Today’s #TipsAndTricksThursday is all about making basic black & white images using only Capture One Pro 12 – the preferred way for tethered photography or batch processing with a very powerful and intuitive digital assets management system.
Sony A7RII | Zeiss Distagon T FE 35 mm F1.4 ZA (SEL35F14Z)
First, I have this photo taken with a Sony A7RII in raw format. Always shoot in raw if you want more data to pull from and if you want to take advantage of your camera’s features and capabilities. Shooting JPG does have its merits but that’s discussion for another time.
I will then go to the Color tab and check Enable Black & White. Do not simply remove saturation for a photo as that won’t make it totally black and white.
I will then make adjustments to the Color Sensitivity sliders until I am satisfied. I want my black and white to have more contrast and yet still retain the highlights and shadows. Using the sliders here will help.
I will then go to the Exposure tab and make further adjustments in there. One of my favourite tools in Capture One Pro is the High Dynamic Range tool which allows me to do highlights and shadows recovery. It’s easy to use and produces clean results.
I also make some adjustments with the Luma curves, careful not to overdo the highlights and risk overblown highlights. You can do an S-curve here to have more punchy contrast, or make adjustments until you can get the “faded” look.
Clarity and structure are used sparingly to add that punchiness to the photo and vignetting is done just for aesthetic purposes and/or to bring more focus to the middle.
Finally, I hit the Output tab to process the image using my custom recipe. You can use the default recipes for output to JPG as well and define which folder you want it to be output to.
One of the beautiful things about Capture One is you can process as many files to different extensions and place them in separate folders named after those recipes (or extensions) SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Want JPG, TIFF, PNG and PSD at the same time and placed in different folders automatically? No problem. Capture One can do it.
Bonus Tip: Unfamiliar with Capture One’s interface? Switch it to Migration mode and you can see it now looking very much like Lightroom.
Just go to “Window > Workspace > Migration”.
Once you are in Migration mode, you can select Film Strip to complete the Lightroom feel.
If you are interested to learn more about Capture One, email me at mezame@theartofmezame.com for more information on one-on-one classes where you will undergo an intensive 4-hour session to master the basics of Capture One Pro.
Also, I have great news for Sony and Fujifilm users and students!
The Pro version exclusive to your camera brands are going at 50% off (expiring 31st August 2019). For students, you can save 65% on Capture One and subscribe for just USD 7.00 per month.
You can get Capture One Pro 12 at these discounted prices here: http://bit.ly/2EyGPu5.
If you are interested to learn more about Capture One, email me at mezame@theartofmezame.com for more information on one-on-one classes where you will undergo an intensive 4-hour session to master the basics of Capture One Pro.
Enjoy!