Recently, I published an article that summarises a few key advantages of Capture One Pro (C1). For me, these were the most convincing ones and along with great outputs led me to, exactly a year ago, change the main RAW editing app from Adobe Lightroom to Capture One Pro 12 edition, respectively. A new version called Capture One Pro 20 is released. Version 13 has been skipped and the next ones will correspond with the year of release. So, what’s new in the latest version? And is it worth upgrading from version 12?

Northern Gannets, Shetland Islands 2019, Olympus E-M1X, M.Zuiko 300mm/4 IS, ISO 200, F/5.6, 1/500s

TOP 10 IMPROVEMENTS IN CAPTURE ONE PRO 20

I was lucky as for roughly a month, I was involved in the BETA testing of Capture One Pro 20, so I was able to have first-hand experience of the upgrade in advance. Altogether, the app brings 16 improvements over the version 12. Version 12 brought about a number of design improvements, which I think are more pleasant than in the previous version. The C1 20 remains faithful to the C12 design and previous version users will find everything exactly where they expect it. Before I get to the improvements that I consider to be of the most importance, I will mention those that have occurred, but have no significant impact on my workflow. The program now has better support for DNG format, improved copying of layers, as well as copy editing from photo to photo, where it’s newly possible to select individual adjustment layers to be copied to other photos. According to the developers, the thumbnail resolution has improved, as did the white balance dropper accuracy. Plus there have been changes in the default keyboard shortcuts, and the license keys now apply across all versions. Below you will find a graphical overview of other news that I find most interesting. I ranked them with regard to interface logic rather than their importance. Three are key to me. Changing the app background is now a single click away. The editing tools can now be partially locked against scrolling, which is, in combination with the ability to customize the tools, pretty amazing. In this version, I locked my layer panel, which now allows me to first enlarge it to fit comfortably 10 layers below. Finally, I’m happy that the Highlights/ Shadows panel moved to where it has been in Lightroom for some time. The sliders now start from the middle (0) and can have both positive and negative values. I especially appreciate new panel for Black and White that I’m familiar with from LR. If you want to see the bottom picture in high res, I recommend to open it in a new window or download it via ‘save image as’.

Top 10 Improvements in Capture One Pro 20 in a single image

WHAT IS THE NEW CAPTURE ONE PRO 20 LIKE?

All the new features in Capture One are a very pleasant evolution of the existing ones. The question is, though, ‘Is it worthwhile for owners of version 12 to upgrade to 20’? From my point of view, none of the upgrades bring any spectacular function without which you could not live. For example, I’d consider Version 12 Luma Range to be a key improvement over version 11. However, if you are considering buying a new camera made in 2020, then upgrading to 20 will be the only way for you to convert RAW to DNG without hindrance. First though, I highly recommend downloading the trial so that you can see how the program works in your established workflow. Of course, upgrading will not spoil anything. Thanks to the fact that the app is very similar to version 12, and all the improvements only boost your comfort of work, many things are suddenly easier. So, if you are considering buying Capture One and know the Lightroom environment a bit, the transition will be smoother for you as several of the new features have been working in LR for a few years (eg. center-based dynamic range sliders). You may find it much more interesting to see the overall benefits of Capture One, which in my opinion bear a much stronger argument for change. Check out my latest article 7 AMAZING FEATURES OF CAPTURE ONE PRO.

Petr Bambousek

OM SYSTEM AMBASSADOR | I am a professional wildlife photographer who over the past 20 years undertook more than 40 photo expeditions to tropical rainforests across the world. You may have seen my photos in various exhibitions, on the Internet and many Czech and foreign magazines and books. A number of my photographs were awarded at local and overseas competitions such as the Czech Press Photo, Nature's Best Photography, Bird Photographer of the Year, Sony World Photography Awards, Big Picture Awards, Nactus Awards or the most acclaimed one - the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. At this particular competition, my photographs were not only in the Final but also, one of my finalist images became a central promotional piece of the whole 2015 WPY travelling exhibition. If you enjoy my work, don’t forget to visit my Photogallery and connect to my Facebook profile.