Capture One 21 Pro ‘’natural’’ colors

Below are 3 print screens of my cat from 3 RAW converters.
No corrections applied except color rendering for my camera.
Photolab: recognizes my camera and applies generic rendering for my camera
Lightroom: camera standard profile applied
Capture One: generic V2/standard profile selected automatically for my camera
So, in all 3 RAW converters the profile the developers think it’s the best for my camera is selected.
Nov check out those 3 printscreens. I would say …. so much about ‘’Capture One colors are the most natural’’.
I didn’t know my cat is so reddish. At €350 as Capture One 21 Pro costs at the moment I write this those developers should do a better job at those color profiles, don’t you think?

Forogt to attach Capture one image.
Here you go...

We don't know the colour of your cat to make a fair comparison Adobe Standard was designed to be flat and some may prefer that look. I never did. I think the intent with Adobe Standard is to tweak, apply a profile or create your own.

I can't remember when exactly Adobe did this but now the default is Adobe Color. I'm pretty sure was a response to C1 because it did look better, or more saturated out of the box than LR when the default was Standard. Unless you are shooting with a Canon R5/6 I would select a Canon Camera profile over Adobe Standard.

C1's claim to fame is colour and they do a great job. I was impressed over 10 years ago when I first tried it. Even if it is a Standard profile C1 does cook the colours whereas Adobe Standard does not.

By the way LR is now 10.1.1.

For the reference: In real life my cat looks pretty much the same as on Photolab and Lightroom print screen.

I was trying to show an example, how colors in Capture One are off for my camera (Nikon D7100).
All my images opened in Capture One have this annoying red tint and the same images look OK in Photolab and Lightroom.
No matter what I do I can't get rid of this red tint.

By the way; I know default profile in Lightroom is Adobe Color and Lightroom is now 10.1.1 but I use Lightroom 9.1 and I always use Camera standard profile and this by the way has nothing to do with off colors in Capture One

At the price €350 as Capture One costs these days they should do a better profile.

Thanks for the info.

Not the first time I have read C1 reds are a little saturated. C1 does cook the colour a bit for punch.

In my case I can't say the reds are cooked.
If I compare let's say a photo made on a sunny day, reds in C1P looks more muted and matte compared to PL4 and LR.
This C1P red tint affects all colors – like 'tint' slider in white balance tool is off but I can't get rid of red tint with this slider.
I've also tried switching camera profiles on my images – have tried all camera profiles from top to the bottom but this red tint is stil present on my photos.

You say C1P does cook the colors. I would say this doesn't correspond with general ''C1P – the most natural colors of all RAW converters'' hype on this forum.

Ah well; Capture One 21 Pro goes uninstall from my computer…..
Like they say: Easy come, Easy go.

I’ve tried C1 several times and I didn’t mind it.There was a long thread on another site and the word cooked was used. Perhaps saturated would have been a better word. I know there was a lot of chatter about the reds.

Unless you have production demands it is about pleasing colour.

I suppose I don't understand the point of this...........If you don't like it, don't use it, after all, it isn't like you can't change literally everything about the raw image. So the starting points are different, I expect them to be different. It is how and what you can change in the software and the output quality / flexibility that makes the difference.

Each raw converter is doing things behind the scenes that affect the default rendering.
White balance will skew the results significantly and you have no neutral reference in the shot to remove whatever default white balance is being applied, rightly or wrongly.

If you want to assess color clinically for each conversion, consider shooting an image of a color checker, white balance the shot and then measure the Lab values of each patch to see how close the values are compared to the color checker’s measured values. Make sure the target is properly exposed.

If it “doesn’t look good” - well it begs the question: how does any raw converter know what you want? That’s for you to decide.

Kirk

Which curve did you apply? Makes a big difference.

Mathmans wrote in post #19182477
Below are 3 print screens of my cat from 3 RAW converters.
No corrections applied except color rendering for my camera.
Photolab: recognizes my camera and applies generic rendering for my camera
Lightroom: camera standard profile applied
Capture One: generic V2/standard profile selected automatically for my camera
So, in all 3 RAW converters the profile the developers think it’s the best for my camera is selected.
Nov check out those 3 printscreens. I would say …. so much about ‘’Capture One colors are the most natural’’.
I didn’t know my cat is so reddish. At €350 as Capture One 21 Pro costs at the moment I write this those developers should do a better job at those color profiles, don’t you think?

Hosted photo: posted by Mathmans in
./showthread.php?p=191​82477&i=i76067958
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Hosted photo: posted by Mathmans in
./showthread.php?p=191​82477&i=i74774229
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Every raw converter processes color somewhat differently. There is not an absolute standard. I am a PhotoLab 4 Elite user and beta tester and I'm very happy with their color rendering. However, I've also read on a number of occasions that Capture One Pro 21 and Lightroom's colors are more accurate than Photolab's. Whether one prefers the colors of one PP program over another may in part depend on the specific image and the expectations of the person doing the looking.

It is also not clear whether or not there is an even playing field here. Most raw converters/processors automatically apply corrections when opening an image. Lightroom does, Photolab does, and I suspect that Capture One does it as well. With regard to Photolab, which preset is being specified in preferences for new raw images? If you haven't changed it, it is most likely DXO Standard. If you change that preference to use the No correction preset, things might look very different.

The only valid comparison of color rendering between the software programs is to view them without any adjustments applied. Since Capture One, Lightroom, and PhotoLab are often considered the three best raw converters available, in the end they are all capable of excellent results.

My same exact thought.

mwsilver wrote in post #19202425
Every raw converter processes color somewhat differently. There is not an absolute standard. I am a PhotoLab 4 Elite user and beta tester and I'm very happy with their color rendering. However, I've also read on a number of occasions that Capture One Pro 21 and Lightroom's colors are more accurate than Photolab's. Whether one prefers the colors of one PP program over another may in part depend on the specific image and the expectations of the person doing the looking.

It is also not clear whether or not there is an even playing field here. Most raw converters/processors automatically apply corrections when opening an image. Lightroom does, Photolab does, and I suspect that Capture One does it as well. With regard to Photolab, which preset is being specified in preferences for new raw images? If you haven't changed it, it is most likely DXO Standard. If you change that preference to use the No correction preset, things might look very different.

The only valid comparison of color rendering between the software programs is to view them without any adjustments applied. Since Capture One, Lightroom, and PhotoLab are often considered the three best raw converters available, in the end they are all capable of excellent results.

The real problem is that there is NO RAW conversion program that doesn't apply adjustments to the image. This is what you would get if you were to render out a RAW image, just applying the colour tone for each element of the Bayer CFA.

Here is an interesting article about how raw data are formed into a color image. You can basically recreate the steps yourself - even if you would never use this workflow on any images (it is unnecessary, inaccurate and slow by comparison to raw converters) you should try to test it yourself on a raw image file just to appreciate what is going on when you slide sliders and click buttons and get frustrated that the image does not resemble what you saw with your own eyes.

https://trumpetpower.c​om/photos/Exposure.htm​l

Also, consider that criticizing the idea that the people who make raw converters are dictating the look of your image and you do not like their choices, consider the days of shooting film, where the companies that produced the film decided on the look and the sensitivity - if you wanted to change the result, you had to manipulate the lighting to change the color balance, use filters on the camera, or get creative in the darkroom. Nowadays, you slide a slider or buy a preset.

It is why it is called color science.

Have fun!

Kirk