Capture One Pro 11 Fujifilm version. A first look.

Today, with the beginning of the 2018 Photokina edition, we got some great news for Fujifilm fans and users, and as you should know, I am one of those.

First of all, the new medium-format camera, the Fujifilm GFX 50R; then the announcement of the future GFX 100 MP; and, more than ever, a new special version of Capture One dedicated to Fujifilm users.

This is a welcome addition, since Phase One already had something similar for Sony cameras. Now it’s our turn, Fujifilm users.

Some of you may say that we already had support for Fujifilm cameras on the regular version of Capture One Pro 11. That’s true, but there was no direct support for tethered shooting, and especially no support for the GFX camera series.

All these issues seem to be addressed in the new Fujifilm-specific Capture One Pro 11 edition.

So I’ve just downloaded the demo, which is fully functional for 30 days. I have to say the demo doesn’t have any export watermark limitations, so it seems 100% functional.

First impressions on Capture One Pro 11 Fujifilm

Looking at the photos just imported into Capture One Pro 11 Fujifilm, the conversion quality and colors are very good and natural when you have a correct white balance in your raw shots. So when you open these files in Capture One without any edits, they already have a nice color balance. However, I couldn’t find the advertised “film simulation support” anywhere. Maybe that will be a demo limitation, but I was expecting to find the beloved “Classic Chrome”, “Astia,” and other Fujifilm color profiles. * Read the update below.

The workflow in Capture One is a bit different from Lightroom’s: if you have experience with raw development in other software such as Lightroom and Photoshop, you will not have any difficulty mastering the sliders. The point is that Capture One, from the initial install, is a bit more “confusing” than Lightroom. But one advantage of Capture One over Lightroom is the ability to reorganize your workspace, move palettes, and create your own personal workflow.

My personal advantages of Lightroom over Capture One Pro

• Direct Fujifilm color simulation that mimics almost perfectly the JPG shots in camera, as the “Classic Chrome”, “Astia”, “Velvia” and so on. * Read the update below.
• I prefer Lightroom’s cleaner interface.
• Can’t find the before/after editing button like in Lightroom. Yes, in Capture One you can do it by pressing ALT and the “back arrow,” but it isn’t the same as the one-button way to go.
• I’ve found filtering in Capture One a bit harder to master.
• I prefer the Copy/Paste photo editing in Lightroom to the one in Capture One; it’s easier to use.
• Lightroom has the strong advantage of a cloud system that allows you to sync your photos with the mobile app on any Android or iOS device. It isn’t existing (at the moment) a Capture One mobile app.
• Lightroom’s spot and correction tool is far faster and easier to use.
• I’ve found the brushes a bit faster and more responsive in Lightroom than in Capture One.

I want to point out that these are just my personal opinions: I’ve been a Lightroom user and teacher since beta 1 was released in 2007, so it’s normal that it is difficult to jump directly to different software and workflow and be fast with the operations.

My personal advantages of Capture One Pro over Lightroom

• I think the biggest advantage I can name at the moment of Capture One Pro over Lightroom in the workflow is the possibility to edit/tweak the photos even when you have more pictures on the screen. This way, you can balance them by looking at a group of similar shots in the session.
• I love the Loupe function for seeing part of the photo.
• The Skin Advanced Editor is an impressively useful feature.
• I really appreciate the export simulator, which shows you the final exported file with the resolution and sharpening you’ve set with the export options.
• Curve for Luminosity (change the luminosity of the image but not the saturation) and a separate curve for the RGB values.
• You can personalize all the keyboard shortcuts for any setting. For example, you can set your preferred button combination to raise/lower exposure, saturation, and so on.
• The highlight and shadow recovery is much more precise than in Lightroom.
• You have full layer support. This way, you can plan your edits using different layers, as in Photoshop. There are some limitations, since you have to use specific layers for the kind of editing you want to do (like the layer for spot removal).
• I love the grain simulation in Capture One. It seems more organic and convincing than the one in Lightroom.

Version of Lightroom used: Lightroom CC 7.5.
Version of Capture One used: Capture One Pro Fujifilm 11.3.
Camera used: Fujifilm X-Pro 2 with 35mm f/1.4.

Update 25/9/18

I’ve been informed that official film simulation support is coming with a future update. In my opinion, this decision sounds a bit strange, since this was the first reason I downloaded the demo version of Capture One 11 Fujifilm — to test the quality of the film simulation compared to the one in Lightroom.