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Stacking multiple pictures

Umberto Uderzo
Hello all!

I'm evaluating C1 for a switch form lightroom.
I already noticed the obvious differences and trying to find my path to the new workflow.
I'm currently trying to find a workaround to the "load as layers in photoshop" option that i'm used to use in lightroom.
Being able to load a bunch of pictures into my pixel editor for further aligning then merging and being able to send the result back to C1 for further development for me it's a must.
But i don't find anything easy. I mean, C1 doesn't support any form of automatism for doing so. I need to open PS (or Affinity photo) and manually search my folders for the shots i need to stack, and in this case i'm forced to perform the RAW development with Affinity, which i don't like. So i need to open picture by picture in Affinity then copy and paste all layers in a new picture, merge, save somewhere then re-import in C1, which is tedious task. Maybe this is the way to go and i'm too much dependent on this little feature of LR... just to know if there is some trick i'm not aware of.

Thanks! Umberto

P.S. I own also an ON1 Photo RAW license which allowa for stacking in-app, but the debayering algorithm is so-so and C1 is clearly winner on this point.
P.P.S. I'm on Windows.
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  • cdc
    I'm not familiar with Affinity, but why not edit the raw files in C1 and create Tiff variants and then open those in Affinity instead of using Affinity to process the raw files?

    Photoshop has a function called 'load files into stack' which will load each image selected into an individual layer, it is basically the same process as Lr's 'Load as Layers' except you'll need to activate it from within photoshop and locate the files in a browser window.

    So you can process the images in Capture One and create Tiff variants, then open Photoshop and select 'load files into stack' to get them all in one document as individual layers and do the aligning/merging. Once you save the Ps edited Tiff you will be able to open it in C1 and continue working on it. If you're working in a session it will automatically import when yo uopen the folder it is saved to, if you're working with a catalog you may need to re-import it. It is essentially the same process as the Lr -> Ps -> Lr round trip with an added couple few steps, so not quite as seamless but pretty simple nonetheless.

    I use the Helicon Focus stacking plugin with Capture One which does allow for seamless export/import automation between the two programs. I would guess there are, or will be, other third party apps that do the same for HDR & Panorama with Capture One.
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  • Umberto Uderzo
    Hello cdc, thanks for your reply!

    Tried Helicon but apart of being an adding cost, it doesn't solve the bare problem of aligning images and merging them (on a median point of view).
    My question was aimed mainly because with lightroom i'm in a "comfort zone" that doesn't reflects over C1. Yes C1 needs more manual steps and everything is still doable, just wanted to understand if there are shortcuts or if everything is needed to be performed manually as it seemed to be.

    In some aspects C1 is more "raw usage" than LR but its RAW conversion and development workflow is good and i'm still evaluating it for this reason (and for the perpetual license thingy of course).

    Cheers! Umberto
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  • cdc
    NNN636476411037330213 wrote:

    Tried Helicon but apart of being an adding cost, it doesn't solve the bare problem of aligning images and merging them (on a median point of view).


    Right, Helicon is a specific tool for a specific task. The point I was trying to make though was that Capture One and Helicon can work together in an automated way like Lightroom and Photoshop do. So the capability is there and the plug-in features are pretty new in Capture One so I would imagine we will see a growing number of third party software that will introduce more automated workflows when you need to take your images outside of Capture One.
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  • Umberto Uderzo
    Got it.

    So the quick answer is "it will improve", which is good to me.
    I was just expecting C1 being already more evoluted than it is. Maybe it rested on its pro laurels for too long and now needs to improve quickly to stay on par with the competition.
    I'm impressed by C1 color management and really want to give it a serious go. On the other hand, some aspects seem a bit harsh to handle, and I'm not only referring to the interaction with external apps. Also the catalog needs some performance love.

    We'll see 😊
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  • SFA
    NNN636476411037330213 wrote:
    Got it.

    So the quick answer is "it will improve", which is good to me.
    I was just expecting C1 being already more evoluted than it is. Maybe it rested on its pro laurels for too long and now needs to improve quickly to stay on par with the competition.
    I'm impressed by C1 color management and really want to give it a serious go. On the other hand, some aspects seem a bit harsh to handle, and I'm not only referring to the interaction with external apps. Also the catalog needs some performance love.

    We'll see 😊


    I think it is more a matter of what objectives one seeks.

    I doubt Capture One will ever be developed as a 'do everything' application.

    Unless, of course, the plug-in provision, recently introduced with C1 V12, is the route chosen expand the options.

    It probably is since people have been asking for plug-ins for some time.

    As for the catalogue - have you considered using sessions for editing?

    I have always though of catalogues as a form of archive. When editing new images I really do not see the need to open a vast collection of old images that I will not be viewing or referring to. It makes more sense, in my view, to work with a session for editing activity. When done take the results into the catalogue.

    Being forced to use a catalogue was one of the things that led to me abandoning LightRoom around the time it got to Version 2 and not re-adopting when I re-assessed at Version 3 - both events some time before I tried Capture One.

    There may well be some things you can do to enhance the performance of an imported LR catalogue - but it's not an area with which I am personally familiar so I will leave it to others to make a suggestion here.


    Grant
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  • Umberto Uderzo
    Hello Grant,

    I must admit i still have to try the use of Sessions. I'm currently kicking tires of C1 redoing some old developments just to get accustomed. I guess the Session concept is the best approach to C1 then move finished works into a Catalog.
    Anyway from time to time i'm asked to recover old shots from the archive. With lightroom is a matter of seconds, instead C1 takes very long time. Maybe it's me not approaching the correct way, but is't clear that LR has been developed with archiving in mind from scratch and C1 has added the concept later.
    My hope is that C1 may improve in the cataloguing side. In fact, what i love of LR is that on my (relatively) big archive i keep all original RAWS with development recipes kept into LR archive. I wish a similar flexibility also in C1. Maybe many use external DAM to C1 when the final exported result is kept, but i'd like to avoid this solution.

    What i don't understand is if C1 takes long to scan the catalog for the metadata or instead if it takes long to retrieve the thumbnails. From what i see it looks like the first option, but it's not consistent as with very selective searches it reacts faster.
    Must investigate further.

    Umberto
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  • SFA
    Umberto,

    There are a few people here who may chip in and offer some suggestions based on their experiences.

    It's difficult to make any simple suggestions because there are so many variables involved.

    Also C1 does a lot of checking for changes in real time - which is great if you need it but less so if you do not.

    For imported catalogues ... well, who knows what may have resulted in C1 from whatever (often hidden) challenges there might be in LR? It's just the way things are. I have years of experience of working with PDF files extracting data. In effect a PDF file is just a database that describes the document. A perfect looking document may offer its data perfectly in some analysis programs and very poorly in others. It can depend on how it was written, by how many versions of the writer program and how many times the basic structure of the document/database has been adjusted or updated over several, years and several releases of the program that 'writes' the output.

    To ba able to 'clean' the data (or interpret it) one has to know and allow for all of the possible changes it has been through. That's not really likely and could be compromised.

    Sometimes everything is wonderful. Other times not so good.

    If your catalogue has a lot of metadata indexes it may be useful to remove them for a while and then rebuild them but without making all of them active every time the catalogue is opened.

    I also tend to use Hibernate rather than Shutdown (if I shut down at all without being forced to do so by a software update). My Windows 7 Notebook is SSD based but even so I prefer to avoid re-boots unless absolutely necessary.

    HTH.


    Grant
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  • cdc
    NNN636476411037330213 wrote:
    Got it.

    So the quick answer is "it will improve", which is good to me.
    I was just expecting C1 being already more evoluted than it is. Maybe it rested on its pro laurels for too long and now needs to improve quickly to stay on par with the competition.
    I'm impressed by C1 color management and really want to give it a serious go. On the other hand, some aspects seem a bit harsh to handle, and I'm not only referring to the interaction with external apps. Also the catalog needs some performance love.

    We'll see 😊


    My guess is that Phase One's focus was on meeting the needs of commercial photographers where it is the industry standard software for anyone shooting tethered, where one session per job makes more sense than a bloated catalog, and most of C1's color grading tools are about as good as it gets. More and more amateurs caught on and started using C1 who primarily use catalogs it would seem because it makes sense to keep personal work together. Then Adobe switched to the subscription model and people are moving over from Adobe but want C1 to behave like Lightroom. So now Phase One is trying to catch up and meet peoples demands. Like I said that's just a guess though, I could be totally off base.

    That said I'm surprised C1 hasn't implemented some things like image stacking for HDR, pano's, etc as those are pretty common tasks. But yes, my guess is some aspects like integration with 3rd party software will improve, of course it will never integrate with Ps like Lr does. As for C1's catalog I can't really comment on that as I only use sessions. I prefer my personal work to be in a big bloated catalog and still use Lightroom for that.
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  • Umberto Uderzo
    I agree. I'm the first to admit that i'm looking at C1 because of my "incompatibility" with Adobe licensing policy.
    Did a test try some time ago but at the time C1 didn't have radial and linear masks (well, it had but not vector, and not being able to move a radial mask without clipping it at the borders was a deal breaker at the time).
    Now i'm giving it a new spin and it clicks more. Neverthless in my mind i'm still trying to find some junctions between LR and C1, but it's mainly lazyness to change approach.
    I love how LR handles its Catalog but all its performance on this aspect made me lazy: i tend nowadays to accumulate useless shots just because i can do that way.
    Maybe C1 will be what i need to step up my workflow. I'm loving its color capabilities, i'm not loving so much the layer approach because i'm used to LR pins, but i'm sure this is just matter or being accustomed (i'm trying to replicate some developments i made in LR but i'm still in the ugly phase, need more time to practice with the new approach).
    That said, i'm still hoping C1 will expand on the Catalog side, or i will not able to fill terabytes of drives with my useless shots 😄

    Just kidding. This thread helped me to reconsider the "one tool to rule them all" approach. I'm also using a license of ON1 PR but while very capable it's not a well defined tool. Tries to do too many things and on my opinion it fails on several aspects. First the RAW debayer algorithm. C1 has the best i found so far, is rivals with LR but it's slightly better on the micro detail side. And now i'm more convinced that having picture layering capabilities it's beyond the scope of such tool, and starting to appreciate C1 more. If it just could handle external applications easily it will be more convincing, that's all. When i address my issues with the Catalog approach i think i'll be ready to switch.

    Umberto
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  • cdc
    As a frequent user of both Capture One and Lightroom I can assure you that neither program is superior to the other. They both have their strong points and weak points, which are generally workflow related and not image quality related. Overall I'm happy to use either program.
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