Capture One Landscape Photo Editing Advice

hi i'm robin whalley welcome to lenscraft this  week i'm sharing some tips about landscape   photo editing in capture one if you follow  me already you'll probably know that i'm a   landscape photographer and that i shoot using  a fuji xt camera when i first switched to fuji   i was skeptical about the claimed image quality  because my results were poor the problem i had   and didn't realize was that lightroom doesn't  make a great job of processing the fuji xt   raf files at the time i blamed the camera it  hadn't occurred to me how much difference the   raw converter can actually make until i tried  capture one now despite capture one improving   the quality of my raw conversions i found it  a struggle to use i had used capture one some   years earlier but it had progressed significantly  and i needed to relearn a lot of things and when   i talk about relearning the software i don't mean  learning how the controls work i'm talking about   learning all the tricks and techniques that may  seem minor but can make a big difference to the   quality of your landscape photos in this video i  want to share some of the things that i've learned   whilst editing my landscape photos with capture  one and trying to keep the results looking natural   this is the starting image which is a raw file  captured using the fuji xt2 and the fuji 18-135   lens if we look at the metadata in capture one you  can see that the focal length is 20 mm this lens isn't known as a great performer and  it's probably at its worst at the wide end of its   focal length it tends to have a lot of distortion  and isn't as sharp as at the longer focal lengths   especially in the corners of the frame i also used  an aperture of f-14 which is quite small for this   scene so we might see some softness creeping him  because of diffraction now the problem with this   shot is that it's a high contrast scene with deep  shadows ideally i should have used a filter on the   lens but i didn't so this is the best we have  to work with my first step when producing all   my images in capture one is to check the lens  profile and settings in the lens correction   panel you'll see there's a drop down at the top  where you can select the lens profile the two that   are usually worth checking and a manufacturer  profile which i'm assuming is the one that's   embedded in the raw file and the default profile  which is the one that ships with capture one   the capture one profile tends to be better with  some lenses with this lens it also enables the   sharpness slider which i'll come to in a moment  by default the distortion setting is at 100 which   is correcting the lens distortion if i move the  slider over to 0 it turns off the correction   a useful tip when comparing these two  settings is to click the slider wording   when i click the word distortion you can see the  slider temporarily returns to the default setting   until i release the mouse this is something that  works with all of the sliders in capture one   comparing the two settings i prefer the image with  the distortion removed another useful tip when   adjusting sliders is that you can double click on  the slider itself to reset it to its default value   i'm also finding the browser thumbnails over on  the right are a little bit distracting so i'm   just going to hide them by pressing command and b  if you're using a windows pc that's control and b   using this shortcut will toggle the browser  off and on now let's check for any softness   in the corner of the frame when i zoom to 100  magnification looking at the corner of this   image it isn't too bad this is probably because  the distortion correction is cropping away the   corners if i can see any softness though i can  reduce it by using the sharpness falloff slider   watch what happens in the corner if i set it to  the maximum value and then toggle it off and on   whilst we're looking at the corners of the frame  you can probably see a coloured fringe along some   of the branches in the trees be sure to have the  chromatic aberration reduction turned on to remove   it sometimes that doesn't entirely remove the  problem and you're left with a faint purple fringe   if that happens also use the d fringe slider the  final option i want to discuss in the lens section   of capture one is the diffraction correction  this can be a great way to sharpen up the   detail in an image that's become slightly softened  because of your lens suffering from diffraction   watch what happens to the fine detail in the  tree branches when i turn it on they snap into   focus and if anything just become a little bit  too sharp now i'm going to leave the diffraction   correction turned on for the moment whilst we  look at the sharpening settings in the sharpening   section capture one applies a default sharpening  based on the type of raw file you're processing   if this were a raw file from my panasonic g9  you'd see different default settings here but   just because these are the default settings in  capture one it doesn't mean they're the best   with landscape photos where there's a lot of  fine detail i'd like to change the settings   to emphasize that detail typically i reduce the  threshold to around 0.5 so that the sharpening   is being applied to less well-defined edges i  also like to reduce the radius to 0.5 so that   the sharpening halo isn't as wide along the edges  finally with an image like this that's been shot   at base iso i'll remove the noise reduction the  noise reduction has a slight softening effect but   it isn't needed in this image if i like to find  i can see noise i'll add the noise reduction back   with these settings applied i can now increase  the sharpening and mount slider until the fine   details become crisp at this point i'm just  going to switch back to the lens correction   and disable the diffraction correction  because i don't think it's required   i personally feel that diffraction correction  can make fine details appear too strong and a   little unnatural so only use it where you really  need to sharpening alone often produces a nicer   effect where the distant detail is a little  bit softer and more difficult to see with   all that done i'm now going to look at the base  color profile i'm using for the raw conversion   in the base characteristics panel i can see  the type of camera and the profile curve in the   profile curve drop down you can see the various  fuji simulations supported by the xt2 i found   with my fuji landscapes that the three variations  of the film curve work well most of the time if i   hover over these with my mouse you can see the  difference between them now at one time i would   have been tempted to choose the film extra shadow  option to help control the contrast in the scene   now i feel the contrast helps make this image and  opening the shadows everywhere causes the image to   lose something instead i'm going to use the film  standard and i'll correct the deep shadows shortly   using an adjustment layer next i'm going to warm  the light slightly by increasing the kelvin slider   to around 6000 but what i don't want to do is  warm the entire image too much if i increase   the kelvin slider further it makes the trees look  great but it doesn't suit the sky or the shadow   areas this is another place that i need to use  an adjustment layer to selectively warm just the   light that's falling on the trees now it's time  to correct the tones in the image currently the   image has a little bit too much contrast with  the shadows appearing blocked up in the wall   and the reflection on the canal the sky is also  a little bit too bright causing the blue to fade   out to white i'll start by fixing the dark shadow  areas in the scene by slowly increasing the shadow   slider but if i increase this too far it makes the  shadows appear unnatural so i'm going to limit it   to around a setting of 15. it's tempting to try to  correct the darkest areas of the image but that's   a mistake if you want the natural result try to  ignore the very dark areas and instead correct   the overall image now for the highlights and blue  sky which i want to address with the white slider   whilst i can reduce this all the way down to  -100 the sky loses the white above the canal   which again looks unnatural instead i'm going to  set this to -50 and then the highlight slider   to around -20 this is enough to recover most of  the blue in the sky without making it appear false   i'm now going to add an adjustment layer to  address some of the problems i mentioned earlier   the first layer i want to add is to selectively  open the deep shadows the way i'm going to do this   is by adding a new filled adjustment layer this  means that any adjustment i apply to the layer   applies to the entire image i'll call this layer  wall i'm going to apply my adjustments whilst   zoomed in at 100% on the wall area zooming onto  the area i want to adjust stops my judgment being   clouded by how the rest of the image appears  notice that i'm using the blacks and shadows   slider to lighten the wall but this also reduces  the contrast and makes the area look a little flat   to counter this i'll increase  the clarity and structure slider another problem when you open the shadows in  this way is that they don't have much saturation   so i'll increase that slider as well i can then  see clearly that the colour balance in the wall   has a pink tint i'll therefore reduce the tint  and the kelvin slider to make it appear greener   and bluer when doing this be careful because it's  extremely easy to make the adjustment too strong   if i know zoom out you can see the effect this  is having on the entire image the next step is   to restrict the adjustment by right clicking on  the layer and selecting the clear mask option   this allows me to then use the brush tool  to paint the adjustment onto selected areas   if i right click on the image when i'm using  the brush tool i open the brush settings i   find when using capture one it's better to use  a high opacity setting and control the brush   strokes using a low flow i can now paint onto the  wall and the tree trunk to open up shadows there i'll also apply a little adjustment to the shadows  and reflection on the opposite back of the canal   i don't want to apply too much  though as it will make the area   appear too green and it will just look wrong now it's time for another layer to enhance the  golden light on the trees as before i'll add a   new filled adjustment layer and zoom into the  trees that i want to enhance i'll also rename   the layer to be trees so i can remember  in the months to come what it's suggesting   i'm going to start by increasing the kelvin slider  to around 6700 which gives the light on the trees   a nice golden feel i might also reduce the tint  slider as it's appearing a little bit too pink now   because this area has sun falling onto it i want  it to be a little lighter and have more contrast   i also want to increase the saturation to make  those colors stand out a little bit more as i've   been stressing in this video limit the strength  of these adjustments to help retain a natural feel if i zoom out you can see the image has a  golden feel now but it doesn't suit all areas   when i clear the mask it hides  the effect and i can again use   the paint brush tool to paint  in the effect onto the trees i then have an opacity setting on each  of the layers that i can use to balance   their overall effects on the image now i could  carry on with further adjustments but i'll stop   there the key things to remember when adjusting  landscape photos to achieve a natural look are   ask yourself how this image would look in nature  rather than thinking oh i like that effect let's   make it stronger make small adjustments and  build them up using layers rather than making   a single large change divide your image into  separate areas and then adjust those areas using   independent layers once you can achieve a lot  with a raw conversion you can also treat it as a   first step after raw processing it often helps to  continue your editing with the likes of photoshop   affinity and the nik collection i hope you've  enjoyed today's video and found a few useful tips   you can use i'm robin whalley you've been watching  lenscraft i'll see you soon for another video

Channel: Robin Whalley

Views: 1,377

Keywords: Lenscraft, Lenscraft Photography, Robin Whalley, Photography, capture one, capture one tutorial, capture one fujifilm, capture one workflow, landscape photography editing, capture one landscape editing, capture one landscape workflow

Id: 2nI7TpiTnUo

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021