Capture One adds stray hair removal and more precise color editing

Capture One has released version 16.9 of its desktop editing software and version 4.2 of its iOS app, with updates aimed at making portrait retouching, color editing and collaborative studio workflows easier.

More retouching within Capture One

Capture One

Leading the release is a new Stray Hair Removal tool, which promises to make it faster to edit out stray hairs. Rather than requiring photographers to remove individual hairs manually, Capture One says it uses a trained model to tackle flyaways, with sliders and a protection brush to help preserve hair the photographer wants to keep.

Retaining some control for photographers was a challenge during development, according to Theis Karger Philipsen, Capture One’s senior principal software engineer. “Stray hair means something different in every photo, and artistic intent makes it close to impossible to know which hairs are ‘wanted’,” he said in the press release. “So instead of trying to automate every judgment call, we built in sliders and a protection brush to keep the creative decisions with the photographer.”

Capture One

The release also introduces Skin Tone Retouching, which lets photographers unify and adjust tones across the face, body or all skin at once. A separate Body Skin Retouching tool helps even out small contrast differences for more even skin tones. Together, the additions expand the range of portrait adjustments photographers can make directly in Capture One without moving an image into another application.

A redesigned Advanced Color Editor

Capture One now lets you change a color to something else, with the ability to add exact RGB or HSL target values. Capture One

On desktop, Capture One has redesigned its Advanced Color Editor with a new Target picker and color wheel. The tools let photographers shift a selected color to a different target, allowing a studio team to preview a different color for a garment, prop or product while a shoot is still underway.

Users can also enter exact RGB or HSL target values, a feature Capture One says is useful for matching products to reference colors and maintaining consistency across a catalog. A new Uniformity control adds another way to manage how consistent a color appears across a surface.

Studio collaboration moves out of beta

Capture One’s desktop-based Multi-User Sessions has left beta with a few additional collaboration features. Collaborators can now export images, while a Follow option automatically tracks the latest image in a session. A new indicator shows image sync status, helping team members keep track of what’s available. Capture One says the desktop-only feature is also more stable.

Other desktop-only changes include per-face focus and closed-eye indicators directly in the Viewer for Assisted Review. Capture One has simplified the Base Characteristics tool to display only settings relevant to the current image, and a new Source Filename Token lets users base output filenames on the original filename. Lastly, Capture One has also added support on both desktop and mobile for the Nikon Z5 IIC and OM System PEN.

The updated versions of Capture One for desktop and iOS are now available for free to existing users.

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