Can you use DxO PureRAW with Capture One? Yes, and here’s how

DxO PureRAW integrates really well with Lightroom. You can send a RAW file to PureRAW from within Lightroom for processing and it’s returned to your catalog ready to use. It will even have any edits you’ve previously applied in Lightroom. Capture One does not offer an equivalent workflow, but there is still a simple way to send raw files to PureRAW and get them returned to your catalog.

DxO PureRAW is like a RAW pre-processor that applies DxO’s lens corrections DeepPRIME noise reduction and raw processing to regular RAW files and outputs Linear DNG files which behave just like regular RAW files in other software but have DxO’s high-end processing already applied.

There are some key advantages to using DxO PureRAW instead of your own software’s RAW processing and demosaicing. One is that DxO’s lens correction profiles are very good, and also have corrections for edge softness that’s part of the specific lens profile. Another is that DxO’s DeepPRIME XD RAW denoising is spectacularly good and well ahead of anything else I’ve tried, even Adobe’s own Enhance feature.

One obvious but awkward way of using it with Capture One is to launch PureRAW as a standalone program, navigate to the folder where your RAW files are stored, process them and then import them into your Capture One catalog – or synchronize that folder in Capture One.

This isn’t very efficient, especially if you want to select and process RAW files individually. So here’s a way to do this in Capture One that’s not quite as slick as the Lightroom method but certainly half way there.

It’s especially useful if you shoot with lenses that rely on digital corrections but Capture One doesn’t have matching lens profiles. My sample image was taken with a Canon RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 IS STM kit lens, which needs to be corrected heavily for barrel distortion at 24mm, but Canon does not embed correction profiles in its RAW files and Capture One does not support some cheap ‘consumer’ lenses like this one.

1. Use Open With not Edit With

You may be used to using Capture One’s Edit With option with external editors. Capture one exports an editable version of the image which is then sent to the external editor. We don’t want Capture One to create its own version – we want to send the original RAW file straight to PureRAW. And that’s what the Open With option does. PureRAW may not be on the list of editors that appears, but all you have to do is locate the app on your computer. Capture One will now send the original RAW file to PureRAW.

2. DxO PureRAW options

PureRAW will now launch as a standalone application and display just that single image you selected. You can now choose your processing settings – I’m choosing DeepPRIME XD for best quality, DNG as the file format and the existing image folder as the destination to save to.

3. PureRAW results

Processing takes a few seconds, depending on the speed of your computer and the resolution of the RAW file. When it’s complete, you can compare the before and after versions in PureRAW with a split-screen view.

4. Getting the DNG back into your catalog

Now you will need to do one of two things in Capture One depending on whether you are working in a catalog or a session. If you are working in a catalog, the new DNG  file won’t appear on its own. You will have to right-click the folder and choose the Synchronize option. However, if you are working in a session, you won’t even have to do that. Capture One will see and display the new DNG file on its own because Session folders are ‘live’.

5. See the difference?

In Capture One, you can select the original RAW file and the new DNG and double-click  to view them side by side. The DNG version is fully corrected for distortion, will be noise-free and probably sharper too, especially near the edges.

On the subject of sharpness, Capture One will apply a default sharpening level to the DNG, just as it does with any other RAW file, and because the DNG has already been sharpened in PureRAW it will look terrible. You do need to set the sharpening to zero in Capture One.

After that, though, you can edit the PureRAW DNG in Capture One just as you would any other RAW file. It will respond in just the same way to shadow and highlight recovery, white balance adjustment and all the other RAW tweaks you might want to apply.

If you’re using lenses that Capture One does have profiles for, and you’re not shooting at high ISOs, you probably won’t see much benefit from pre-processing RAW files in PureRAW. All the more reason, then, why this workflow workaround could prove so useful. It’s a quick and simple way of using PureRAW only when you need it.

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