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Dxo Capture One



Since I went through hell with LR6 not starting up recently, I thought now is the time to consider re-assessing what I use. I was thinking about 3 options: A) Upgrade to latest LR + PS CC, B) switch to subscription or licensed Capture One, or C) Switch to DXO PhotoLabs. I'd love to hear. If you don’t subscribe to Adobe or have a Capture One License, DxO includes the scaled-back Essential edition of its Raw conversion suite, DxO PhotoLab. It omits some of the more advanced features found in the Elite edition the company sells at retail, but is a serviceable workflow application for customers who don’t currently use one. The big problem with exporting out of DXO as a tiff is you loose C1's camera color profiles. DXO will use it's own camera specific color profile on the raw before converting to the export color profile of the tiff. If you export dng out of DXO you still see the original C1 ICC camera option in the C1 base characteristics tool for that dng file. Capture One might (arguably) produce 'better' RAW conversions, but you're into pixel-peeping territory before any meaningful differences might show up. Since every UWA zoom produces curvature distortion which must be corrected in order to achieve a quality result, I see DxO as a 'no-brainer' choice.

Those who know me know that I’ve been trying to eliminate Adobe products (specifically, Lightroom and Photoshop) from my photo processing workflow. And so it is that I come to be in possession of licenses for both DxO‘s Optics Pro and PhaseOne‘s CaptureOne RAW processing software.

CaptureOne software is one of the best RAW processors on the market today – and (remarkably), to an even greater degree than Lightroom, it eliminates the need for Photoshop in most situations. Its library (digital asset) management, though not stellar, is adequate to the degree that’s it’s a fairly solid replacement for Lightroom. I’ve come to a point where I’m using it fairly exclusively in my workflow.

In my (unscientific) testing, however, DxO’s Optics Pro is superior for lens aberration correction and is far superior for noise reduction (in fact, in my opinion, Optics Pro is the best noise reduction software on the market today).

So how to integrate Optics Pro into the CaptureOne workflow? Prior to CaptureOne v8.1, it wasn’t any fun, and it’s still not exactly straight-forward – but it’s very doable. Here’s how!

  1. Perform your standard workflow to get your images into CaptureOne.
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  2. In CaptureOne, Select the image you want to process in OpticsPro and then right-click it. On the context menu, select Edit With…
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  3. On the EDITING OPTIONS dialogue, set the format to TIFF; with the exception of the Open With option, the remainder of the settings are irrelevant because you’re not actually going to edit this exported image anyway.
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  4. In the Open With dialogue, browse to your Optics Pro executable; on Windows, it’s probably at C:Program FilesDxO LabsDxO OpticsPro 10DXOOpticsPro.exe. Once you have the executable selected, click Open. You should be returned to the EDITING OPTIONS dialogue.
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  5. Click the Edit button. Optics Pro should open with the new TIFF selected.
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  6. In Optics Pro, select the RAW file. You are going to apply your edits to the RAW image and then overwrite the TIFF that CaptureOne just generated.
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  7. Apply desired edits in Optics Pro. I would recommend that you restrict your edits to exposure (with the knowledge that it impacts noise reduction), noise reduction, and lens/sensor corrections (chromatic aberration, dust, distortion, and if you have Viewpoint, perspective and volume deformation). CaptureOne, especially for skin tones, does detail, saturation, and color balance adjustments better than Optics Pro.
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  8. Use any of the nearly half-dozen methods available to you to direct Optics Pro to Export to disk.
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  9. Set the output to TIFF and then set Process as to TIFF.
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  10. Set Quality as you desire; you would be well-advised to select 16-bit.
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  11. Set Destination to Original image folder and then clear any value in the Suffix field.
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  12. Set your Resolution and ICC profile as you see fit. FWIW, 240 ppi is generally considered to be the minimum resolution for quality printing. The ICC profile should probably be set to Original or AdobeRGB; you probably want to preserve as many colors as possible at this stage.
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  13. Click Export. When prompted, overwrite the existing TIFF!
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  14. Switch back to CaptureOne.
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  15. Click File and then Regenerate Previews. Voila! You now have an Optics Pro corrected TIFF in your CaptureOne library!
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  16. Edit the “new” TIFF in CaptureOne as you see fit!

Capture One Vs Dxo Photolab

The Nik brand may not be household name like Adobe is, but photographers working in the digital darkroom have likely heard of it, if not used the company’s software. It’s been around a long time—I’ve personally been using it for a decade—and has changed ownership (and pricing) a few times over the years. It’s now owned by DxO, a brand that has developed its own image editing software, benchmark testing methodology, and even dabbled in hardware with the DxO One camera.

If you’re used to workflow applications like Lightroom Classic and Capture One Pro, you’ll be a little surprised by how the Nik Collection is delivered. It’s not one big piece of software, but rather a suite of distinct plug-ins, which work with a workflow application as a host.

Dxo Capture One Workflow

For most photographers, that’s Lightroom or Capture One, for which the Nik Collection works fine as an external editor. If you don’t subscribe to Adobe or have a Capture One License, DxO includes the scaled-back Essential edition of its Raw conversion suite, DxO PhotoLab. It omits some of the more advanced features found in the Elite edition the company sells at retail, but is a serviceable workflow application for customers who don’t currently use one.

The real bones of the Collection are the standalone plug-in applications. You get Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Dfine, HDR Efex Pro, Perspective Efex, Silver Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro, and Viveza. Each application is geared to a very specific purpose, and we’ll break them down one by one. The toolkit offers a mix of artistic filter effects and tools to accomplish more technical tasks, like noise reduction and sharpening.

One

Including Photo Lab allows DxO to advertise the Nik Collection as having Raw support, but the really compelling applications don’t work with Raw. You’ll need to round-trip rendered files from your host application to the plug-in, and for the best quality that means rendering a 16-bit TIFF for editing.

Dxo Nik Collection Capture One

The process is pretty simple—all of the DxO apps are listed as external editors from the develop module in Lightroom, although I did have to manually add HDR Efex Pro to the list myself. But it’s not as simple as just making adjustments within the nondestructive confines of your workflow application.

To edit images at the best quality, you’ll need to export a 16-bit TIFF file from Lightroom, a format that’s much bigger in size than Raw formats. If you want to take advantage of the nondestructive features offered by Nik, the TIFF includes two versions of the image—the original and the edited version.

Dxo Filmpack Capture One

Capture

To give you an idea on the storage requirements, a 60MP Raw image from the Sony a7R IV is about 60MB in size; the same file as a TIFF is about 360MB, a figure that doubles to 720MB when nondestructive edits are enabled. There’s a benefit here—you can work on a single image across multiple editing sessions, delivering a bit more creative freedom.

There’s a limitation, though. The edits don’t carry over from one application to another. As an example, I applied a Vintage Camera look to the photo above in Analog Efex. With the nondestructive edits enabled, I was able to go back and make changes after the fact with ease. But once I loaded the same file into Color Efex Pro and added a Bleach Bypass effect, I lost the ability to undo edits made in Analog Efex. So the edits are nondestructive, but only for the most recent application you’ve used.

Dxo Photolab Vs Capture One Pro

I tested DxO with both Lightroom Classic and Capture One 12, but spent the most time with it along with Lightroom. Tortoisegit for mac download. From here on out, I’ll talk about using the software with Adobe, but mechanics aside, the experience is similar with Photo Lab or Capture One as your launcher.

Of course, the software can’t load a Raw format image, so your original files remain untouched. Overall, the process is just a little more cumbersome than working with an image directly in Lightroom. Is the hassle worth it? It may be, if you fall in love with what the software does.

Photographers use a multitude of tools to make images. A camera and lens are the very basic necessities. But pros, artists, and serious enthusiasts take the time to capture images in Raw format and process them using all sorts of software tools. A Raw processing application is going to be the backbone of your workflow. DxO Photo Lab Essential is included, but it’s not the most popular option. You’re much more likely to use Lightroom, Capture One, or recent upstart Skylum Luminar, and all of the Nik apps work fine with these.

We’re happy to see some level of nondestructive editing added to this version. It’s not quite as convenient as Raw processing, and using it will eat up some space on your scratch drive, but you may find it worthwhile to have the option to go back and make edits to an image. It’s a little limited in that it doesn’t translate from one app in the suite to another.

Dxo Photolab Capture One Lightroom

Perspective Efex is an inoffensive addition—I’m not sure who was asking for the functionality, but it works, and the miniature effect can come in handy. I’m more excited to see a level of nondestructive editing and new film simulations added to Color and Silver Efex. They make the strongest entries in the suite better. With Silver Efex especially, you won’t get closer to the look of film while still enjoying the convenience of digital capture.