I am on record saying that Capture 1, especially for a Micro Four Thirds user, has been a revelation. With Lightroom, an acceptable balance between sharpness and noise control was regularly unachievable past ISO 1600, but with C1, I cannot remember the last time I needed to use noise reduction, worried about import sharpening or clarity, unless I had pushed a file to stratospheric heights above ISO 6400 or under exposed badly. Then I will drop it into ON1 No Noise from C1, expecting premium results and usually getting them.
There was a transitional adjustment to be made, something that I have really only recently come to fully understand, but now I understand the best process pathways, my results are regulalry more to my liking.
Brilliance, the control I missed early on, is a whole other fish to Exposure control. LR relied on a natural (un-natural?) lushness to its colour and contrast and it looks good, very “Hollywood”, but comes at a cost. C1 comes with a more mature and honest base-line. I felt early on that it lacked any form of natural punch or glow, but on discovering the Brilliance slider, I not only found that punch, but a better way of controlling exposure also.
In the sets above the first, flatter original files are nicely boosted and cleaned up using a little added Brilliance control and the snap and glow comes out, colours benefitting most. It is almost as if the glow comes out from within the file rather than a global layer of brightness across it.
The third file has the same amount of Exposure applied, weakening contrast and colour. It is just lighter, not better. In Lightroom, my usual process would be boosting Whites, dropping out Blacks and adding Exposure overall. This would have the effect of boosting contrast more gently than just adding Exposure or Contrast. It took two or three sliders and the base line brightness of the file would not change fundamentally.
How do I use it?
I will apply Brightness to a dull or dark image before the Exposure, Contrast or Highlight/Whites sliders. The placement of it in C1 lower down the pecking order than most is annoying, but workable. If I use Exposure first, then Brightness used to balance. Brightness is one of those few festures I use in both a positive and negative context. Often though I tend to drop Exposure back to where it was and I find the Contrast slider too aggressive for normal files.
Dehaze is the next most useful to my work flow.
I found Dehaze in LR (possibly limited by the age of my computer curtailing LR upgrades) was a little crude and simplistic. Doing what it was designed for, it was fine when needed, but that made it an emergency measure like noise reduction, not something with a wider utility.
In C1, the Dehaze slider has become for me the little “snap” enhancer that many files appreciate and is rarely destructive. It can in extreme cases, even add a feeling of three-dimensionality.
In the first file below, C1 has retained decent balance between noise reduction and sharpness on import, so where to next? Add Contrast, Exposure, maybe Brightness? Perhaps Shadows lifted and Highlights dropped back?
In the middle file some Exposure was added, generally lightening, but also slightly washing out the file.
Dehaze was added to the right hand file and this is the secret. Once you have caressed a troublesome file, Dehaze puts back in the normal, the strength. This allows you to work a file a little more aggressively, knowing you have a wonder tool that can gently add back in what other things have erroded.
When do I use it?
Any time a file is a bit flat, I first apply the needed fixes, then use Dehaze to put back the needed contrast. Like Brightness, the Dehaze control seems to add from within, not just layer over the surface. It is especially good at fighting the “HDR” look that strong use of the Highlight or Shadow sliders can create.
The only down side is colour tends to intensify, with Olympus files anyway, often towards Magenta, but that is fixable. This is likely a response to the core colours in the files, so others may find different behaviour.
I also use it when the file is hazey, but I guess that is in the name and never if the actual image requires a hazey look.
Keep in mind, C1 reduces the need for many controls I used automatically in LR like Noise Reduction, Sharpeing (often locally applied), the Blue channel in Camera Calibration for better portrait colour and Clarity (again often locally applied with the brush tool).
So;
My Lightroom work flow was;
Import with boosted Blue channel, some Sharpening and if the preset required it some Noise Reduction,
deal with White Balance issues,
locally apply with the brush tool, Sharpening, Noise reduction and Negative sharpenning into semi-soft areas,
apply Clarity or Blacks were used for more “snap”, Highlights often recovered as able and I found them quite bright in LR.
My C1 basic workflow is;
Import with base settings,
pause before getting too excited,
adjust Brilliance or less often Exposure and White Balance if needed, less often Shadows or Highlights ,
use the brush or gradient filter etc if needed for localised Dodging, Sharpening/De-sharpening,
add Dehaze to taste, less often Contrast or Clarity (these get more of a go in mono).
I almost never touch Noise Reduction or Sharpening, my two bug-bears in LR.
When you are processing over a thousand images like I did this weekend (school ball), having the files import basically “good enough to go”, means I can concentrate on minor improvements if needed. I spend more time removing pesky photo bombers than worrying about noise etc, which would have been my first thought with LR. I have effectively removed a couple of steps from my flow.