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Watch out Adobe. Early this morning, Phase One unveiled the next major update to Capture One. The new version, Capture One 11, promises improvements in every regard: from “new, highly responsive tools,” to “workflow enhancements” to a new “finely tuned processing engine.”
Here’s a quick introduction to what’s new in Capture One 11 straight from Phase One itself:
The major improvements can be broken down into three categories: layers, workflow, and performance.
Performance
When Phase One talks about ‘optimized’ performance, the company is not just talking about how quickly Capture One can open and edit your Raw files. Included in these improvements is ‘re-engineered’ color handling, as well as the addition of a LAB Readout option for “customers who wish to measure image output to critical values.”
‘Next Level Layers’
With this update, Phase One is now characterizing Capture One 11 as a ‘layer centric application.’ All of the program’s adjustment tools are now compatible with layers, masking tools have been improved with the ability to refine and feather masks after drawing, and you can now control the opacity of individual layers.
Workflow
Since Capture One 11 is trying to be “the professionals’ choice in imaging software,” several improvements have also been made on the workflow side.
You can now add annotations and graphics on top of your image as overlays, and export them as separate layers in a PSD file; crops can be added as a ‘Path’ when exporting to a PSD file, so you don’t lose any pixels if you transfer out to Photoshop; and, finally, you can now export watermarks as a separate layer in an exported PSD file as well.
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As with all major Adobe competitors—and Capture One is arguably one of the best-known and most widely-used—the message Phase One wants to send loud and clear is, “we care about our customers’ needs.” In fact, you could say Phase One stopped just short of calling Adobe out by name in its announcement:
In keeping with Phase One’s commitment to its customers’ choice, Capture One 11 is available for purchase by either perpetual license or by subscription – whichever best suits the customers’ needs.
For photographers eager to escape Adobe’s subscription-only model, Capture One 11 represents a very tempting choice.
Capture One 11 is available now for both Mac and Windows at $ 300 for a brand-new perpetual license or $ 20/month on subscription (or $ 180 if you pay for a year in advance). If you already own Capture One Pro 9 or 10, you can get a perpetual license for just $ 120, and if you purchased Capture One Pro 10 on October 31st, 2017 or later, you can actually upgrade to Capture One 11 for free by using your same license key.
To learn more or download a fully-functional 30-day free trial, head over to the Phase One website.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)