Capture One v Lightroom v SilkyPix Developer
Monday 05 May 08 | Category: Technology
Prompted by Mitchell's comments about Capture One and an article in Professional Photographer magazine recently, I decided to continue my rather unscientific test of various RAW processors by including a look at SilkyPix Developer and also reinstalling Capture One for a second look.
I'd dismissed Capture One as a serious contender in an earlier post as it had seemed especially slow to respond and I couldn't see myself working with it on a regular basis without there being a serious challenge on my already shaky sanity. Closing down all other applications does allow Capture One to run a bit more smoothly on my machine and the various development sliders do give a real-time view of alterations as I make them. The Levels and Curves tools, however, do not show instant feedback and it's necessary to set a new point and release the mouse to see the effect of the change you've made. Anyway, it's not a deal-breaker, just a niggle.
What I'm really concerned with in this test is discovering which RAW processor will produce the best images from my RAW files so I'm looking at tonal range, contrast, noise levels, chromatic aberration, lens distortion correction, exposure control, hue and saturation management, etc. I'm also searching for that X factor, which processing method is going to help me make my images zing?
I've started with a single test image and I've run it through Lightroom 1.4, SilkyPix Developer and Capture One 4. The image is of two boys at a charity project at New Delhi Train Station. Just to go off-topic for a moment, the charity takes homeless kids who sleep in and around the train station and feeds them, offers shelter and the opportunity to get some schooling. The kids also organise their own guided tours of the station, taking tourists to see areas that they might otherwise miss. It's a great charity and although one sees poverty in India at every turn, seeing it through these boys' eyes really leant it a very different perspective.
...
It seems more than a little inconsequential to return to a discussion of RAW processing after thinking about those kids in Delhi train station but that was where we came in to this post so I guess we should continue. I'll post about my experiences in Delhi Train Station in the next few days.
...
For the purposes of the test, I imported a single DNG file to each application, left the White Balance setting as it was set in the camera, removed all sharpening and noise reduction, left the exposure and other settings unchanged and exported a full-size TIF file. A further test should really see me using all of the options available in each package to see which gives the best results then. I know, for example, that Lightroom's "Clarify" slider can boost the mid-range contrast in an image in a subtle way that the others may not. Anyway, for this test, you're looking at Vanilla conversions with no tasty toppings.
If you're like me, when you read those comparison reviews in magazines you skip straight to the "Conclusion" summary at the end of the article to discover which of the contenders the reviewer thought was best. Well, to save you scrolling down the page, here it is.
For this image at least, Capture One produced the best output. Indeed, the results were unexpected to me as the C1 file retained a lot more detail in the shadow areas than the Lightroom or SilkyPix files and the detail retained in the boys' faces was far greater. I hadn't expected to see quite so great a difference. It's difficult to demonstrate on a blog post, there isn't room to display the images at full-size and your monitor and browser combination may skew the results too but I've posted three high-quality JPEGs made from the TIF files below. The JPEG conversion may alter some things too so you'll have to trust my observations.
There's quite a lot of contrast in the boy's hair where the light's hitting it and the Lightroom version didn't give the same range of tones as the C1 file did. Consequently, there seems to be a lot more detail in the C1 file and if you look at the boy's face at 100% you'll see much greater detail retained. The SilkyPix image fell somewhere between the two, producing lots more detail that the Lightroom image but not as much as the C1 file.
The colours in the C1 file are more subdued (compare the boy's orange and yellow jumper) but I think the C1 result is more accurate. Indeed, compare the front boy's face in the Lightroom and C1 images and I think you'll see quite a difference, even in these JPEGs. The C1 image looks far more accurate to me, whereas the Lightroom image seems to have had a saturation bump. The SilkyPix image falls again between the two others in terms of colour accuracy.
Now, this is all down to personal preference and a matter of interpretation. There's also the question of whether a more saturated image is better for certain uses. If I'm shooting images for a travel company, they might want what I'm going to call the "Sunny" look so the Lightroom image might be the one I'd go for. However, the C1 image is the one that I'd choose for accuracy and I think it shows a far more realistic interpretation of the scene.
Capture One
Lightroom
SilkyPix
Finally, I zoomed in to 500% in each image and compared the area of the boy's brown eye. These screen shots won't reveal what I saw as they're too small but you might discern some differences between the three. Lightroom appeared to smooth out areas of similar luminosity, which resulted in some small skin blemishes appearing reduced. I sound like a beauty advert, "Lightroom smoothes out the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles". If I were a studio portrait photographer I'd go with Lightroom in a flash (pun intended) as those tiny blemishes are certainly less noticeable than they are in the C1 and Silkypix files and studio portraits tend to be all about flattering the subject, I guess.
Both the C1 and SilkyPix files showed greater detail and seemed to retain more tonal range. Lightroom seemed to tend to smooth and flatten the area across tones a little.
Capture One - Adobe Lightroom - SilkyPix Developer
So, what does all this boil down to? Does it even matter? Nobody's going to look at files at 500% and who's really going to notice the small differences that I claim to have seen? Furthermore, isn't it all down to usability at the end of the day? Isn't the best application going to be the one that gets the job done most efficiently?
Well, yes.
And no.
From a usability point of view, I still can't beat Lightroom, even with it's rather inelegant GUI. I can run through a day's shoot quickly and easily in Lightroom, get the results out and be ready to shoot the next day without coming home to a backlog. Capture One's not a DAM application so it would be unfair to compare on that basis but I'd struggle to get as many RAW files processed in C1 in the same time as I could with Lightroom. With SilkyPix, even more so. I haven't mentioned the interface in SilkyPix but it's pretty confusing.
So Lightroom's still going to be my work horse. It's the tool that gets 98% of the job done and in terms of being a tool to work with, it's easily the winner. However, for those 2% of images that I'm really excited about, the ones that I'd want to pay more attention to and that I'd want to give the very best treatment to, I'd be tempted to run them through Capture One and suffer the speed issues in the knowledge that the resulting file is more likely to give the detail and range of tones that I'd be looking for.
I still have a couple of days trial left with Capture One and I'm going to see if it will integrate easily into my Workflow. I see that it will output DNG files so it's possible that I can include C1 processing as an optional step in my workflow without too much hassle. SilkyPix, which I've pretty much dismissed, won't output DNG files so it's probably a non-starter for me but the processing looks superior to Lightroom's to me, although that's on the basis of this one image so take that conclusion with a pinch of salt.
Overall, I'm very pleased that I was prompted to take a second look at Capture One so thanks Mitchell and Nic for your comments. I'd like to see if I can get it working more smoothly before I buy a copy but it was certainly worth testing it again.
All of the three applications I've mentioned here are available as trial downloads and Lightroom is also offering version 2 as a public beta.
Links
Adobe Lightroom
Phase One Capture One 4
SilkyPix Developer Studio
Luminous Landscape's review of Capture One
I'd dismissed Capture One as a serious contender in an earlier post as it had seemed especially slow to respond and I couldn't see myself working with it on a regular basis without there being a serious challenge on my already shaky sanity. Closing down all other applications does allow Capture One to run a bit more smoothly on my machine and the various development sliders do give a real-time view of alterations as I make them. The Levels and Curves tools, however, do not show instant feedback and it's necessary to set a new point and release the mouse to see the effect of the change you've made. Anyway, it's not a deal-breaker, just a niggle.
I'm also searching for that X factor.
What I'm really concerned with in this test is discovering which RAW processor will produce the best images from my RAW files so I'm looking at tonal range, contrast, noise levels, chromatic aberration, lens distortion correction, exposure control, hue and saturation management, etc. I'm also searching for that X factor, which processing method is going to help me make my images zing?
I've started with a single test image and I've run it through Lightroom 1.4, SilkyPix Developer and Capture One 4. The image is of two boys at a charity project at New Delhi Train Station. Just to go off-topic for a moment, the charity takes homeless kids who sleep in and around the train station and feeds them, offers shelter and the opportunity to get some schooling. The kids also organise their own guided tours of the station, taking tourists to see areas that they might otherwise miss. It's a great charity and although one sees poverty in India at every turn, seeing it through these boys' eyes really leant it a very different perspective.
...
It seems more than a little inconsequential to return to a discussion of RAW processing after thinking about those kids in Delhi train station but that was where we came in to this post so I guess we should continue. I'll post about my experiences in Delhi Train Station in the next few days.
...
For the purposes of the test, I imported a single DNG file to each application, left the White Balance setting as it was set in the camera, removed all sharpening and noise reduction, left the exposure and other settings unchanged and exported a full-size TIF file. A further test should really see me using all of the options available in each package to see which gives the best results then. I know, for example, that Lightroom's "Clarify" slider can boost the mid-range contrast in an image in a subtle way that the others may not. Anyway, for this test, you're looking at Vanilla conversions with no tasty toppings.
If you're like me, when you read those comparison reviews in magazines you skip straight to the "Conclusion" summary at the end of the article to discover which of the contenders the reviewer thought was best. Well, to save you scrolling down the page, here it is.
Conclusion:
For this image at least, Capture One produced the best output. Indeed, the results were unexpected to me as the C1 file retained a lot more detail in the shadow areas than the Lightroom or SilkyPix files and the detail retained in the boys' faces was far greater. I hadn't expected to see quite so great a difference. It's difficult to demonstrate on a blog post, there isn't room to display the images at full-size and your monitor and browser combination may skew the results too but I've posted three high-quality JPEGs made from the TIF files below. The JPEG conversion may alter some things too so you'll have to trust my observations.
There's quite a lot of contrast in the boy's hair where the light's hitting it and the Lightroom version didn't give the same range of tones as the C1 file did. Consequently, there seems to be a lot more detail in the C1 file and if you look at the boy's face at 100% you'll see much greater detail retained. The SilkyPix image fell somewhere between the two, producing lots more detail that the Lightroom image but not as much as the C1 file.
The C1 image looks far more accurate to me.
The colours in the C1 file are more subdued (compare the boy's orange and yellow jumper) but I think the C1 result is more accurate. Indeed, compare the front boy's face in the Lightroom and C1 images and I think you'll see quite a difference, even in these JPEGs. The C1 image looks far more accurate to me, whereas the Lightroom image seems to have had a saturation bump. The SilkyPix image falls again between the two others in terms of colour accuracy.
Now, this is all down to personal preference and a matter of interpretation. There's also the question of whether a more saturated image is better for certain uses. If I'm shooting images for a travel company, they might want what I'm going to call the "Sunny" look so the Lightroom image might be the one I'd go for. However, the C1 image is the one that I'd choose for accuracy and I think it shows a far more realistic interpretation of the scene.
Capture One
Lightroom
SilkyPix
Both the C1 and SilkyPix files showed greater detail.
Finally, I zoomed in to 500% in each image and compared the area of the boy's brown eye. These screen shots won't reveal what I saw as they're too small but you might discern some differences between the three. Lightroom appeared to smooth out areas of similar luminosity, which resulted in some small skin blemishes appearing reduced. I sound like a beauty advert, "Lightroom smoothes out the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles". If I were a studio portrait photographer I'd go with Lightroom in a flash (pun intended) as those tiny blemishes are certainly less noticeable than they are in the C1 and Silkypix files and studio portraits tend to be all about flattering the subject, I guess.
Both the C1 and SilkyPix files showed greater detail and seemed to retain more tonal range. Lightroom seemed to tend to smooth and flatten the area across tones a little.
From a usability point of view, I still can't beat Lightroom.
So, what does all this boil down to? Does it even matter? Nobody's going to look at files at 500% and who's really going to notice the small differences that I claim to have seen? Furthermore, isn't it all down to usability at the end of the day? Isn't the best application going to be the one that gets the job done most efficiently?
Well, yes.
And no.
From a usability point of view, I still can't beat Lightroom, even with it's rather inelegant GUI. I can run through a day's shoot quickly and easily in Lightroom, get the results out and be ready to shoot the next day without coming home to a backlog. Capture One's not a DAM application so it would be unfair to compare on that basis but I'd struggle to get as many RAW files processed in C1 in the same time as I could with Lightroom. With SilkyPix, even more so. I haven't mentioned the interface in SilkyPix but it's pretty confusing.
So Lightroom's still going to be my work horse. It's the tool that gets 98% of the job done and in terms of being a tool to work with, it's easily the winner. However, for those 2% of images that I'm really excited about, the ones that I'd want to pay more attention to and that I'd want to give the very best treatment to, I'd be tempted to run them through Capture One and suffer the speed issues in the knowledge that the resulting file is more likely to give the detail and range of tones that I'd be looking for.
I still have a couple of days trial left with Capture One and I'm going to see if it will integrate easily into my Workflow. I see that it will output DNG files so it's possible that I can include C1 processing as an optional step in my workflow without too much hassle. SilkyPix, which I've pretty much dismissed, won't output DNG files so it's probably a non-starter for me but the processing looks superior to Lightroom's to me, although that's on the basis of this one image so take that conclusion with a pinch of salt.
Overall, I'm very pleased that I was prompted to take a second look at Capture One so thanks Mitchell and Nic for your comments. I'd like to see if I can get it working more smoothly before I buy a copy but it was certainly worth testing it again.
All of the three applications I've mentioned here are available as trial downloads and Lightroom is also offering version 2 as a public beta.
Links
Adobe Lightroom
Phase One Capture One 4
SilkyPix Developer Studio
Luminous Landscape's review of Capture One
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Lightroom 2 (Beta) v Aperture 2 v Capture One
Tuesday 29 Apr 08 | Category: Technology
I'm probably about half-way through my comparison test of Adobe's Lightroom 2 (beta), Apple's Aperture and Capture One and there are some early observations that might be of interest. I should reiterate that my testing methodology is far from scientific and largely based on whatever work I happen to be doing on any given day. The purpose of the test is to discover which of the three tools works best for my particular digital workflow and it's quite possible that you will come to different conclusions. People tend to like to draw a line in the sand about their equipment and can become quite defensive about their choices so I just want to say that if what you're doing works for you then go with it.
The first thing to report is that there's been an early casualty in this three-way shoot-off. Whilst the interface for Capture One 4 was funky and I immediately liked it, the package was just so slow to operate that it was quickly clear that it was going to be impractical for me. I'm using a one year-old MacBook Pro 2.33Ghz with plenty of spare memory so I would expect my software to whizz along quite happily. It's a laptop but that's how I work and if the software won't run on my machine then that's pretty much the end of the test as far as I'm concerned. So, whilst Capture One might boast all manner of functions and special effects that would impress me mightily, there was never any chance that I'd get as far as finding them. Importing images was reasonably quick but altering any aspect of a DNG file converted from a 1Ds MKII RAW original took an age. Also, there didn't seem to be a way to see alterations in real-time. I may be wrong about this but I'm used to moving sliders up and down and seeing the changes immediately in my image. In Capture One it seemed that I had to release the slider to see the effect. Subtle changes therefore seemed very difficult to achieve. And as it was taking a while for those changes to become apparent I quickly lost patience and ditched Capture One before the trial expired.If anyone wants to prove me wrong about Capture One and tell me that there's a special preference setting that overcomes these problems then I'd like to hear it. As I say, the interface looked interesting and I wanted to like it so I'd give it another go if I thought I'd see an improvement.
Aperture is like dancing on ice, as smooth as silk and wrinkle-free.
So now on to the two remaining contenders. Firstly, I should remind you that Aperture 2 is a full release and Lightroom 2 is a public beta so we excuse it some quirky behaviour. What we don't excuse it for however is the clunky interface. Lightroom's modular panels are already feeling old-fashioned and although I'm pretty familiar with it so can move around quickly with keyboard shortcuts, it's just ponderous. In contrast, Aperture is like dancing on ice, as smooth as silk and wrinkle-free. It boasts that particular "Apple design" feeling that immediately beckons you in. Open Lightroom and you feel like you have to work, open Aperture and you feel like it's time to play. If they were people, Lightroom would be a dour, stodgy Yorkshire lass sitting in the corner of a smoke-filled, dingy pub drinking Stout and Babycham whilst fingering her moustache and mumbling at her whippet, whilst Aperture would be a leggy blonde model perched elegantly on a stool in the corner of a Soho wine bar, sexily sipping a cocktail before beckoning you over to her table with a smouldering pout and and a suggestively raised eyebrow.
I fear that I may be stepping up to the point at which I over-egg this analogy. What's that? I've passed the point already? Fair enough. Let's forget the aesthetics and talk about delivery. I'll pick out two things that I've discovered in my recent trial, either one of which could be a deal-breaker for me but which, when combined, probably sound the death-knell for one of these applications as far as I'm concerned.
Firstly, Chromatic Aberration. Yep, I've said it and now it's out there we'll just have to deal with it. I use the best Canon lenses available but occasionally I'll get a case of CA and boy does it itch. Clearly, it's something that's best cleared up as soon as possible. This image was shot at the wide end of a 16-35mm f/2.8 L lens (1/4 sec, f/22, ISO50 for those who like to know) and shows CA, or purple fringing, around the areas of high-contrast. 
If you look at the lamp post you'll see a green stripe on the left and a purple stripe on the right where light of different wavelengths is being resolved at different points on the sensor. Probably. We don't really care why but we do want to rectify it. In Lightroom there's a cunningly named "Chromatic Aberration" tool and I bet you've already guessed what it does.
Yep, move the sliders from side to side and be ready to catch your jaw as it drops open with amazement as the fringing disappears. There's also a "Defringe" setting that will pick out the highlight edges in the image. That's all well and good. Hover your mouse over the image above to see it with the fringing removed.
So now to Aperture where a search for the Chromatic Aberration removal tool reveals... nothing. There isn't one. Has it been renamed in a cunning ploy to prevent Windows-users from taking over the Apple software? Well, possibly. Searching the Aperture help files reveals no mention of Chromatic Aberration. It does, if I remember rightly, mention "Fringing" briefly and the way to deal with it is apparently by manipulating the "Moire" and "Radius" tools. All I can tell you is that I fiddled and fiddled and the "before" and "after" image shows the results. I think I actually ended up making it worse. If you hover your mouse over the Aperture image you might not even notice any difference.
Further research on the web revealed that there are other ways of removing CA in Aperture that involve colour replacement or something but by that stage I'd lost interest. It seemed that the blonde in the Soho wine bar might not be all she was making out to be and the dour Yorkshire girl was beginning to look more appealing.If somebody can explain to me how to remove Chromatic Aberration in Aperture as easily as it can be removed in Lightroom then I'll be keen to learn but as far as I can see, it's just not possible without a lot of fiddling and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.
I'd say that the Aperture brushes are more intuitive at first glance
So, on to my second finding. Both Lightroom and Aperture have new "Dodge and Burn" tools that supposedly provide functionality previously only found in Photoshop or similar photo manipulation packages - although nobody here is using anything other than Photoshop, right? OK then. Here's the thing, they both work equally well and although there's some differences in the way the tools operate it's nothing that you wouldn't overcome if you were using one or the other package regularly. I'd say that the Aperture brushes are more intuitive at first glance but they both do pretty much the same thing. Aperture's brushes are pressure sensitive whereas Lightroom's are not so if you're using a pen and tablet that might be a consideration. However, this might be dealt with by the time the full release of version 2 hits the shops.
But here's the killer. When you dodge and burn in Aperture a new TIF file is created. In Lightroom, you make non-destructive adjustments to the original RAW or DNG file. So if I make a small dodge and burn adjustment to 100 RAW files in Aperture I end up with an additional 100 TIF files, all taking up space on my hard-drives and creating a new asset management dilemma and requiring additional back-up space. Essentially, my files are duplicated and now I've got a pre-production file and a slightly different post-production file. What would be the point? OK, in Lightroom 1 I would have had to create a TIF file and then had to import it to Photoshop to make any dodging and burning adjustments but that's not the point, in Lightroom 2 I don't need to do that.There are some things in Aperture that still tempt me: the inclusion of Noise Ninja and Photoshelter upload plug-ins for example. Yes, there are things that would make my digital workflow life simpler and it does feel like you're doing something creative when Aperture's open but with no decent Chromatic Aberration tool and the thousands of additional TIF files that I'd end up with it's just not enough.
I'll keep Aperture on my Mac until the trial expires and I'll keep an eye out for developments that overcome these issues but, for now at least, it looks like I'm turning my back on the gorgeous blonde in the Soho wine bar and heading home, hand-in-hand with the dour Yorkshire lass. She may not look much, but she can deliver - and that, my friends, is what counts.
Testing Lightroom, Aperture and Capture One - Part I
Sunday 13 Apr 08 | Category: Technology
Prompted by a conversation with some of my friends from Winchester Photographic Society, I've given myself a couple of hours today to perform some software testing. Our conversation began as a general question about the way digital camera sensors record information but the answer made me want to re-examine the process to see if I'm getting the very best out of my digital files.
Let me start by saying that my testing is in no way scientific and there may be some of you who spot obvious errors in my reasoning or the process that I've followed. You'll be correct. I'm not a technical guru, I'm a photographer. One of my favourite analogies is to draw comparisons between photographers and musicians and in the same way that a musician doesn't really need to know the exact process used to make their instrument to be able to play a decent tune, it isn't essential for a photographer to understand digital workflow in order to take a decent picture.
However, an appreciation of the mechanics of the trumpet or the oboe, or an understanding of the dynamics of acoustics will, I'm sure, help the musician to be more "in tune" with their performance and perhaps the same is true for photography. Maybe having a grasp of the mechanics of digital workflow will help a photographer get the very best out of his instrument. I guess, at the very least, it's not going to hurt. Read more...
Let me start by saying that my testing is in no way scientific and there may be some of you who spot obvious errors in my reasoning or the process that I've followed. You'll be correct. I'm not a technical guru, I'm a photographer. One of my favourite analogies is to draw comparisons between photographers and musicians and in the same way that a musician doesn't really need to know the exact process used to make their instrument to be able to play a decent tune, it isn't essential for a photographer to understand digital workflow in order to take a decent picture.
However, an appreciation of the mechanics of the trumpet or the oboe, or an understanding of the dynamics of acoustics will, I'm sure, help the musician to be more "in tune" with their performance and perhaps the same is true for photography. Maybe having a grasp of the mechanics of digital workflow will help a photographer get the very best out of his instrument. I guess, at the very least, it's not going to hurt. Read more...