With Capture One 20, DNG files from camera models that are not support will still look great. This opens up for great color profiling of all smartphones, drones and camera models that capture in DNG format. Select Next When: For high-volume sorting tasks like weddings or other events, culling has been made easier with Capture One 20. New features of Capture One 20.1 May 18, 2020 The new version of Capture One 20.1 was released today, approximately six months after the release of Capture One 20. I am happy that this version brings some great and useful improvements – brand-new retouch tools and before/after view. Capture One 21 (14.1) is here. Raise the bar on editing with Style Brushes that let you target specific parts of your photo, an Import Viewer that helps you quickly review images so you only import the best shots – and more.
Capture One 20 is finally here and it’s one of the most balanced releases of Capture One ever. Despite the provocative naming, Capture One 20 is an evolutionary-style upgrade with a mass of long-awaited features:
- New HDR tool with White and Black sliders
- Improved Noise Reduction
- Reworked Crop tool
- Improved copy/apply of Layers
Nevertheless, Capture One 20 experiments with novel approaches to image editing as well. For instance, you can now adjust color simply by moving cursor over image.
For new users, Capture One 20 delivers a new scrollable interface and improved image culling to make switching to Capture One even easier. Plus, in Capture One 20 developers enhanced processing for DNG files from your phones, drones, and non-supported cameras!
Download Capture One 20 (as always, it has a 30-day free trial), and let’s find out how all the new features work!
First things first: Capture One 20 has now a scrollable interface!
Part of Capture One users have been asking for tool scrolling for years. However, some photographers were always against any changes in Capture One UI.
In Capture One 20, developers somehow managed to please both sides!
So, here is how it works now. You have two sections in each tool tab:
1) Pinned Area
There is no scroll bar in the Pinned area. All the tools located there work just as they did before.
2) Scrollable Area
You can place any tools here and quickly scroll through this section using a scroll wheel.
Tools can be easily moved between areas by drag-n-dropping or by clicking “…” icon and choosing “Move Tool to Pinned/Scrollable Area”.
Thus you can have any tool tab setup you want:
- You can place all the tools in the Pinned Area and have a classical Capture One interface.
- Similarly, you can move all the tools in the Scrollable Area and have a Lightroom-style interface.
However, I would suggest having the best of both worlds. For instance, you can place all the primary tools in the Pinned Area and have secondary tools in the Scrollable Area. In my case, I have set color channel curves in a scrollable section below the pinned RGB Curve.
By default, the scroll wheel is now used for tool tab scrolling, and thus you can’t adjust sliders with it anymore.
There are two solutions to this:
- You can use Alt-scroll to adjust sliders.
- Or you can set Alt-scrolling for tool tab in Capture One preferences and have a classical setup.
I think the new scrollable tool tabs fit perfectly into Capture One’s approach to the customizable interface.
Also, you can now quickly switch the viewer background color by right-clicking the background itself or by using shortcuts.
Capture One Express Fujifilm
So, it’s time to discuss new editing features!
HDR tool in Capture One 20 has been entirely rebuilt.
Firstly, all sliders now have positive and negative values. Thus, you can easily make highlights brighter and shadows darker. It gives you additional control over image contrast.
Secondly, in Capture One 20 you’ll find new White and Black sliders to adjust the darkest shadows and brightest highlights precisely.
For example, you can easily recover the darkest parts of your image without affecting regular dark areas:
It works the same way for the brightest highlights.
At first, you might think that new HDR sliders work similarly to Lightroom sliders, but they are quite different.
Whites and Blacks sliders in LR basically adjust white and black points on your image. Capture One has a separate and much more powerful tool for this – Levels.
Here is a simple example of how Whites/Blacks in LR work comparing to White/Black in Capture One.
As you can see, White and Black sliders in Capture One are not repeating Levels. If you have no dark or bright information on an image, you need to work with Levels first.
Another interesting feature: the new HDR sliders work excellently while being mixed. For instance, you can darken highlights and brighten white areas to make an image look deeper.
Likewise, you can dim shadows, but recover black parts and get more details out of them.
HDR tool in Capture One 20 clearly deserves a separate article!
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Another significant change in Capture One 20 is the new Basic Color Editor.
Basic Color Editor always felt a bit redundant in Capture One workflow. It had a lack of color control and no support for layers.
In Capture One 20 developers entirely rethought how basic color correction should work.
The new Basic Color Editor has no color wheel and thus takes much less space in a tool tab. Instead of the color wheel, Basic mode now contains eight prepared color segments with standard sliders: Hue, Saturation, and Lightness.
Plus, you can easily customize color ranges by clicking here:
If you miss View Selected Color Range tool, don’t forget that you can set it to a shortcut:
Also, Basic Color Editor now fully supports layers!
Apart from visual changes, Basic Color Editor now offers an entirely new way of color correction – Direct Color Editor.
Direct Color Editor is a new cursor tool that gives you full control over color editing.
You can select Direct Color Editor in Basic Color Editor window, in Toolbar menu, or simply by using a shortcut D.
When Direct Color Editor is active, click any color on an image, hold down the left mouse button and move your cursor:
- Vertical movements adjust Saturation of selected color
- Horizontal movements change Hue
- Alt + Horizontal movements adjust Lightness
In Direct Color Editor settings (right-click with an active tool), you can adjust sensitivity and customize controls.
At first, such direct control over color feels offbeat, like you’re working blindfolded. It’s only a matter of confidence.
Give it some time, and you’ll notice that you’re making more and more corrections with Direct Color Editor. This simplicity and quickness suit basic color editing just naturally.
So, try it in your workflow and we’re moving to the next feature of Capture One 20 – new Crop tool.
Capture One 20 Review
Crop tool gained a significant redesign in Capture One 20.
Let’s see how it looks and works now:
- Crop area has got more noticeable, bold handles. Now it’s much easier to grab and resize the crop.
- Also, you can now hold down the Alt key while cropping to crop around the center.
- When you’re cropping with an unconstrained aspect ratio, hold down the Shift key to lock the current aspect ratio.
- Freehand rotation can now be activated by moving the cursor outside the corner of the crop or by using CMD/CTRL keys.
- Plus, you can now use Enter key to switch to the Pan Cursor Tool quickly. It allows you to see an image in its regular view, without crop tool borders.
Ok, what about better Noise Reduction, which I have mentioned at the beginning of the video?
Important!
Don’t forget to upgrade your file engine to see the new Capture One 20 processing on your images!
Improved Noise Reduction
When I have just tried Capture One 20, I’ve been a bit skeptical regarding the new noise reduction. At first glance, it works pretty similarly to Capture One 12 algorithms.
To change your mind, you need to look at how Capture One 20 deals with color rendering in shadows and highlights. Capture One 20 preserves many more details now!
Moreover, according to developers, Noise Reduction works intelligently in Capture One 20. The default noise reduction adjustments are now based on your ISO. Thus, you can get a correct result without manual tweaking of noise reduction.
Now it’s time to discuss a pretty minor update, but it has been anticipated by so many of my followers that I just can’t put it at the end of my list!
Capture One 20 brings a simple, but enormously useful tool for image culling – Select Next When.
It allows you to switch to the next image automatically once you set a rating or a color tag onto your image.
To enable auto-switching go to Select > Select Next When:
Ok, moving on to the next big update – improved DNG support.
Capture One 20 now offers better color profiling for DNG files from drones, smartphones, and cameras that use DNG format.
In Capture One 20 you’ll find a new base curve DGN Standart:
If you haven’t experienced any issues with color of your DNG files previously, you’ll see only the slightest changes in Capture One 20. For instance, DNG from iPhone X and the first DJI Mavic look pretty similar in Capture One 12 and Capture One 20.
However, if you weren’t satisfied with color of your DNG in Capture One 12, you might find color rendering significantly better with the new DNG Standart curve.
I’ve tested images from DJI MAVIC 2 PRO L1D-20C and the new curve delivers way more natural colors.
Now to another update from Capture One user’s wishlist: improved copying of Layers.
There are three major improvements to the copying of layers in Capture One 20:
First of all, you can now select which layers to copy. Say, you have different layers for color editing, exposure correcting, and image retouching. In Capture One 20 you can easily copy color and exposure layers without copying of retouch layer.
Secondly, if you already have some layers on an image, new layers will be added on top of the existing layers.
The third improvement enhances coping for images from different cameras
Previously, you might have had issues of coping layers from a file taken with one camera to an image from another camera. In Capture One 20, developers have fixed this problem, and now you can easily copy layers to images with different dimensions.
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License keys for all running modes
Any version of Capture One (including Trial and Express versions) now requires activation with a license key. You can find your license key on CaptureOne.com.
Adjustment Clipboard Improvements
Adjustment Clipboard tool now automatically collapses groups without adjustments (if “Auto-select adjusted” mode is on). Thus it’s now easier to navigate in Adjustment Clipboard.
Toolbar text and icons
Icons in the Toolbar in Capture One 20 have descriptions under them. You can turn this text off by right-clicking the Toolbar.
Masking cursor tools arrangement
Masking tools (brush, eraser, linear and radial gradients) are now available right in Layers tool for quick access.
Browser thumbnail resolution
Browser thumbnail resolution has been increased by 50%.
White Balance Picker
WB picker now provides much higher consistency and works better with noisy images.
Changes to default shortcuts
Some new shortcuts were added or changed in Capture One 20:
Proof Margin: X
Direct Color Editor: D
Hide Viewer: G
Linear Gradient: L
Zoom to 100%: . (period)
Zoom to fit: , (comma)
Toggle Focus Mask: Q
Full Screen: F (On Windows F11 works as a secondary shortcut)
• Olympus E-M5 III
• Canon EOS M6 II
• Canon EOS 90D
• Leica V-LUX 5
• Pentax K-1 II
• Ricoh GR III
• Panasonic Lumix DC-S1H
• Nikon Z 50
• Generic GoPro RAW support
The new version of Capture One 20.1 was released today, approximately six months after the release of Capture One 20. I am happy that this version brings some great and useful improvements – brand-new retouch tools and before/after view. An affordable version targeted on Nikon cameras shooters is available too.
First of all, I have to say that users were asking both main new features for a while and adding them is a step to catch up with the competition, but it doesn’t matter – they are very useful and make editing easier for current users and may be important for other users considering switching to Capture One.
Brand new retouch tools
Healing brush and clone stamp tools are closely bonded to the concept of layers in Capture One. This brings certain advantages like the possibility to switch on and off the edits temporarily, naming them or copying them selectively between photos. On the other hands, this concept had limitations too: every layer had a single source for retouching relative to every brushstroke, how it is shown on the following image:
As you can see, more retouching layers were needed for complex retouches. And the total number of layers is limited in Capture One. This problem is a thing of the past starting from version 20.1. Now you can easily use as many sources for retouching in a single layer as you need:
Even though the basic usage of the tools is similar to previous versions, there are some differences. The main one is that original single brush for all was split into three separate tools which create corresponding layers automatically when you start to paint over the Background layer:
- Draw mask (keyboard shortcut
Bas a Brush) is a brush for adjustments layers - Draw Healing Mask draws masks for healing layers. Its keyboard shortcut is
Q(you may easily remember it as the Q letter resembles the circle with the arrow which represents the retouch in the photo) - Draw Cloning Mask draws masks for cloning layers. Its keyboard shortcut
S(like (clone) Stamp) is the same as in Photoshop or Affinity Photo
New tools required some changes in the main toolbar:
The Layers tool changed similarly:
This new approach may divide users – some would like to stay with a single brush with different behavior driven by layer type, and some will appreciate the behavior similar to other editors like Photoshop. You will probably need some time to adapt because drawing with the standard brush like before into the repair layer will automatically create a new adjustments layer or will paint into the topmost existing adjustments layer. The Eraser tool (keyboard shortcut E) erases masks for each type of layer.
All tools now have new mouse cursors so it is evident, which tool is active:
The great thing is, that each stroke can be easily modified later by brush or eraser. You just need to select a circle representing single retouch by clicking it, it’s color will change to orange and then drawing and erasing will modify its mask:
You can create a series of retouches of different parts of the image this way, if the same relative source will work:
Anyway, this concept similar to the way how retouches worked in older Capture One versions probably has no other advantage than less of the visual clutter in the photo with a smaller number of arrows representing individual retouches.
The second click on the circle deselects the retouch, and a new brush stroke will create a new retouch with an automatically selected source. If you prefer to use a different source for your retouch, you can easily drag the circle with the mouse. Alternatively, you can choose the source manually before you start to draw a mask by clicking the appropriate area with holding the Alt key. If you decide to remove a single retouch, just select it by clicking on the circle and then press Backspace (on Mac) or Delete (on Windows).
It is still true that individual retouches do not “see” each other. If you select the retouched area as a source, the new retouch will use the original unretouched image. This is probably for performance reasons because you can edit all existing retouches and this way Capture One has not to recalculate the result of each retouch after changing the other one. It is still a bit limiting but with the ability to choose multiple retouch sources in a single layer, it matters less.
It is a bit disappointing, that you can reposition the retouch source, but not its target. I used it a few times in case of a series of very similar, but not exactly the same images. Anyway, I am personally very satisfied with retouching tools now. Probably the last thing I miss is the ability to put multiple radial gradients into a single layer. Hopefully Phase One will bring this feature into future versions.
Unexpected regression is, that you cannot use retouches when editing offline files in version 20.1. It is true, that preview, which you edit in such a case, differs from the original as it is smaller and compressed, so the result of such a retouch may be inaccurate, but it is still pity, that we lost this ability.
Before/After view of the edited photo
Until this version, the Capture One used a temporary reset of settings to display images before edits. Actually, I liked the idea and didn’t miss a different approach (especially because with Capture One I started to use before/after view for individual tools more often than globally), but I know, that many people were asking for a solution that better fits their needs. And Phase One was finally listing to them and created new Before/After tool available from the main menu View → Before/After, with keyboard shortcut Y or from the main toolbar:
There are two modes of displaying the before and after image: the first one is called Full View and switches between both states of the image, the second one called Split View Slider splits the image into two halves – left one displays the unedited image and right one edited version. In this view, you can drag the boundary between both views by mouse.
You can switch between these two modes from the main menu View → Before/After Mode, from the context menu which appears when you click and hold the Before/After button in the toolbar and with keyboard shortcut Shift+Y. Like always, you can change keyboard shortcuts to find your needs, if you want.
Funkce Before/After in its current state will probably work for most users. Ony missing mode known from other applications is side by side view of edited and unedited photos. Because Capture One doesn’t offer an editing history, you cannot choose the state of the “before“ image – it is always original unedited RAW. It is still true that Capture One doesn’t disable geometric adjustments (crop, rotation, keystone, and geometric distortion fixes made by lens profile) for the unedited image. It makes a good sense and other photo applications behave mostly the same.
Editing in before/after view behaves differently in each mode. When you use Full View mode, any adjustments made will automatically switch you back to the edited image. If you are in Split View Slider, you can continue with editing the photo and changes display in After area of the image (with exception of geometric adjustments which are disabled in this mode).
With the new Before/After function the temporary reset of edits by clicking on reset and holding the Alt key is gone, which I think is a shame. Of course, you can still use this feature to temporarily reset individual tools.
Other news
There are a bunch of smaller features for new users of the Capture One. Maybe most important is improved import of Lightroom catalog, which can now handle offline images too and reports failed imports (i.e. for unsupported file formats) better than before.
Onboarding for new users has improved a lot. The process of logging to users’ account and license activation is more convenient and understandable. The simple wizard offers an option to adapt the user interface a bit (for example to move tools to the left side).
If you want to just test Capture One, you can start with the bundled catalog with sample images. I am honored, that you will find one of my photos in this sample catalog, so you start to play with it or just look at the details that the medium format Fujifilm GFX100 can capture.
Version 20.1 changed preload workspaces – some similar ones were merged into one and the special black and white editing workspace is gone. You can easily create your own if you like it.
Big news for Nikon shooters is a special Nikon edition. Similarly to existing Fujifilm and Sony versions, the Capture One for Nikon offers all features of the Pro version limited to RAW files from Nikon cameras only for a lower price. You can choose a perpetual license or subscription and a more limited free Express version is available too. With a new version, Nikon shooters get the simulation of Picture Control profiles too – it is supported for these cameras: D6, D5, D850, D810/D810A, D800, D780, D750, D610, D500, D7500, D5600, D5500, D3500, D3400, D3300, Z7, Z6 a Z50.
As usual, the new version adds support for few more cameras:
- Canon 250D
- Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II
- Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III
- Nikon P950
- Leica M10 Monochrom
- Olympus E-M1 Mark III
- Phase One iXH-150
- Zeiss ZX
and lenses:
- Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G (SEL20F18G)
- Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD (Sony FE)
- Fujifilm FUJINON XF16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR
- Phase One XT – Rodenstock HR Digaron-W 50mm f/4
- Ricoh GR III fixed lens
- Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II fixed lens
The last news is a new logo. OK, I will get used to it, although I preferred the previous logo. The change is related to the fact that individual editions now have a different branding using the corporate colors of cooperating camera manufacturers.
Capture One 20.1 is a free update for users of version 20. You can upgrade to it from versions 11 and 12. The prices of new licenses are as follows:
- version Pro: perpetual license starts from 349 euro, subscriptions starts from 220 euro/year
- Fujifilm/Nikon/Sony editions: perpetual license starts from 149 euro, subscriptions starts from 109 euro/year
- Fujifilm/Nikon/Sony Express versions: free
(European prices with VAT)
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