Capture One can apply automatic lens corrections to fix all the common lens aberrations – distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting. But then why does it sometimes show ‘Manufacturer Profiles’ or ‘Generic’ profiles instead?
This is how it works. If you head over to the Shape tab, which is where Capture One displays its Lens Correction panel, you’ll see a Profile drop-down which will display one of three things, depending on Capture One’s support for that lens: (1) a named lens profile, (2) a Manufacturer Profile or (3) a Generic profile.
This happens because Capture One concentrates on custom lens correction profiles for most mid-high end lenses, and will leave out some cheaper consumer lenses and kit zooms. This might be because Capture One thinks they’re not really serious lenses and its core customers are a bit more high-end. Also, most mirrorless camera makers now embed basic lens correction profiles in their RAW files, which are probably good enough for mid-range users anyway, and Capture One will sometimes fall back on these.
So let’s go through these three scenarios individually.
Capture One lens correction profiles – named lenses
If Capture One displays the lens name, it means it’s matched the lens EXIF (shooting) data embedded in the file with one of its own custom made lens profiles. This is the best outcome. Capture One’s profiles are the most accurate and the most powerful.
They also include an interesting Sharpening option tailored to each lens. This doesn’t apply a global sharpening value across the whole image. Instead, it adds sharpening progressively towards the edges to match the lens’s own sharpness drop-off towards the edges of the frame. This sharpening option is easily overlooked but can make a big difference. Normally it’s set to a value of zero, but you can push the slider a long way over to improve edge sharpness without significantly degrading the image.
The Light Falloff slider is interesting too. Capture One’s lens correction profiles will correct vignetting (corner shading) but by default the slider is set to zero. Many photographers like to leave vignetting uncorrected and treat it as part of the lens’s character. You can still fix it, but you apply the adjustment manually.
So these are a couple of key settings for Capture One’s own lens correction profiles. The Sharpness slider is pretty unique (though DxO offers a similar correction) but you have to apply it manually, and while the profile will correct corner shading, it won’t do it automatically – it leaves that decision with you.
Capture One lens corrections – Manufacturer Profile
Many mirrorless camera makers embed basic lens correction profiles in their RAW files, and this is a handy fallback for Capture One users. If you have a Fujifilm, Nikon, Sony or Olympus/OM System camera, there will usually be a Manufacturer Profile for lens corrections embedded in the RAW file anyway. If Capture One defaults to this, it means it doesn’t have a bespoke profile of its own for that lens.
Embedded Manufacturer Profiles aren’t quite as good but they are a lot better than nothing. They will fix distortion and vignetting automatically, but you will need to check the Chromatic Aberration box yourself. Capture One’s chromatic aberration correction can analyse images individually for color fringing, as we’ll see shortly.
What you don’t get, though, is the Sharpening option. This is specific to Capture One’s own lens correction profiles and not available with Manufacturer Profiles.
Capture One lens corrections – Generic profiles
Some lenses won’t have matching Capture One correction profiles OR embedded Manufacturer Profiles. This happens a lot with cheaper consumer lenses on DSLRs and some Canon RF lenses. Canon is the only mirrorless camera maker not to embed correction profiles in its RAW files. Naughty Canon!
In this case, Capture One will apply a Generic profile that’s not tailored to that specific lens but does allow all the manual corrections you need to bring it into line. There are a couple of interesting things to note here.
One is that you will have to apply a manual distortion correction, and in certain rare cases, such as the Canon RF 24-50mm compact kit zoom, which has extreme barrel distortion at the wide-angle end of the range – this is a lens designed to rely on digital corrections. Occasionally, too, you may get a lens which exhibits pincushion distortion not barrel distortion. For this you need to open the Profile drop-down and choose the Generic pincushion distortion profile.
The second thing to note is that the Sharpness slider IS available with the Generic profile. You can use this slider to counteract edge softness without increasing center sharpness, and while this correction isn’t tailored specifically to each lens, it’s still very effective, and very useful.
Capture One Chromatic Aberration correction explained
Capture One’s own lens correction profiles should eliminate chromatic aberration as part of the correction process. If you’re using a Manufacturer Profile or a Generic profile, you will need to check the Chromatic Aberration box manually.
So here’s the thing. Even if the box is already checked, if you can see any remaining chromatic aberration, click the three-dot menu alongside and choose the Analyze option. Capture One will now analyze and correct that image specifically, and this will often yield a better result than standardized correction profiles, especially Manufacturer Profiles.
If Capture One is using a Generic profile, you just need to check the Chromatic Aberration box and it will analyze and correct that image.
It looks more complicated than it is
For a long time I struggled to figure out what Capture One was doing with its lens corrections, as it seemed to change randomly with different camera-lens combinations. I finally worked it out, though, so I hope the explanation above makes it simpler for other Capture One users too.
To summarize, Capture One takes a three-tier approach to lens corrections:
- It looks for a matching Capture One lens correction profile
- If it doesn’t have one, it will look for an embedded Manufacturer Profile
- If there isn’t one, it will default to a Generic profile where you can make adjustments manually
There’s a whole lot more to Capture One’s lens aberration correction tools than this, but that will need to be a separate article.
