This morning, Capture One released an update to its Capture One 20 software that brings new features and an evolving roadmap based on user feedback. Additionally, the company has added a dedicated Nikon version of the software to its lineup.
New and updated features
New features include dedicated brushes for cloning and healing, a before/after tool, updated Lightroom catalog import and more. Capture One also implemented a brand-new icon to the software. Check below for my first thoughts at these new tools — needless to say, they’re quite the game changers.
Cloning/healing
This was a big one. The new dedicated Heal and Clone brushes automatically create a new layer when used, offering a super-fast workflow that gives you a limitless number of heal zones per layer.
This is quite the improvement over the previous version of Capture One, which limited you to one zone per layer. In my testing, I found this to be very fast and the automatic source point generation was pretty accurate. If you’ve ever used Lightroom’s Heal and Clone brushes, you’ll be familiar with his this works. You brush on your image and then it automatically picks a source point for you if you use the Heal brush. The workflow is the same with the Clone brush, except you determine your source point first.
Here’s the difference though — Capture One’s Heal and Clone brushes are extremely fast and accurate. If you were previously using Photoshop or Affinity Photo for these types of edits, you won’t be finding yourself going there quite as much. I was able to quickly and easily get rid of several dust and water spots on a lot of my photographs in no time at all.
Before/after tool
Gone is the old workaround of holding Alt + Reset to view what your image looked like before. Capture One 20 has brought a dedicated before/after tool icon to the toolbar. In my tests, it works really well.
The tool offers two modes for this — full view and split view slider. Using Shift + Y will toggle between the two modes. Using Y will turn the feature on and off.
The cool thing is that this feature can work if you have multiple photos selected in the viewer.
This was one of my biggest “wants” for Capture One, and I’m happy to see it added, as it gives you an easy way to compare your edits to the original version of the photograph.
New Lightroom catalog import
The Lightroom importer also received an update, bringing better descriptions and import of offline files from disconnected devices. With this, Capture One automatically imports files once the correct hard drive has been plugged in and found. It also provides a report after the import with information outlining unsupported files.
Another big change is that Capture One will now take Lightroom’s basic image adjustments and catalog structure, and replicate it exactly how it was.
Our initial testing also showed that the Lightroom import is much, much faster compared to the old version. An import that took 24 hours to run instead took 4-5 hours to complete.
New camera and lens support
Capture One 20 has brought support for the following cameras:
- Canon: 250D, PowerShot G5X Mark II, PowerShot G7X Mark III
- Nikon: P950
- Leica: M10 Monochrom
- Olympus: OM-D E-M1 Mark III
- Zeiss: ZX1
- Phase One: iXH 150
Several new lenses have also been added.
Dedicated Nikon version
In addition to the big updates in today’s release, Capture One released a dedicated version of its software for Nikon users. Following the lead of its branded versions for Fuji and Sony, the dedicated Nikon version brings the same power and features of the Capture One Pro product, and puts them into a dedicated Nikon package available at a reduced price.
Branded versions of Capture One are restricted to the brand of camera the software is purchased for, and can be purchased for $129.
