October 22, 2023

0

capture one, lightroom, lightroom vs capture one, special effects

These are the secrets of Lightroom’s new color panel. Does it beat Capture One?

Lightroom 2024 brings this amazing new panel called Point Color and it’s really good. Today I’ll show you everything you need to know to master it.

Lightroom Point Color Secrets. Is it better than Capture One?

You can add spot color instantly within pre-made masks like Elegance Speed Masks. Also download my free film presets to play with the advanced color and see how it works beside balanced use of HSL sliders.

Use Point COlor when you need precision.

Much like the advanced color in Capture One. Lightroom point color lets you go beyond the HSL basic color sliders. Select a color spot and you’re in.

Don’t stop using HSL because the sliders we’ve been using for years are clean and you rarely get the artifacts or problems that can come from more precise selection and maks.

That sais point color seems to naturally work flawlessly. Only turn the range down as needed to avoid hard lines and don’t be afraid to use the advanced adjustments.

In the end, point color is not to replace HSL sliders but to give you more control when you need it including in masks like we’re doing here in the video.

Another level of masking.

The only real choice you have to make in point color is to decide whether to use it in global development settings, that is the selection you create based on color and tone will affect everything in the photo like here in the water of Thors Well.

Or do you want to be more specific? Then just ass your point color within a mask brush on, a portrait mask, AI background. You can use it anywhere and it works the same.

Now you may spend some time making these settings and I can’t find a practical way to copy the point color swatches you made into a mask from the main development, This would be useful. What we can do is add various mixes into presets which you’ll see in future updates of my preset packs.

Lightroom Point Color VS Capture One Advanced Color?

Objectively speaking yes I believe point color wins this battle. But they are both powerful and will achieve the same goal.

Lightroom Spot color is more visual, how more ways to adjust settings, and has a 3rd dimension in direct luminosity control in the selection that Capture One lacks.

Some will argue that because Cap[ture also has a skin panel it’s better. But in truth, the skin panel is more limited because it’s still just an advanced color selection.

Yes, capture one does shave have from uniformity sliders in the Skin panel, but the selection is not that precise. Lightroom on the other hand can make an instant subject mask and you can use point color to define the tone and balance of that color on the subject ONLY.

In the end, use what works for you/ Lightroom seems to have leaped ahead once again on one of the few features that Capture One still had as an advantage. Not capturing one is really only looking at a lead in tethering.

We’ll see more in our annual review of Lightroom VS Capture One in 2024 when both apps have new versions and Phase One has a chance to do something big.

Gavin Seim

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October 14, 2023

1

lightroom, lightroom vs capture one, special effects, video

Lightroom Spot Color is here. This Capture One style feature is what we’ve been waiting for.

2024 may be a year of reckoning for Phase One. But there’s no doubt Lightroom took this feature from their playbook after many years. What we do know is C1 just lost an edge with the new Lightroom Spot Color tool and I’ll show you how to use it today.

Lightroom Spot Color was only a Capture One feature before.

Play with Lightroom Spot Color. Grab the Free Filmist presets and play with spot color to enhance details. Also, check out the new Amber Presets pack as it does deep things with color and is a good example of the power of this.

Lens Blur is also cool, but do you need it like Lightroom Spot Color?

The new lens blur feature works pretty well and will doubtless get better. But do we need a mobile-style bokeh in Lightroom?

I can see this being good for enhancing existing bokeh. I would personally avoid it in images that have no bokeh as in our phones it does make mistakes. Unlike the new Lightroom Spot Color which is the game changer, lens blur in LR 24 is just a nice feature.

Blurs have long been limited in Lightroom and don’t really exist in Capture One. I think I’ll find myself using this as a general blut tool more than a bokeh tool. Sadly I don’t see a way to use this in presets thus far.

lightrooms new lens blur tool

Don’t use Lightroom Spot color on everything.

As I explain in the video you don’t need to open this feature up with every color. Most times I apply a preset from Filmist or Amber and it’s formulated just fine. Stay tuned to my channel because I I’ll be making more videos about when and where this tool is amazing.

What this does allow is fine-tuning if you feel a color is just not quite right. It also allows deeper and easier fine-tuning when creating presets so you can be sure I will be implementing it in future updates to mine.

Advanced Color in Capture One is really good, but the visual manner in which Lightroom Spot Color works lets you select colors and see the output and I might like that better. We’ll compare the two in the 2024 LR vs C1 review soon.

Lightroom spot color with visualize
Here I used Amber presets but selected just the dark oranges to adjust them to my liking. By activating the Visualize range you can see only the selected color much like in Capture one.

Using this tool in Lightroom masks is even better.

Ai Masks are amazing in Lightroom and many of you use my Elegance Speed Mask presets to apply them in fast groups. But until now we have had no HSL-style controls in masks and I have always had to find clunky workaround when making presets.

You can bet you’ll be seeing updates to my Ai presets that take advantage of LIghtroom Spot color in specific details. I can say from much experience that it will empower our masking to a new level like me you’ve probably been wanting this for a long time.

Using Lightroom spot color in an Ai mask to balance the color of a blue sky
The power of Lightroom Spot color with a mask is evident. I’ll show you this example in the video.

It will be interesting to see what competition from the likes of Affinity, Capture One and others will bring and we will all benefit from it.

Make sure you sub the Pro Photography Podcast because we will be talking more about all of this.

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October 1, 2023

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lightroom, special effects

Speed-Masks and Lightroom’s new Object Masking take your edits to level 11.

Here’s how to Speed-Mask and why it changes everything.

But with the new object to select Lightroom Ai masks everything goes up a level. And with the new Elegance 4.7 Speed Mask update and with Ai masking coming to Capture One soon, who knows what’s next!

First, the video, and I’ll show you how to be a mask power user.

You can get Elegance 4 for LR here and there’s a great bundle combo with Natural HDR. If you have V4, just login and update. This also all works in Camera RAW masks and LR CC.

You don’t need to use object masking most of the time.

As you’ll see in the video using the extra time to add an object select mask on a thing the AI already has covered like a portrait project usually results in a worse selection.

So I’ll start with a Speed Mask and then add object select as an extra layer when needed. Honestly not that often, but when you need it it’s amazing.

Use the most specific mask for the job and the main list of Ai masks covers it. IE, subject mask, us that first because it can be used in a speed mask, copied and pasted to over images, and is more accurate.

I just used the POrtrait Glamor Speed Mask from Elegance 4.7. Here pushed to 200%. 11 Masks were added in a click and all adjusted with one slider. Good Speed-Masks should be optimes to turn up and down.

Watch how your masks combine.

As you build up all these masks much like layers in Photoshop, things can start to get strange.

This is why even with one or two mask edits, saving as a speed mask will not just be faster it will give better results if you optimize those mask layers to be versatile on all image types.

So… Develop, then Speed Mask, then Details.

I recommend starting with a base development process. That means I’ll use Filmist, Silver, etc then tweak the main process.

Aftet that I add my masks. Then copy all those finals to other images as needed and let it render. Then if needed use object selection masks.

You find specific speed masks across my preset packs like in Filmist but the important masks are all included in Elegance 4. If you want to make your own just keep the tips I give in the video in mind.

Doing masks last speeds you up because even when you’re not actively editing a mask having a mask on the photo uses more system resources and can really slow down the development module.

If you’re having speed problems check out my recent video about Making Lightroom Faster.

Have fun with this and I hope you like Elegance 4.7 to make it easier.

Gavin Seim

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August 27, 2023

2

lightroom, special effects

There are no natural photos. Here’s how to master tinting photos in color and B&W

Tinting photos is simply taking a color tone based on chemicals, as I showed in the Recent Emulsion 4.2 update, or based on the film, color temperature, etc. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of photography.

You should tint photos in color not just black and white!

Tinting photos can be all manual or you can use tools like my Emusion 4 actions, Silver 5 presets, and Belladonna.

Don’t limit yourself to photo tinting and editing.

If you’ve been to my Shadow Hackers workshop you have an understanding of how our contrast is created by shadows and tone values, not sliders.

Whether you control it or the camera, you’re getting tinted. You don’t have to over-edit. When a viewer sees your image, they don’t need to think. They’re tinting this, or… that’s a platinum look. The photo just is and should be balanced.

But that does not mean leaving everything plain and flat. Don’t over-edit, but remember your photo tinting, your process, and your chemical look just like from the darkroom. These are subjective and your choice. So play around and make magic happen.

This had a color process from Filmist, but then I added a cyanotype chemical tone in color.

There are no natural photos. Really!

Every photo we take is an interpretation of what we saw. Our eyes don’t even see the same thing.

We can take real photos in the sense that the skies are real, and faces real, not AI-generated. Real moments matter. But color and tone were always a matter of p[erstive, film type, paper type, chemical, and now sensor style, raw converter, etc.

Lake Isabella CA, 4×5 film, wet plate, and cyanotype mix in EMulsion 4.

I chuckle when they say their photos are straight out of the camera.

The camera applied a preset. It’s no more or less real than when we have more control and add that presets in Lightroom. Even LR vs. C1 renders the raw file totally differently and that “straight out of camera look” is not the same in either one.

This purist SOOC idea is not a real thing. Either the camera software applied a color grade, photo tinting, contrast etc, or you did. Even when you shoot film, the emulsion you choose changes how the tint and tone will look.

San Luis Potosi Mexico. A true black-and-white edit developed as platinum from Emulsion 4.

Find what you felt in photo tinting.

A visualization is really finding the look you felt when you took the photo. There are many ways to get there and yes you can over edit and over cook a photo.

This is one reason I love organic feeling tools like Filmist or a platinum look from Emulsion actions. Because they are based on real orgaic darkroom photography they give me a way to go all in on an edit but stay grounded.

But in the end, you decide. I can take this portrait and leave a POrtra 400 look, or I can make a selenium black and white, or I can mix it all up and make a color with a selenium process like this. None are wrong and all look good.

Let me know what you think in the comments and try these photo tinting ideas yourself with the concepts of hunting shadows in mind and watch magic unfold.

Gavin Seim

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July 15, 2023

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capture one, lightroom, photoshop, special effects

This Secret Layer technique makes all 3 levels of editing easier…

Using layers in Lightroom has improved a lot in the past year. In Photoshop it’s a lot the same and in Capture One nothing ever changes. But there are layers and that’s good for you.

There are 3 levels of edits and the secret layer makes them all easier.

They will make you edit faster but if you use them the way layers should be used, they will also help you ensure to don’t edit your photo wrong. That combo gives you the secret layer.

No longer second-guess your edits.

The secret layer consists of two parts really. #1 is perspective for your edit. #2 is quickly adjusting it and applying a more informed perspective to your edit instantly. Al the basic level this works with individual presets like Silver or more complex masks like Elegance creates for you.

Sometimes I shadow painting details manually. Or maybe I’m using fast tools like Lumist, Blackroom Black and White, or Signature Emulsion. Well-built actions like this create your layers stack so the secret layer is instantly ready.

Digital edits are easy to overcook when you start adding layers. But layers are also the secret to getting more dimensional and creative edits. Here I used GoldChrome and simply dialed it back in this level 1 edit.

How far should you edit?

We’ll look at 3 levels of editing in the video and using those as a guide is really useful because you can decide how far to go in each segment of your project. I only go to level 3 on my best images, which can vary.

In the portrait example in today’s video, I took it all the way to an illustrative look, but it would also be a lighter effect or just some simple atmospheric actions like Alchemist.

The secret layer varies in each app.

But the concept is the same. Some apps like Lightroom are more advanced. They reward you directly for supplying things as a preset as I show with masks. So you want to use that method if you create your own presets.

Photoshop is very powerful and uses a more ould school-layer approach.

Capture One doe the same though with a little less power because of the lack of stacking. That said you can still build edits on those layers and then control them to use the secret layer.

I hope you find this as exciting as me and put it to work right away. Leave your questions or tips in the comments.

Gavin Seim

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