Phase One develops camera backs and a RAW conversion tool, called Capture One Pro. Capture One Pro is especially suitable for converting RAW files directly from a Phase One camera back, but it also works well with other supported RAW formats such as those from Canon, Nikon, etc. And Capture One adds a bit of functionality not found in other RAW converters.

I tested Capture One Pro with the Sony Alpha 100. The RAW files were recognised without any problem. A hot folder in your Pictures folder can serve as a centralised hub for processing RAW files with Capture One Pro. Just drag the RAW files from the flash card to the folder and when you start Capture One Pro, you’ll be able to process those files which will be waiting in the Captures folder in the application. Because of the folder structure and the possibility to rate photos in order to archive your images, it is tempting to compare Capture One Pro to Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture, but that would be a mistake: Capture One Pro is not an asset catalogue first and for all --it’s a workflow tool.

Capture One Pro is intended to be a RAW workflow tool that is capable of processing RAW files into printable images. It fits nicely in a workflow where a professional photographer hands off images in RGB or CMYK to a layout pro. One of the features that are unique to Capture One Pro, for example, is the focusing and sharpening dialogue. An image’s sharpness can be changed with sliders to amounts that are fitting for an inkjet, for offset printing, etc. The manual explicitly mentions the most suitable values.

The workflow characteristic is clearly visible in the overlay utility that can be used to bring in another image to be used for composing a scene. The overlay image will only be visible in the preview window, and allows the photographer to make compositions from an art director’s drawings or other images that are either supplied electronically or captured through a camera.

The RAW Workflow

Another unique feature of Capture One Pro is the correction for a skewed image. Instead of offering you the typical rotation procedure, Capture One Pro offers an additional method, which can lead to much more accurate results. This method works with a line that you draw on the image. The line serves as the guide or standard to which the image will ultimately be rotated --very efficient.

Capture One Pro’s interface is clean and efficient, but not very “sexy”. Of course, when you’re using this software to convert RAW files in the best possible TIFF output, you won’t give much for the way the interface looks. It’s not as if it’s sloppy or inefficient, or even not helpful. On the contrary, even. Icons are all over the place, showing you which camera the photo was made with, what you’re doing to the image you’ve selected (processing or something else), and more.

But criticism of Capture One Pro has especially revolved around the interface not being up-to-date enough. Well, it’s true, it’s not very “Tiger"-like, but then again, I’ve seen the interface of Sinar‘s camera RAW application and that one was not “sexy” either. So, let’s delve a bit deeper. The hot folder feature is nice and well thought out from a workflow point of view, especially so since you can change the location of that folder.

You can also add folders in Capture One Pro for organising your files, but again, the application is not a true cataloguing program, although it does have excellent meta data support --an IPTC editor is included. All the tools to tune your RAW file before converting it, are there. White Balance, Tone Curve, Levels, Noise Suppression, etc. All those tools work a little different from what we’re used to in Photoshop, but they all work well. One feature that I found to be less easy to understand was the Phase One RAW to Destination box under the Tone Curve. 

Image Adjustments in Capture One Pro

I confused “Phase One RAW” with “Capture One”, and I think I am not alone, which made me think the referrals to Phase One backs should be automatically removed when there’s no Phase One involved in the images you’re converting. But that’s a minor detail, really. To save some time, you can use pre-defined “styles” which make your photos look like they’ve been taken using specific film types, etc. I found this feature to be quite superfluous in its current form --if you’re going to add such a style menu, my believe is that you should then make it into something like DxO Labs‘ far superior FilmPack. If you can’t or don’t want to add such deep functionality, you’d better leave it out.

The results of processing RAW with Capture One Pro are nothing short of excellent --I would have been surprised if they weren’t. The conversion shows a bit more contrast and “life” --even with no corrections applied whatsoever-- as opposed to Adobe Camera RAW 4. There seem to be a bit more details in the resulting TIFF image as well, but it’s all very minor and only visible if you look very carefully --at least with the Sony Alpha 100 source images. It could make a bigger difference when a Phase One back was the source.

What I couldn’t test with the Sony Alpha 100 was tethered mode. Tethered mode allows you to shoot photos while the camera is connected to the computer. This is available with Phase One backs and some Canon cameras (and probably other cameras as well). Tethered mode is great when you’re shooting in a studio. For outside work, you’ll need a notebook and then I guess it becomes less enticing unless the weather is good.

Capture One Pro also has the ability to stitch two or three images together to assemble one big TIFF or JPEG file (You must use Phase One camera back files in order to do this). Using the Phase One FlexAdaptor on a large format camera, it is possible to take two or three images (depending on the camera back) with high precision and stitch them together with the Stitch Images function found in the Image menu.