixes requests; most of them left without a reply from the CO team... Keystone tool would definitely benefit from a close look by CO engineers!
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Thomas Kyhn - I am 100% in agreement with your post. The two modules that are the most painful in C1 are the keystone tool and printing. The printing tool is so bad I export to Qimage Ultimate.
I do a fair amount of both interior and exterior work and because the C1 keystone tool is so painfully awkward and inaccurate I use either PS or DXO Viewpoint for my corrections. Again I have to use a second tool and all the format changes and round tripping that goes with it. It is still faster and much more accurate going that route than using the C! keystone.
Also LR has a much superior keystone tool, even though not perfect, it is much faster, more accurate and much easier to use.
I am not sure if anyone from C1 even bothers to read or acknowledge the community posts. They make a big deal about improving C1 so as to reduce trips to PS or other 3rd party software while not fixing tools that would actually reduce those round trips.
I also agree with your comment "they usually present – mainly of people – as well their "ambassadors" you can easily get the impression that keystone adjustment isn't really of much importance".
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Following up on my previous post - there are no Keystone lines in full-screen view... so yeah, they didn't disappear entirely, just vanished in full-screen mode. Unless there is an option, I cant see in my CO21?
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I see the lines in full-screen view in version 14.3.1.10 (on macOS 11.5.2). Do you use the same version?
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I'm on the 14.3.1.10 as well and Keystone lines disappear as soon as I enter full-screen view.
Have a look at the screenshot please:
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The Apply button remains in the middle, but the lines are gone...
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Strange. I've never seen that. I would try contacting support.
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Overall I'm quite happy with CO, very capable software, especially when it comes to color control, but few things, like this one, drive me nuts - to the point of actually posting over here; I never do that :)
I'm still using Lightroom for many things, and I'm afraid to jump ship completely.
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Here are two examples of the keystone tool not working as it's supposed to. (This after raising the vertical "amount" to 100.)
And this is with vertical and horizontal keystone adjustment.
Before pressing Apply:
After:
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A few examples of typical use cases where a vertical default of 80 makes no sense (see no. 5 on the list in the initial post).
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interesting pictures! :-)
I am struggling with that keystone too!
To me there is an accumulation of problems becoming more problematic more you ask correction.
- 2 lines versus 4 lines corrections (4 lines is just bad almost all the time)
- 80 vs 100% of correctionAs far as I understand it after complaining several time to Phase One and Capture One, there are some conflict between lens correction and perspective correction (and even the automatic correction with Phase One IQ4).
Some time cancelling the lens correction (generic) solve the keystone tool troubles.Capture One seems to have no interest in fixing the Keystone tool even if we have seen fixes in the past (visibility of lines) after massively requesting through support case.
I think we should continue to send massive support case about keystone troubles.
We should also consider report these trouble trough the beta testing!2 -
An example of a case where independent horizontal and vertical adjustment points would have been useful (please disregard the quality of the photo, it only serves as an illustration of the issue).
Obviously, you get the most precise results by placing the adjustment points as far apart as possible. In Capture One, however, you cannot use the full length of the available lines in the image:
. . .
This is the result you get, by the way, but that's another issue:
For comparison, here's the result in Lightroom:
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.....of course thomas but it is rather clear they have no interest to improve. it. photographers doing a lot of achitacture work and keep using this outdated tool can only be described as masochists.
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I'm afraid you're right.
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It's ridiculous that several years of negative comments about the keystone tool have not prompted a major overhaul. I regretted updating from CO 20 to 21 and will not be paying more for CO 22 if rock bottom basic features such as the keystone tool are ignored for yet another year.
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this is the game they play with us since many years, when certain functions are only important for a small groupe of user they ignore it, even well documented bugs like this.
when 22 is just another round of amateur pleasing features I'm done with c1, I have learned to use photolab this year and reprocessed some difficult images from older projects, in 95% the files from dxo hand been technically and aesthetically better than what I have accomplished in c1, only drawback is speed but I rather work with a slow software than this bug infested unstable innovation free product.
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Interesting thread. Thomas and CSP, I'm also decided to not throw more money at C1 because usually I like to support companies delivering well made tools. A couple of C1's are doubtful to say the least in terms of "well made".
Like you, CSP, I also learnt to use photolab (and am still in this process) as I switched to another camera system (for similar reasons, just not happy with some major developments) and DxO already supported Lumix while C1 was simply not able to read their RAW. It's good we have choices, it's just not very satisfying to live with other shortcomings. At least, photolab is not crashing on a daily basis (mulitple times). Yet.
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photolab is stable like a rock compared to c1 and I discovered just one bug this years...
c1 is overall faster but i have to spent far more time to get a neutral well balanced result in c1 compared to PL. this starts with WB, C1 does not interpret camera WB correct something PL has no problem with. the auto features for exposure and smart lighting works also very well ( to my surprise ) and far less manual correction is need. so a preset with my prefer settings gets me already very close to the desired end result and so some of the speed disadvantages of c1 are compensated. but I have to confess I never liked the look c1 applies on default and PL with a less contrasty roughed up look is closer to what I see as a good starting point. sometime the PL results remind me of the elegant, sharp but smooth look of an 8x10 provia sheet film.
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Yet another example.
Rather than being able to simply place the adjustment points as far apart as possible along the available lines, like this:
You have to spend a while going back and forth from side to side until you get a reasonable alignment, like this:
And this is the result you get:
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Thomas, your examples are very accurate to enlighten the problems with face with that tool.
Do you report them directly to Capture One via help ticket?
I think you should. “We” obtain already once an answer with the modification of the boldness of the line (the wrong way unfortunately) but I strongly believe if we all report these problems, including the .eip files, we will get some results.
The ergonomics of the tool is easy to change, they just need to see enough complain to put it in the front of the list.
The square stuff is more complex and it’s dependant of the camera, so .eip help.
We are enough now to have some “power” if we all report directly to Capture One.
We could even think to a kind of flash mob, reporting all together at the same time….0 -
yeah, lets rattle their feel good party at instagram.
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