The latest Capture One update brings support for a bunch of new cameras and lenses and a major improvement to the Clone & Heal tools.
The most obvious change, though, is the logo. The attractively austere ‘1’ icon has been changed with a darker color, a quirkier typeface and an irregular blue outline. Capture One now lives on its own website, too, separate from the Phase One website. In fact, I’ve been told they are now operating as separate companies, which is interesting.
Capture One itself is largely unchanged, except for the Clone & Heal tools. These have been given quite a substantial upgrade. Previously, you had to create the correct adjustment layer type to use these tools and you could only define one relative position for the source and repair areas.
In the new version, an adjustment layer of the correct type is created automatically, you can create multiple repairs with source areas in independently adjustable locations, and it’s possible to move and transform the heal and source areas too.This gives the Capture One retouching tools a major boost and more in line with the retouch tools in Lightroom.
There’s also a new split screen before-after view so that you can compare the results of your editing with the original image, and for Lightroom users jumping ship, there’s a new and improved Lightroom migration tool.
Capture One for Nikon
This is an especially interesting development. The regular Capture One handles RAW files from all camera brands, but there are also Capture One for Sony and Capture One for Fujifilm editions that have all the features and tools of the full version but handle RAW files from those camera brands only. These have now been joined by a new Capture One for Nikon version for – obviously – Nikon cameras.
The key point about these brand specific versions is that they are half the price of the full Capture One. This is still pretty expensive at $299/£299 for a perpetual licence, though upgrade prices start at $159/£159 and you can go for a subscription instead at $20/$20 per month.
The Capture One Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm versions are much cheaper at $129/£129 each for a perpetual license or a subscription of $9.99/£9.99 per month.
Capture One is definitely on my list of the best image editing software. It’s not the cheapest, but its RAW processing, editing tools and local adjustments via adjustment layers and masks are simply stellar.