ACR vs C1

[MarkAlsop]

I’m sure this has been hashed out many times and I don’t want to start anything, but…

I have spent a lot of time carefully studying the DP Review reviews for the 1Ds Mk III, 5D Mark II, Nikon D3, and the new Sony DSLR-A900. In the end I purchased a 1Ds Mark III (I have a lot of L glass). Now I would like to make sure I get my money’s worth out of the 1Ds III RAW files.

One thing that kept showing up in the DP Review reviews was that Capture One (from Phase One) produced very noticeably sharper images with more resolution from RAW files than either ACR or DPP. Better color too.

I thought about purchasing C1 a long time ago but at the time I felt the price was out of sight. I have a long history with Adobe products and currently use the CS3 suite and LR 2.1 …and love that LR 2.1 application. I use LR primarily but also use Bridge/ACR/Photoshop to pull out my best photos and to do ‘art’.

However, I’m really impressed with what I saw on the DP Review site and on Don Lashier’s web site regarding C1 Pro processing of RAW files, especially files that were not perfect to start with.

My question is this: Would C1 be a better choice for the initial import of RAW files than ACR/CS3/Lightroom2/DPP? Do others of you use C1 in preference to ACR or LR for your RAW files?

I am on a 64-bit PC running a quad processor with 8 GB of ram and fast hard drives. I use Vista Ultra 64-bit as my operating system …in case that colors any of your responses. And this is not a workflow issue: I want the best conversion possible from RAW for prints and for preprocessing for Photoshop work.

[Noel_Carboni]

I haven't been able to confirm it yet due to lack of time, but I have a subjective feeling the ACR 5.0 conversions (from CS4) are coming out more detailed than those from earlier versions. Have there been tweaks in the detail generation logic in ACR?

I note, especially, that converting to an upsampled resolution in ACR yields better data to work with for editing. I don't know whether this will be true of C1, I've never used it.

I have an idea: Post a really great raw file, and we can have at it and see who can make the most of it.

-Noel

[michaelnotar]

well after losing a long reply...i will summarize what i had..

i am a big fan of capture one. while they are slow to make changes and add features i am really happy with v4 or v4.5 of their software. ive been using it for a couple of years now. i got hooked due to the workflow of applying processing setting of one image to all and then processing them at the end, something that other software also does now.

[BobSmith]

I purchased Capture One Pro maybe two years ago primarily for tethered shooting with a 5D. Worked great for that. Once Canon and Adobe got their software up to speed with more reliable tethered support I switched back. The Adobe/Canon tethered workflow is vastly superior for me. There are subjective differences in Capture One conversions versus any other raw convertor. Which is preferable is quite a matter of personal taste. I'm personally more than happy with Adobe conversions and workflow. With a properly calibrated workflow in either product you won't see much if any appreciable difference at all in your final images. I certainly don't see a cost justification for Capture One Pro and their licensing is quite restrictive. If you choose to go that route. Make sure you know what you're getting into.

Bob Smith

[Luke_Miller]

Since I am a Nikon shooter my experience may not apply.

I find that Capture One produces the most accurate and pleasing skin tones of any raw converter I have used. Currently Lightroom is my tool of choice for most work. I use a GM ColorChecker card and calibration script to get the most accurate colors in Lightroom/ACR. Just started to use the new calibration profiles Adobe released and they look to be very good. But for studio work and wedding formal shots I find I prefer the Capture One results.

I use Capture One LE rather than the Pro version. While I would like to have the additional features Pro offers I think the price difference exceeds their value. For Nikon shooters the Pro version is even less of a value since teathered shooting is not supported for Nikon bodies.

[MarkAlsop]

Thanks for all the replies…

Noel…

I’d have to be a really great photographer to post a really great raw file.

More seriously: if you are correct then waiting a couple of months would be in order. I can’t try ACR 5.0 yet because it only works with CS4. I did download it just to see if it would run with CS3 …it won’t.

I’ve not upgraded to CS4 because my favorite NIC filter plug-ins do not run on PS CS4 64-bit on Vista 64-bit and NIC has not indicated they intend to support this 64-bit/64-bit combination …I have communicated with them on this point.

For workflow I don’t think you can beat LR 2.1 and that is my mainstay. I’m just trying to put together tools that will let me tweak the most out of a few selected images, especially now that I’ll be shooting the 1Ds III.

[MarkAlsop]

I should have put some links to pages that have a comparison; I’m correcting that below, note that you will have to scroll down to the comparisons…

Nikon D3 Review: 17. Software: Digital Photography Review
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III Review: 18. Software & Raw: Digital Photography Review

When I went back looking I could only find these two to illustrate recent versions of ACR and C1. Apparently C1 does not support all that many sub-medium format cameras, or the DP Reviews are arbitrary in picking the RAW conversion applications for testing.

In these comparisons C1 looked better when I first viewed them and still shows more contrast and detail on the test targets …though I now notice some haloing in both examples that is not present in the ACR conversion. Maybe C1 is over-sharpening and thus the initial impression is better but the conversion is not really better, just different.

There are other comparison on the web but they are getting old so they do not apply.