Capture 1 LE

[jd_D60]

Just trying the 15 day free trial and RAW - first impressions are quite positive although it will take some getting used to the workflow vis a vis LF JPEGs.

Questions - is this better than the $99 Photoshop RAW plugin - what os the difference

How do I extract the low res embedded JPEG from the RAW so I can archive the RAW.

does C1LE perform batch renaming of RAW, clearly PS7 without the Plugin doesn't see RAW files.

thanks
John

[xdiii]

Exactly what is it that's on "the 15 day free trial?"

Is it "Capture 1 LE" or the "Canon EOS 10D?"

If it's the latter, how do I sign up?

H

[jd_D60]

Sorry incase you were getting excited it C1LE that allows you to download a 15 day trial - the 10D seems to have a 15 day waiting list to get a dust free replacement (thats a camera withuot dust....not free camera with Dust)

John
www.tenbyeight.co.uk

[who10]

The company PhaseOne has a PC only derivative of their Capture 1 program called DSLR LE with a 15day trial and price tag of about $99. For me the main weakness I find is that is PhaseOne will not be making a PowerMac G4 version. The ability to directly adjust both levels and curves in a Raw image alone makes this a truly powerful program - and that's just one workflow feature (DSLR LE supports both the D60 and 10D).

The Photoshop plug-in CameraRaw, also $99, is an excellent program in so much as it allows me to begin with Photoshop and end in Photoshop. My two major disappointments so far are related. I want the capability to adjust levels and curves before the program converts the image to TIFF or PSD (or jpg for that matter). Second, the moire and sharpness functions are applied at the beginning of my workflow (CameraRaw produces pre-sharpened output if you use its "focus" function).

My next test will be to compare Pekka's linear sharpen actions (which I highly recommend) against DLSR LE and CameraRaw.

One advantage of both these commercial programs is the "what you is what you get" real-time feedback, the second is speed - both seem very efficient (using a 1gHZ Dell latitude for DSLR and a 500mHZ G4 JaguarOS on the Mac. For what its worth I've even gotten acceptable results running DSLR LE on a PC emulator running on the G4.

DSLR LE trial is found at http://www.phaseone.com
Go to Downloads and select DSLR. They will require you to register, then you'll see their full trial software list.

I'm not an expert on any of the workflow options, but if you have questions about what I've discovered I'll try to answer what I can. My end goal is to put up a workflow gallery that shows examples from each option (Pekka's action vs DSRL LE vs CameraRaw) - not there yet!

Hope this is useful...

who10

[DWard]

Using the brightness, contrast, exposure and shadow sliders in Camera RAW while monitoring the preview and the histogram appear to have essentially the same effect as the curves and levels tab in C1 LE.

One thing I like about C1 LE is the ability to save the files and then print them with Qimage. Qimage has a very nice upsizing and sharpening capability.

I hope this will provide me an "intermediate" workflow that saves having to get into PS while still being able to do single image adjustments.

One Man's View
David

[Pekka]

Just to let you know: My workflow for converting RAW's is pretty simple after getting C1:

--------------------------------
1. convert and adjust RAWs in C1, batch process to 16-bit TIFF.
--------------------------------

Normally this is the only step!

If needed:

--------------------------------
- use Photoshop for slight additional USM (.2/300/0) if needed (rarely).
- also I sometimes use saturation +5 via channel mixer as in http://photography-on-the.net/10D/10D_workflow_tools.zip
- save edited photos as PSD.
- if retouching is needed, do it in PS.
--------------------------------

Ouput of C1 is very good because it has its own non-Canon conversion routine, and I don't see how _any_ Photoshop action can compete with that (simply because they must work on lesser quality Canon original!).

[Stuart Metcalfe]

Pekka,
Now I'm really confused! I just did a side by side comparison between a) my normal workflow - Breezebrowser 16 bit linear, LinearSharpen 342 high sharpen HQ and b) C1LE + Niksharpener Pro. The winner was LS342. The differences where only noticable above 200% magnification (in PS6) but the LS definitely produced a smoother image from my D30 and it was just as sharp. However, C1LE was so much quicker overall that I might just buy it although I hate to take a step backwards in image quality.
Stuart

Pekka wrote:
Just to let you know: My workflow for converting RAW's is pretty simple after getting C1:

--------------------------------
1. convert and adjust RAWs in C1, batch process to 16-bit TIFF.
--------------------------------

Normally this is the only step!

If needed:

--------------------------------
- use Photoshop for slight additional USM (.2/300/0) if needed (rarely).
- also I sometimes use saturation +5 via channel mixer as in http://photography-on-the.net/10D/10D_workflow_tools.zip
- save edited photos as PSD.
- if retouching is needed, do it in PS.
--------------------------------

Ouput of C1 is very good because it has its own non-Canon conversion routine, and I don't see how _any_ Photoshop action can compete with that (simply because they must work on lesser quality Canon original!).

[Pekka]

Stuart Metcalfe wrote:
Pekka,
Now I'm really confused! I just did a side by side comparison between a) my normal workflow - Breezebrowser 16 bit linear, LinearSharpen 342 high sharpen HQ and b) C1LE + Niksharpener Pro. The winner was LS342. The differences where only noticable above 200% magnification (in PS6) but the LS definitely produced a smoother image from my D30 and it was just as sharp. However, C1LE was so much quicker overall that I might just buy it although I hate to take a step backwards in image quality.


I use a 10D now. LS 342 is for D30 and for that it is very good. 10D cannot have similar action as linear conversion in Canon SDK is not "ok".

Speed is important. Nowadays I have to think about speed, too because I have so many things to do and there is simply no time anymore to wait for PS actions to run. And they do not give much options to tweak - C1 is great in tweaking sets of images and you get constant visual feedback.

One thing to note about all processing is that while there may be C1 which is excellent as it is, there are many other tools may suit certain images and certain styles better. There is no "right" or "wrong" in developing photos. Use what looks best to you and works _for_ you photo.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

It's also worth mentioning that the RC versions of C1LE, in my opinion, did not do as good a job with D30 images as with 10D images. I haven't really checked to see whether that situation has changed greatly following the release of the final 1.2 version.

Regards,