Curves and Levels in the iPad app (and the iPhone app)

Hello everyone, first of all, I want to thank you for engaging in this discussion and for helping us out improve Capture One and its products. 

374152054758, I am sorry to hear that you couldn't connect your camera. This is the trickiest part of the process and we have released some step by step guides to mitigate that. Have you checked this one How to connect your camera wirelessly (mobile) - Capture One? Regarding your expectations, I understand it, and we have received a lot of feedback about that. We hope that the mobile app is a subset, not completely different from Capture One on desktop. We have focused more on the photoshoot part of the workflow with tethering and Capture One Live and less on editing, however we have plans to improve the editing experience moving forward. I really doubt that the mobile app can be as complete as Capture One Pro is anytime soon though.

373605796717 the app is solving some real problems as it is right now, problems that are not solved well enough by competition. These are primarily tethering and Sharing online with Live. We have a long way to go when it comes to editing. There are indeed a lot of options out there that are quite complete in terms of tools and functionality around editing. What we aspire to do is to offer the tools that will save our users time and money and won't make them use another app or software to perform simple edits just because Capture One mobile is lacking them. 

7713738644253 I appreciate the insights you shared and your suggestions. Our marketing team is doing their best to manage expectations, because we have received this feedback a lot when we launched Capture One on iPad in June 2022. Here is our product page Capture One mobile, please take a look and let us know what you think :)

374401645437 by resources, I meant human resource and the size of our team :) Regarding the two hands, noted, but you can also use one hand to do most edits: simply tap and hold the tool you want to use and drag the circle up or down to increase/decrease the value. You can also import your styles from Capture One Pro to mobile: https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/5693514085405-Editing-Images-iPad#h_01H2R18E89A5J7D1D0S48G3N8M. Regarding your feedback about the interface, noted and will pass it to the team, maybe we will improve it at some point, it's not in our immediate plans though. 

Hi 382987704118, 

I understand the resource limitations. Although iPads have M1 and M2 chips now too so they should have plenty of power to run a full version of C1, I'm sure there are some technical constraints that I don't know about.

I'm not sure I understand the 'conscious decisions'. For instance the decision to require TWO HANDS to make any kind of adjustment. That's just absolutely bonkers to me. You could have done what so many other apps do: scroll vertically through your parameters, and drag each parameter left or right to change it. Easy, intuitive, elegant. One motion, done. But instead of this, I have to TAP THE PARAMETER TO SELECT IT, and then  go to the OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE SCREEN to drag a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIAL in order to change that parameter. In what universe does that make sense? 

Also this interface seems like it's designed to be used with two hands, which would maybe be ok until you remember that the user is photographer who might have a camera in one hand. Shooting tethered with the iPad on a stand, the two handed interface is just infuriating. 

The way the tools scroll and pop open is also highly annoying and a huge waste of screen real estate. At the very least let us open multiple tools at once and scroll through them rather than having to scroll AND open and close things every time we want to change tools. 

I could go on but I won't. You asked about my workflow but I'm not sure there's going to be one with the app being so janky. What I would LIKE to do is shoot tethered like I normally do to a MBP, but to a lighter and more portable device. But then the interface would have to be a lot better, and most importantly styles and sessions would have to be compatible between the desktop and mobile app. I was foolishly assuming they would be, and deeply disappointed that they are not. 

I have been evaluating the LR Mobile app - my learning so far is that it is not any substitute for LR Classic, it doesn't come even close. I find myself having to re-adjust every single picture in the desktop app. It starts with the iPad display which is (as far as I know) not calibrated and doesn't end with missing functionality (e.g. RGB readout) plus sync issues.

This obviously raises the question of the meaning of a mobile app altogether, regardless of C1 or LR. Having to re-adjust every photo is not an efficient workflow, and I have stopped using the mobile app for editing photos other than quick&dirty. For any precision work the mobile apps (both C1 and LR) are of minor use to me. As I am not using the tethering functionality I use the mobile app mainly for collecting and culling. 

In terms of marketing I think it would beneficial to better explain the purpose and strengths of Capture One Mobile, call it expectation management if you like. How could a meaningful workflow look like given that you need the full power of Capture One anyways?

@Jeremy Henderson: I think you are right. People do have expectations to get professional functionality comparable to the gear Capture One desktop app.

The expectations also come from competitive app offerings where some low cost or even free apps offer those basic editing features and even go much beyond with sophisticated masking tools etc.

If the C1 app was better in functionality I think this might convert more people into Capture One and its ecosystem. I would still like to go the non mainstream road (i.e. Lightroom) and will further observe developments.

For the moment the app seems most adequate for tethering applications mainly.

Evi - I’m a user who would occasionally like to tether wirelessly, but I couldn’t make it work on my Z8 at any speed faster than glacial. Maybe I’ll try again if I have nothing to do one afternoon.
As for the old editing question, maybe it’s just a question of expectations. I can’t think of another app of any sort where the “Mobile app” has a completely different function and feature set from the “Desktop app”, so maybe it’s natural for folk to be confused when the `functionality of CaptureOne Mobile is so different from CaptureOne Desktop?

Hello 374401645437 and thanks for the feedback. The mobile app has indeed many differences comparing to its desktop counterpart. These differences are the result of conscious decisions from our end and some resource limitations that don't allow us to build everything we would like to into the app, as soon as we would love to. I have explained here Enhancing the CaptureOne iOS App for a Better Editing Experience - Capture One our reasoning behind it. I am sorry that the app does not meet your expectations however there are thousands of professionals using it today and it has changed their workflow for the better. We acknowledge the file management limitations and we are trying to bring it faster to life. Feel free to browse our community posts and to add your suggestions to the respective posts. We would love it if you could share a few words about your workflow and why the specific requests are important to you. Thanks again.

I don't understand why the iPad app has to be so different from desktop in every possible way. I understand that some things have to work differently, but this is an app that has nothing to do with the real C1. It feels like a cheap third party app that you try once and then forget about. 

As a professional, my use case for C1 Mobile would be to whip out the iPad when we need to be really mobile for either the whole shoot or just a few shots, and then transfer that session to Desktop for further editing. But there isn't even a session, you can't use the styles you created on Desktop, file management is a mess, the two handed adjustment method is a cruel joke, etc etc etc. Whyyyyyyyyyy? 

I guess I know why. The marketing managers at C1 think there is more money in creating a toy app for amateurs than a useful tool for professionals. 

No worries :) If you are a user who tethers, I believe you will be excited with the update even if it doesn't include levels and curves.

Ok. My mistake!!

If you are referring to the one he posted on the 23rd, it's definitely not about this :) 

Victor made a post on facebook suggesting these improvements are coming soon. Or was my interpretation incorrect?

Hello 380067526037, thanks for the feedback. This is a far question. We have this in the pipeline but we don't have a specific timeline yet, that's why it's not yet in the works. We are in the process of reviewing our roadmap for the next six months, if something changes, we will let you know. Have you tried using HDR and contrast or import a Style from Capture One on your computer to compensate for this?

Just wondering if there was any update on this feature?   Many many people have requested it (and in more recent posts than this one too) and yet it sits at "logged", not even "in the works". 

If you are really not planning to implement this in, like the next 6 months or so, it would be very useful for your user base to know that.  For me this is really important because I find the app both extremely useful and highly disruptive to my workflow as I set levels very early in my lighting workflow, so essentially all I can do now is do culling/rate and crop/straighten on iPad and then need to transfer to desktop. 

It would be sooo much more useful to be able to do more of my workflow on the iPad, and many of the exposure/hdr/clarity/sharpness/etc adjustments are highly attractive, but I find I need to redo them all after setting levels on the desktop.

As I posted in another thread, all I really need is "levels", not "curves".  That seems to be a much simpler thing to implement as the UI should be quite similar to the other tools like HDR/expsure/etc.

Thanks so much (in advance) for your attention to this!

I purchased the Capture One mobile app and was surprised that there were no curve tools available. I will cancel the subscription and go back to Lightroom for my iPad until these tools are available in the Capture One mobile app.

Levels and Curves are ESSENTIAL editing tools. All of the styles I create myself depend on them. I've been on C1 for well over a decade but I'm new to C1 mobile and I was baffled that Levels and Curves are missing. 

Please add ASAP.  

I just got Capture one for phone.  I will delete it today. No curves? No levels?  Why not just use the iphone software then? I guess i'll keep searching for good software for iphone.  Lightroom seems to have the functionality I need, but ughh. Adobe.  So sad that Capture One, which i have been a user of for almost a decade rolled out such a non-pro product.

Hello and thanks for sharing. You have a very interesting workflow.. How come you prefer Lightroom for your RAW conversion? and can you share a few words about the type of photography you are into? What else are you missing apart from curves?

We know that the app lacks some basic editing capabilities and we will be working on it, after we add some tethering related improvements like Live view and camera controls. 

I am exclusively a mobile user, I run everything off my iPad. I use lightroom mobile to handle all my basic raw processing needs… however, I don’t like Adobe much. Literally the only thing stopping me from moving to capture one for my workflow is the lack of curves. It’s essential to my workflow as I photograph on film and then use my digital camera and a macro lens to “scan” the negs, then I use curves to invert the image. Absolutely crucial. That paired with the ability to tether would make the monthly payment for capture one a complete no brainer.

382987704118 How high on the list are levels / curves for the next updates? What about masks? Thank you. 

Wanted to add a note that I too find the lack of the levels tool limiting.  My standard flow uses this to set black and white points and in CaptureOne Pro for desktop it is my go-to adjustment.  I think the interface could be quite simpler than the full-blown version and still be useful.  Don't really need the secondary histogram, just a dial to set the levels.   Making it work in auto-mode like on the desktop would be great too.

Even without this, being able to use the iPad for my first round of cull, crop, rotate, etc is a game changer!  Makes me so much more productive since I can do it anywhere!   But for me the very next step in getting the lighting right, I find levels the most useful tool. So I have to stop there and transfer to desktop mode.   

Thanks, and I really hope you find a way to add a levels tool.

Bill