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.

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. 

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.