Improve Capture One
Request a new feature, or support for a camera/lens that you would like to use in Capture One.
Request a new feature, or support for a camera/lens that you would like to use in Capture One.
Please provide a history panel.
What problem do you see this solving?
Without a History Panel, there is no way of reviewing edits, or reverting to an earlier state, other than keep on pressing ctrl-z or Undo, which is very inefficient.
Ctrl-z will allow you to step back and undo changes, so the steps must be recorded within Capture One, at least during its current use. The problem is, you cannot see them. You need a history panel to show you exactly what the changes were so that you can make a fully informed decision as to what the changes were and whether you want to eliminate or amend them.
Even a non-persistent panel would be better than nothing (i.e. the history steps would not survive the closure and re-opening of the programme), although a persistent panel would of course be better.
When was the last time you were affected by this lack of functionality, or specific tool?
Every time I use Capture One. I often want to review the earlier steps I have taken. I do this all the time in Lightroom.
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Current workaround
Are you using any workarounds or other solutions to achieve your goals in Capture One? Ctrl-z or Undo is not really a workaround: you need a panel to show you what the steps were. Lightroom has a history panel, just about every other RAW converter and image editor I have ever seen has a history panel. Why not in Capture One? |
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Future consideration
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Future consideration
It would really be great to have that - I was just looking where to find it, and was very surprised it did not exist. When I tweak a picture for printing I sometimes find that it does not work - and it would be good to go back to "today's start", even if I forgot to create a variant before. It would also be great to see two years later what exactly I have done to a specific picture - be it because there's a shot requiring similar treatment, be it because I need to fix sth.
Frankly speaking - I have no idea what is the issue. C1 is a non-destructive editor, so it must save the image changes I applied. I actually found out the "hard way" that it stores a lot of history - when I accidentally undid a change from my last session, instead of from the work for readying the picture for print.
In terms of granularity - it's probably a bit like the undo mechanism. If I am painting in the mask, I want to be able to undo the last brush strokes. If I have changed tools in the meantime, it's perfectly fine to undo all the painting activities on the mask if I roll back.
Variants as snapshots could be a useful workaround... if they could be assigned a name.
In my experience the history panel has become an indispensable tool during my editing sessions. Typically, I work on a series of photographs rather than individual images. These sets often feature varying lighting conditions, and my goal is always to achieve a cohesive look across the entire set. This means relying on a single preset is rarely effective; each photo requires its unique tweaks to harmonize with the others.
The challenge arises when revisiting previously edited photos in the set, especially after a break or when moving between images. It can be tricky to recall the exact adjustments made to a specific photo. If I need to revert a few steps on an image I edited earlier, the lack of a detailed history can be a hindrance.
Since transitioning my wedding photography work to Capture One, I've noticed a significant improvement in color rendering, particularly for images from my Sony camera. However, this switch has also led to longer editing times for each set, primarily due to the differences in the history tracking features compared to Lightroom.
Hi Graham, I totally agree with you request. I just wanted to raise the same feature request but noticed you raised it already :)
As a former Lightroom user I'm still missing the history panel and the snap shot as wel. I just made some edits, want to go back en then it's much harder to see when to stop going backwards than just clicking on the proper state in the history panel as we see in Lightroom.
Kind regards,
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As for variants/snapshots, the main issue in Capture One, if you use variants as a substitute for snapshots, is not having the hierarchical organization + no immediate way of distinguishing between variants. There may be workarounds for this (using keywords and other metadata), but considering Capture One's poor performance when it comes to catalogues/DAM this isn't a very attractive solution + it requires more work.
I very rarely use Lightroom, but when using Capture One I miss some of Lightroom's advantages – in addition to snapshots: no unresponsiveness, its ability to handle large catalogues, instantaneous search results, more advanced handling of metadata, a far better keystone correction tool, etc.
I found the same thing when switching from LR to C1. Capture One's editing features are excellent but there still some general usability things like history or working with folders/sub folders etc which are still clumsy by comparison.
Agreed, r.e. LR's horrible color. This is why I use C1 now but I used to use LR and I really miss some things like the history . It just seems like such a useful thing and a glaring ommission from C1, which is so feature-rich and otherwise perfect. Even basic software like Hasselblad's has always had a snapshot feature.
I guess I'm just so used to variants and no history that it's difficult to make the connection. I work in Lr/LrC only when I have to. I do it begrudgingly. And I wash my hands when I'm finished. :)
--------I just don't like the way Lr renders colors and I feel very limited. Even back in the day I'd do whatever work in Camera Raw then bounce to PS. Again, I'm sure that's because I'm used to this tool and not that tool. Not trying to start an argument.
Personally I think the Lightroom implementation of history and snapshots is close to perfect, very easy to find an adjustment you made (or accidentally made) in the history list or when you exported a copy, which is often a handy place to return to too. Branches in the history panel seems overly complicated to me as you probably wouldn't remember what you were attempting to do with each branch anyway, snapshots in Lighroom solves that by making each 'branch' a deliberate choice which can be named without having to double up on variants, while keeping the history as a way to wind back deliberate or accidental changes with a list that displays exactly what was changed.
Another thing about the Lightroom implementation is that all the history takes up space in the catalog, as each set of chances is associated with an image. I recall there is also a way to clear the history to save space which is nice touch, can't recall if that's in bulk or if applied to a selection of images. The ability to clear unwanted history on a folder by folder basis or in bulk would be a nice touch for C1 if history was implemented.
Very well explained Thomas - Variants are no substitute for snapshots. For me they are clunky, messy and confusing. I want a list of previous stages (snapshots or history states) I can click on for each image to go back and forth through different processing stages.
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In Lightroom, you can save snapshots, i.e. specific stages in the editing proces, which will then appear in a list, so that you can go back and forth between them and compare. Unlike variants, they don't have each their preview or thumbnail. The equivalent of variants in Lightroom is virtual copies. Have a look at this video, for instance, to see how it works.
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I agree. Variants are great as variants, but not as snapshots. And if you do use them as snapshots, there's no way of distinguishing between variants used as variants and variants used as a substitute for snapshots, and you can't see to which version/variant of an image a variant (snapshot substitute) belongs. Obviously, the resulting mess is only exacerbated by not being able to give individual variants a name/title that shows up in the browser.
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There are already shortcut keys to create variants - either new or cloned based what is currently being edited.
It is not necessary to have all the variants on display. If you would prefer not to just stack them under the Primary variant currently selected. Or use some smart filtering to make them visible/invisible as required.
369023522178 How are these different from variants?
A snapshot function has been requested here. I found this very useful in Lightroom. This is very different from a history panel, though, and would rather be used to save specific stages in the editing process than to save the whole editing history. Also, for snapshots to be useful and in order to remember what what stages they represent, you'd most likely want to name them, unlike the steps in a history panel. The advantage of a history panel is it does not require any action on the part of the user, and every step would be named automatically.
As for the quantification/splitting up of series of actions into individual steps, this works fine in Photoshop and Lightroom, so there's no reason to assume it wouldn't be possible in Capture One.
BeO wrote;
"If using many brush strokes, or one is fine tuning a tool setting using the arrow keys in the numerical input fields or using the mouse wheel over the slider, how many / which historic states should be shown in the panel? "
Exactly.
Then consider how to deal with, say, the 1000 selected images that were actively being edited when changes were being made using, say, style applications or speed-edits.
If synchronizing metadata from external sources would that also need to be recorded in the history?
It could all get very complicated for both the developer and the user.
That said, if it becomes a marketing "must have", so be it. That would be up to C1's management to assess the cost-benefit for the work.
Please don't forget to make it optional so that I can turn it off!
Yes, even a keyboard shortcut to record a snapshot of current settings would be better than nothing. This is what Hasselblad's Phocus software has. Very useful. Much better than multiple variants bloating and complicating the filmstrip, which is the only way I can see C1 having anything comparable. LR has snapshots as well.
That is the only reasonable way I can currently imagine, plus maybe a keyboard shortcut to explicitly make a snap.
Each brush stroke is recorded in the undo list (though the list is sometimes emptied suddenly, with my old 15.2 at least). Don't have LR so I don't know.
Yes OK, fair point. How does Lightroom handle it? And how does C1's existing "undo" feature decide these things? I assumed there was already a log of recorded steps somewhere in the memory.
I guess when a slider is fine tuned in the way you mention, maybe the final figure can be recorded in the history when the user moves on to another tool or image.
If using many brush strokes, or one is fine tuning a tool setting using the arrow keys in the numerical input fields or using the mouse wheel over the slider, how many / which historic states should be shown in the panel?
Such things are very often the case in Software development.
Tacking a new field onto a database is easy enough. If it only existing in one place for a single purpose, giving access is easy.
If it used for reporting ... it's actually less work to defer all reporting to a report generator than to embed dedicated reporting programs in the application.
So Locked variants and "named variants" not only mean adding a field to indicate the lock and the name, they also require changes to just about every sub-program and screen in the system.
That's a lot of work for programmers and user guide writers as well as a lot of changes for user to get used to.
Having a truly effective, all-encompassing and unconfusing History Panel function that can in fact offer what most requesters seem to be asking for, seems to me to be a lot of work requiring a lot of consultation and changes throughout the application to keep "changes" recorded and then be able to successfully revert to the place one thinks one might want to go back to. How complicated might the web of changes become?
At what point does it become necessary to start an entirely new set of edit instructions on a new branch of the edit for a specific variant?
It would be very easy to spend a lot of time creating something that is only a partial solution to people's expectations and becomes something that absorbs a company's energies for very little ultimate user appreciation.
I think it would be necessary to provide the option for users to identify "branch points" for an edit and to me (and some others) they already exist in the form of Variants.
That opinion was one I formed nearly 2 decades ago using an application that offered both approaches - continuous edit history and a "branch out where you have got to" option. In effect, the continuous history became unusable without the option to break out a new branch with its own history AND then keep the changes as simple as possible before branching again.
To me, the History just suggested that by playing with all the tools available I would eventually find out what I wanted to do with an image and yet be able make a quick step back to a previous state when I took a wrong direction. It tempted me to try everything on every image. Variants suggested it would be better to work out what one wanted to do with an image and then seek a way to get there with, maybe 2 or 3 different approaches that could be instantly compared side-by-side.
It seemed to be a better way to work then and I still think so today.