Techniques – Page 3 – The Common Sense Photographer

Capture One Styles Versus Presets

Posted on July 12, 2020July 12, 2020 by jrnoded

If you were wondering what the difference between a style and a preset in Capture One (I’m on the latest version Capture One Pro 20 (13.1.1)) I’m about to tell you.

A preset is specific adjustment for a single tool. You can make a preset for something like Vignetting where you find yourself commonly applying a -0.5 amount a lot. You set the Vignetting amount to what you want like 0.5 or -0.75 then click on the three lines icon (they call it the hamburger icon) and click Save User Preset. You give it a name like Minus 0.75 or Plus 0.5. Once saved you can quickly apply it to your current image by clicking on the hamburger icon again and picking the preset you want. Note that some of the tools come with standard set of presets that you might want to explore. Check out the Levels presets.

A Style allows you to save the current state of multiple tools. If you have a look or color grade for a particular shoot you can save the state of multiple tools. This makes it quite quick to apply a look to multiple images quickly and consistently. In this particular case I adjusted the above image and really liked the color and contrast so I created a style. Creating a style gives you the option of which tool changes you want to incorporate into the style.

I then edited another image using that style to create a very similar feel. Makes it quite easy to get a cohesive feel to your images.

Once you have applied a style (or more than one since that is also allowed) you can make further adjustments to any of the tools to hone in on the image that you saw when you made the image. In this image I added a little more contrast.

Healing in Capture One Pro 20

Posted on July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 by jrnoded

It is unusual for a company to show off new software features before the are released. The Capture One Pro team were apparently too excited about the new features to hold off showing off the new stuff. So in early May, David Grover, at Capture One published a You Tube video on the new features which were healing tool layers and clone tool layers. They were so excited (and so was I). At the end of May the new version of Capture One Pro 20¹ came out and the new healing and cloning tools were really quite good.

I’ve been using them for a while now and I’m really quite pleased with the results i am getting. I’ve become braver and braver with the touch ups I’ve been doing. I started with just healing the dust spots that seem to be permanently attached to my sensor. Previously the did have a spot removal tool that did work but not on big ticket items ² and basically on the background layer. The new tools put the healing or cloning on their own layer.

I’ve using the healing brush on the below image to clear up what has become a standard sight at the theme parks over the last 10 years where they keep adding more and more rides and features. These new rides mean a long time with construction equipment in the parks and in your images. Not much you can do about it. Here is an image of Bluto’s Barge Ride and Islands of Adventure that I took at the annual pass preview when the Universal reopened in June.

And here is the image after adding a heal layer to hide the construction equipment in the back ground.

The new tools do a very good job in this case. Also got rid of some wires under the left crows nest. Nice not having to go over to Photoshop to clean up images. You can get a 30 day trial if you wish to explore Capture One. There are also less expensive versions for specific camera manufacturers

¹ For some unknown reason the first version of Capture One Pro 20 was 20.0.0, then 20.0.1 then switch to 13.1.0 then another release at 13.1.1. Latest is 13.1.1.

² It was good for spot healing but was not great for removing anything bigger such as a power line.

Just A Kit Lens (Not)

Posted on July 7, 2020July 7, 2020 by Jim Roberts

You can usually spend a lot of money on more and more lenses as you progress as a photographer. But sometimes you forget the good things you have, like the kit lens you bought when you first bought into a camera brand. In my case it was the Fujifilm X series and the lens was their Fujinon XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS. It is a really good lens and probably should not have had the “kit” nomenclature.

I purchased the lens along with the Fujifilm X-T1 in June of 2014. So I’ve had it 6 years. Lately it was mostly gathering dust on the shelf as I was using mostly Fujifilm’s profession lenses. I have the Fujinon XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR as my go to lens for everyday shooting. Nice and sharp, constant F2.8, basically the equivalent of the standard 24mm-70mm full frame lens.

Recently, I ended up getting a preview entry to Universal Studios just before they opened to the general public. A test run with annual pass holders. Didn’t have any real problems during the day.

Biggest question was which lens to bring as the whole trip was more about making pictures than riding rides. If I’m going to the parks and its going to get dark then I will probably take my 35mm F1.4 lens just for the extra stop of light. Since this was going to be all daylight, i would have normally taken the XF16-55mmF2.8. The drawback of that lens is by itself it weighs in at 1.4 pounds. The XF18-55mmF2.8-4 on the other hand is just 0.7 pounds. Since the trip would all be in daylight and wide open apertures were not going to be needed (even if the difference at full extension was F4 instead of F2.8). I was not planning on taking more than one lens so I put the XF18-55mmF2.8-4 on my X-T2 and ventured out in to the pandemic’ed world.

With the lighter lens it was a little easier to carry and I have to say produced some nice sharp images.

Above is a crop of the image and if you click and enlarge you will see that there is nothing wrong with the sharpness of that lens.

So maybe it’s time to revisit you “kit” lenses and see what they can still do.

The image was process in Capture One 20 Pro.

Processing Fujifilm Raw Files In Capture One Pro (Part One)

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Jim Roberts

I’ve actually had a copy of Capture One Pro¹ since version 4 and am now on the current version 12.1.3. With version 12 there is a lot of integration for Fujifilm cameras. One of the best things about it is the integration of the Fujifilm film simulations. When processing raw files in Capture One you can use the same ICC profile that Fujifilm uses when converting images to jpg in camera. In Capture One 12 this is done thru the Base Characteristics Tool². This means that you can set your preferred film simulation in camera and have the same simulation applied to your raw files imported into Capture One.

When the Fujifilm .raf raw files are imported Capture One applies default values to a number of properties. On import Capture One reads the file and auto applies the film simulation you have your camera set to. If you set your camera to display images in Classic Chrome, Velvia (VIVID), or any of the other Fujifilm simulations. Capture One will read you image and apply the correct film simulation. The Base Characteristics Curve field is set to Auto.

Auto means that it applied the same simulation you had selected in your camera.

You can then leave it at auto or change it to any of the other film simulations on the list. As you move you mouse over each of the choices the image will be adjusted to mirror the simulation under the mouse cursor. In the following image I had camera set Classic Chrome. a simulation it took me a long time to use but is pretty much my standard now.

Changing the curve to Classic Chrome does not change the image at all.

If you change the curve to Velvia (VIVID) the image does change dramatically.

This is a great feature in that you start with an image that you shot and reviewed (and hopefully liked) on your camera and bring it into Capture One looking very much the same.

If you are thinking in black and white you can set your camera to one of the ACROS modes (I usually use ACROS+G) the images with automatically be set the chosen black and white rendition on import.

Top image is ACROS+G and the bottom ACROS+R.

Note that tests that I did show that the in camera highlights, dynamic range, sharpness, and noise adjustments that can take place in camera for processing direct to jpeg do not seem to be applied to the image when importing the raw file. This is probably good as you have a lot more fine adjustments that you can do in Capture One than you can do in camera, never was sure what a +2 sharpness would do to an image.

Speaking of sharpness Capture One does quite a good job of base sharpening on the images as they are ingested and I find that I rarely have to touch the sharpness sliders. Usually only around eyes etc which I do on a layer rather than overall sharpening.

Images taken with Fujifilm X-T2 and XF 16-55mm F2.8 lens.

¹ There is a specific Fujifilm only version of the latest Capture One that, while not having the full feature set of Capture One Pro, does the specific have capabilities that I am discussing today.
² If you don’t see it on a tool tab you can add it by right clicking on the tool bar and adding it to the tool tab which makes the most sense for your work flow. I have mine on my exposure tab.

Godox and Fujifilm TTL

Posted on June 10, 2019 by Jim Roberts

I decided to take Dave Black‘s Skateboarding preconference workshop at the recent Photoshopworld in Orlando. It was the kind of class I thought would be outside my comfort zone, and it was. The workshop was held at the Metro Skateboard Academy. Having the workshop indoors was pretty much a necessity as it is late spring here in Florida and it was quite hot. I wasn’t quite sure what the lighting would be like and Dave suggested bringing a flash along. I was envisioning some hard light flash images as I felt that skateboarding called for that kind of lighting.

I have several speedlights around but none compatible with the TTL¹ and HSS² in my Fujifilm X-T2 so I thought it was time to get something that would work for the workshop and for other opportunities that might come up. I do work with a few manual strobes for studio shots etc. so I’m not completely lacking in that area but I have nothing that is portable.

I’ve been seeing a lot of people talking about Godox flashes lately and thought I would see what I could find. I looked at a few reviews and checked the specs of several companies flashes along with the Godox brand. The pricing of the Godox were in my comfort zone. I settled on the Godox TT685F. Godox has a smaller flash, TT350F, but has only about half the power at GN36³ than the TT685F which has a GN64 which is comparable to flash of other brands. The TT685F is about the same size as any other flash of the same power. It well built and comes with a pouch and a small stand. And the pricing is reasonable.

To trigger the flash using TTL you have several choices. You can mount the flash on the camera and let the camera talk directly to the flash. This works but is never recommended as it does give a deer in the headlights look to the image. You can purchase two flashes and put one on the camera and one off camera. The one on the camera talks to the camera and the other flash to pass along the TTL information needed by the flash doing the work. This works but you have to pay the same price for the flash on the camera and it doesn’t contribute to the actual lighting of the image just talks to the other flash. Or you can purchase a dedicated radio trigger that can talk to multiple flash and convey TTL information plus a lot more stuff to the flashes doing the work. The second advantage to a trigger is that you can change the output of the flash from the trigger on your camera rather than having to go to the flash itself every time you want to adjust it. Godox has two radio triggers that work with their flash units. There is a compact unit that has a small lcd screen that is inexpensive but I have found hard to use as the lcd is small and usually can only display partial information on the settings. I chose to go with the larger Godox XPROF trigger with a big screen. It’s a bit bulkier obviously but I think you get a lot more functionality for about $20 US more. The XPROF uses two AA batteries and is well built and can manage 5 or more groups of lights. I does have some features to adjust all the flash in all the groups at the same time.

The day of the workshop we all met at the conference and bussed off to the skatepark. It was quite interesting as they had built a swimming pool like bowl plus a lot of ramps and other things that would make for challenging skating. The lighting in the building was ok, the florescent bulb were probably daylight color balance but a bit dim for doing shots without a flash. I starting out without flash at ISO10,000 to get enough shutter speed to freeze the action. It didn’t take long before I brought out the Godox and tried some shots with the flash in one hand and the camera in the other. It worked out better that I expected.

Perfect! Well almost. The TTL worked well. I adjusted the power of the flash down 0.7th of a stop from the trigger and was soon getting the images I envisioned.

There is a school of thought that TTL flash should be avoided like the plague but I tend to disagree. I was in a situation where the conditions were constantly changing and setting the flash to manual and adjusting the power (the TT685F goes from 1/128th to full power in 1/3 step increments) would mean that I would miss more images adjusting to current conditions than taking images. So I stuck with TTL and was happy with the results. You need to have your camera set to TTL to get the HSS working. Once you attach the radio trigger and turn everything my X-T2 automatically goes to TTL mode once the trigger is detected. The camera will stay in TTL mode as long as the trigger is attached. You can not change the mode to manual on the camera at that point as I think it needs the TTL mode to work with HSS. You can switch to manual mode at the trigger so everything just works.

In TTL mode the XPROF trigger allows you do adjust the output up or down in 1/3 stop increments. One of the advanced things you can do with the XProF trigger is called TCM. This is a button that will change the trigger and the flash to manual mode with the power setting from the last TTL shot. You set the camera and the flash to TTL then take a shot. You then press the TCM button and it will change the flash to manual at the last triggered setting. This can be an advantage if you want to work in manual mode as it gets you to the setting you need instead of having to shoot, look at the image, adjust, then shoot again. The TTL image may not be perfect but it should be pretty close.

There were over twenty of us including instructors at the workshop and we gave the skateboards a pretty good workout so the last half hour we setup up some stations where we could shoot portraits of the athletes. I put the TT685F on a lightstand and shot thru a small shoot through umbrella still using TTL.

All in all, I enjoyed the workshop and gave my self a bit of confidence that I can get outside of my comfort zone and get the shot. The Godox equipment worked well. I probably could have used a little bit lower ISO (1600) and let the flash work a bit harder but noise was not an issue. I used Powerex rechargeable batteries and one set of 4 lasted thru the 2 hours that I used them (about 200 images) without too much drop off in recycle time. So I recommend doing any Dave Black workshop and I think the Godox equipment will serve you well.

- ¹TTL is Thru the Lens. The camera talks to the flash and tells the flash how much power to use.
- ³HSS is High Speed Sync. The ability to shoot with shutter speeds higher than 1/250 of a second on focal plane shutter cameras
- ²GN is Guide Number. A number assigned to the power of flash through an algorithm that I can never remember.

Capture One and the Monkeys

Posted on May 28, 2019 by Jim Roberts

I’m now using Capture One (version 12) almost exclusively. The control over noise and the Fujifilm Color Curves make for some stunning images. I’ve also found that the Fujinon XF80mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR Lens is really good for capturing the action in the theater in the round environment at The Festival of the Lion King at Disneys Animal Kingdom here in Florida. I can eliminate the noise that should be there when shooting at ISO 640 at F2.8. And the picture is so sharp.

Monkeys — Fujifilm X-T2 and Fujinon XF80mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR = ISO 640 F2.8 1/125s

I ended up with a white balance of 1260k after much experimentation. The lighting in the theater was quite blue and it made it interesting to say the least. I’m happy with the outcome. The image is so sharp and under control. That is what I’m finding I can do with Capture One.

Capture One vs Lightroom

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Jim Roberts

I’m trying to switch from Lightroom to Capture One. Mostly because the latest version have incorporated a better engine for processing Fujifilm X files. Because Fujifilm’s X-Trans sensor has a different pattern for capturing raw images then the standard Bayer filter found on most cameras there is a different computation required for demosaicing an image. There has always been issues both real and imagined with Lightroom and processing of Fujifilm Files.

Additionally while the camera profiles provided by Lightroom have always been pleasing to me the close connection between the Fujifilm engineers and the Capture One engineers means that when the profiles are applied in Capture One they are as close as you can get to get the intended color renditions.

So I’ve been experiment with the two software products to see which works better for me. (Your results may vary). I have to admit that I find the interface for Capture One a bit more daunting than Lightroom but then I’ve been using Lightroom a long time.

All well and good that both the will process my raw files. What I’m finding is a problem is a reoccurrence of an earlier issue with sharping the raw image. Lightroom recently changed the default algorithm for sharpening with an increase in Amount fo 40. And I usually don’t even change the amount on most images. Works OK at the defaults. The problem is when you want/need to increase the sharpening Lightroom introduces what some people call “worms” into the image. Not sure you can see it but just changing Amount from 40 to 77 causes all sorts of issues.

You can reduce the issue by reducing the Detail slider towards zero. Except that it also reduces the sharpening. This image is 2:1 section of a moon image and you can see that you get artifacts around areas of contrast change.

For comparison here is the same image of the almost full moon processed in Lightroom and Camera Raw. Image was taken with Fujifilm X-T2 with the XF 100-400mm telephoto lens and 1.4 teleconverter giving a 560mm. The image was cropped down to a 2400 by 2400 mp square.

Lightroom Moon — Moon Processed in Lightroom

CaptureOne Moon — Image Processed in Capture One

The Capture One image is sharper to me.

I’ve also noticed other slight variation in the produced images that are not issues just slightly different between the two software packages. One of the stranger ones is that the as shot color temperature is different for each application. Capture One color temperature is a few degrees cooler than Lightroom. I can’t explain that one at all.

Rose Processed in Lightroom with Classic Chrome camera profile

Rose processed in Capture One with Classic Chrome Profile

It is really impossible to process the same image exactly the same way in both applications so for the most part you are still processing to you personal taste and as long as you are using a calibrated monitor you should get good results out of both applications with Capture One creating the sharper image.

Lightroom Classic Update Enhanced Details and My Fujifilm X-T2

Posted on February 16, 2019 by Jim Roberts

As a subscriber I get all the latest updates to Lightroom and Photoshop when they are released. My curiosity was definitely piqued with the new feature “Enhanced Details”, which specifically promised image gains for the Fuji X-Trans sensors. I put it to the test.

Basic raw file with Adobe Color profile applied and no other corrections.

I put this image to the Enhance Detail processor and after several minutes this is the result I got.

Not very impressive if you ask me. Not sure what is going on. As a software developer i came up with several reasons why the image was not “Enhanced”.

The process may not work with the version of the OS I use. I am running on an older (2011) iMac 27″ with the High Sierra OS version with 32gig of ram
The process might not work with the Fujifilm X-T2 (using the latest software).
I eliminated the possibility of corrections added to the raw file might cause the issues by creating a virtual copy and clicking on the reset.
It might be a software issue. (Notice this is last on the list.)

So this is the final image with corrections and cropping applied without any “Enhanced Details”

Either I am not ready for prime time or the Enhanced Detail feature is not.

Leaving the Dark Side or Working With Flash (the Dumb Photographer version)

Posted on January 2, 2019 by Jim Roberts

I’ve been experimenting with a number of bright colored 12″ x 12″ sheets of paper that I picked up a while ago (at Michaels I think). Using flash with my FujiFilm X-T2. I was getting quite a bit of fall off from my flash from one side to the other of these small area images. At first I though I was just being bit by the inverse square rule. I thought it was a bit extreme but that was my first guess.

Then I realized that the fall off was not coming from the side away from the light but was consistently at the bottom of the frame. See shadows below to for light direction.

Light fall out = Fujifilm X-T2 XF 80mm 1:2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro

I tried adding reflectors to the dark side but still had the falloff. I could correct the images in post with a graduated filter to open the area. But it was not a perfect solution so I resorted to my, “when all else fails covert to black and white” (let’s hear it for Fuji’s ACROS simulation).

ACROS black and white conversion which looks nice even if you can see a bit of the fall off in the lower corners.

Frustrated I started out this morning trying one more time to try an figure out what was going on. The images were shot at less the the Fujifilm X-T2 maximum shutter speed so I dismissed it being caused by the shutter being set higher than the X-T2 maximum sync speed of the 1/250th of a second, above which the shutter is not open long enough to get all the image. The top image was shot at 1/60th of a second so it couldn’t be an issue with the focal plane shutter not being open long enough.

I change to front camera sync to have the flash fire at the beginning of the shutter opening and magically the falloff went a way.

Except it was. After a few more unsuccessful attemps this morning i realize that I had the flash set to rear curtain sync on the X-T2 which meant that the flash was not fired until the shutter was about to close. In fact at shorter shutter speeds the light was just not getting to the bottom of the frame.

With Scissors – Fujifilm X-T2 *XF 80mm 1:2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro*

Moral of the story is once again make sure you know all the setting of your camera and if the image is not turning out the way you like it, it’s probably your fault.

Almost Convinced

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Jim Roberts

When the Fujifilm Classic Chrome film simulation was originally released a lot of people thought it was about the best thing since sliced bread. As soon as I purchased my X-T2 I tried it and was basically underwhelmed. To me the contrast in the shadows was to harsh and the blues of the Florida sky was way to green with the profile applied. Lately though I’ve found that there are some images that look pretty good with Classic Chrome applied. This is one of them.

Chandelier – Fujifilm X-T2 XF 16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR ISO 500 F4.0 1/125 sec at 31.1 mm

The color is quite subdued. This really looks good as a print on matte paper. I guess I’ll try using it a bit more.

Soon I will post on how to apply the ACROS profile to Fujifilm X-T1 raw images (hint: using Capture One Pro 11)

Images shot with Fujifilm X-T2 and XF 16-55mm F/2.8 R LM WR