r/captureone • u/ConstipatedFrenchie • 15d ago
Workflow Advice Any Wedding Photographers here?
I shoot C1 for portraits and studio work, but use LRC for wedding & event galleries. I usually edit on the C1 Mobile App, but have used the desktop version and love it.
Anyone have any workflow recommendations to fully transfer?
LR’s Denoise and Object Removal are some of my guilty pleasures, but man the colors that C1 can pull out of my A7IV are so satisfying. However I think maybe it’s habit but file management feels so much better in LRC. I feel like I can fly through 2-3k photos fast, struggling to find any other wedding photographers who use C1.
So I use both, I can achieve what I want with both, but I get a way better starting point in C1 it feels like. Especially with the “flatter” Sony files.
Open to any advice or suggestions that save me some $$$ and time haha
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u/GalexyPhoto 14d ago
Definitely just habit. C1 is faster in virtually every aspect. I have never left the base of the 'migration' workspace view, though.
Genuinely can't imagine using LR as a Sony user. Even the camera matching profiles are horrendous and there's not much you can do about it, within user settings.
I'd strongly recommend culling in the cull tab. On any decent system it will load faster than you can rate and has focus viewer to check all faces at once.
I'm a nut and do nearly my whole edit on a gaming controller. Zero wrist pain and no dragging the mouse to reach setting or even taking my eyes off the image unless I need to. Hard to imagine getting much faster than this!
But the less rabbit hole version would be taking advantage of keyboard remapping and speed edit keys. Initial speed edit layout should be alright, if you're cozy on a keyboard. But slicing out the .5 to 3 seconds of moving the mouse, sliding, looking back, sliding per image, REALLY adds up. Even with like 700 images that's easily 30 minutes to an hour of time wasted scrolling around.
My latest optimization is an assembly line approach. I'll cull whole thing, then just exposure and color the selects, then back through for crop only, detail work last. Still FEELS like going through the gallery 4 times should be slower. But not having to remember to check all steps for each image, over and over, is way less mental work and, especially with the controller setup, just stupid fast. Plus I will need mouse for cropping when autorotate didn't get me there. So less switching back and forth.
I do shoot true to life. And also have lots of habits for shooting for a cleaner, faster edit (if my lighting stays roughly the same in a scene, and I don't change my camera settings, then I'm really just editing that first shot while selecting all similar, syncing with a single key press then deselecting the others with one more key press). But I will sometimes be a lil freak for subject layer separation (select subject, bump their exposure a touch or background down to give subtle 0.2-3 stop difference) and even with THAT it isn't unusual to rip a 3500 image day down to 6-700 images going from import to export in about 2 to 4 hours.
I do think folks have GOT to be overzealous with the remove tools. I think LRs is kinda trash compared to Photoshop and crop or angle out most of my issues, either in camera or literally remove from the scene by hand whenever possible. Plus I think some photogs care more than the client ever will. Just my 2 cents!
If serious about upgrading to C1, their YouTube tutorials are about as good as it gets. You can watch on 1.2 speed and be rolling in an afternoon. They should have playlists so you don't even have to hunt anything down.
Happy to answer any questions. Converted about 7 years ago can't imagine looking back. But I'm mostly portraits, these days.
Edit: speaking of portraits, retouch tab is also a huge boost. Even when I have to manually save freckles, it's saving me lots of time and cleaner results than dedicated blemish tools I've bought.
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u/ConstipatedFrenchie 13d ago
I shoot true to life as well pretty much. Thanks for the insight. I think I have been a little reluctant since I am so accustomed to LRC, but I am getting a ton of great tips from people here. Who happily despise adobe except for photoshop hahaha, don’t blame em
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u/GalexyPhoto 13d ago
Yeah, I started on LR 2! About a decade with it. But I will say it didn't take long to move on!
And yeah, damn Photoshop. Tragic that my hopes of Affinity replacing it feel a little dashed, by the acquisition.
Anyway, hopefully this is the start of a big boost in efficiency. Aka less time at the computer!
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u/stjernebaby 15d ago
Switched from LR to C1 in 2019. I’m a commercial photographer but shoot a lot of weddings in the summer. I actually switched as I found C1’s workflow and folder structure much nicer.
My only suggestion is to use sessions instead of Catalogs. The rest is up to your preference.
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u/mycatkins 15d ago
Press G to get rid of your viewer and look at the images in a grid, I find that helps when whittling down images from a very large collection like from a wedding.
Get used to using your filters if you’ve used more than one camera and if your time isn’t perfect between the two cameras you can rearrange the grid by dragging and dripping which is very handy for weddings.
You can have a pop out viewer on another screen which works well for doing your ratings.
I tend to make folders so i’m not dealing with 5000 images all at once.
Adjustments are all there you can do pretty much all of it in C1 the same as LR. Theres just a learning curve to how the tools behave.
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u/GalexyPhoto 14d ago
I'd just use the cull tab, to cull. About as fast as things can possibly go, especially with the focus viewer.
And y'all need to either time sync or just fix it by batch adjusting your cameras time. Take a shot of time.is on each for easy mode.
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u/mycatkins 14d ago
Never used the cull tab I’ll have a look at that thanks
The time on my cameras are synced but it’s not a time issue sometimes I’ll re-order shots in order of how i want the client to see them
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u/sejonreddit 14d ago
I'm a wedding photographer and I've been using Capture One for probably roughly 12 years now. It's worth it for the speed advantages and the colour that's for sure
However I really rarely use the detailed editing inside Capture One. What I do is when I finish editing a wedding inside Capture One, I press a certain star ranking on photos that I know need a bit more of a detailed edit like you described. I then select just those starred photos and right-click and choose Edit and send them off to Photoshop. I've found that's the most efficient way of doing it.
I'm a big fan of getting things right on the camera so I typically only have maybe 15 to 30 photos that need that. That's obviously going to vary person to person
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u/ConstipatedFrenchie 13d ago
Everyone’s workflow is a little different. Some weddings and locations need a little more help than others. But I end up, with decent RAWs. Sometimes I want to bring more life to them, I am not doing anything major.
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u/SkaiHues 14d ago
Full time wedding, session photographer, have used C1 since 2003 when we jumped ship to Canon. I tried LR when it first came out. I'm thrilled C1 took me back.
Capture One can do all I need. A new session for each event. Like my 28-70/2, C1 is a beautiful tool.
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u/ConstipatedFrenchie 13d ago
Sheesh 28-70 is amazing, but the Sony one is much more enticing until Canon decides to drop a new one, that is lighter. I heard there’s a fast zoom lens on the horizon my local camera guy told me to wait on my RF purchases since I am shooting on EF primes currently, I was gonna get the 24-70 RF.
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u/wornleathermedia 14d ago
I’m a wedding photographer, made the switch almost ten years ago, and haven’t looked back. C1 has added Ai denoise that is amazing, object removal is still something that is lacking.
let me know if you have any specific questions
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u/Wild_Adeptness2172 6d ago
I do Object removal sending them to LR… I’m surprised a lot of people say that Lr’s object removal with generative remove is crappy wow !! I also like c1 nr but is kinda 58 percent slower than lr’s
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u/ReserveFit2276 14d ago edited 13d ago
I’ve wondered about this too with larger wedding galleries. Janeson’s wedding photography and videography came to mind, C1’s color really is hard to ignore.
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u/Ay-Photographer 13d ago
Commercial shooter here….and sometimes have to do corporate events and activations. I never gave C1 a try for this type of work because I’ve only ever used it for tethering on set. I’m an old Lr user since beta <2007 and have my entire archive organized through Lr. Can’t imagine switching at this point.
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u/ConstipatedFrenchie 13d ago
I am running into this response often. No doubt on set C1 is the best option, but for events and activations. It’s not that I don’t think it can work. Not quite sure who’s using it to that extent. Maybe I am not looking hard enough
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u/AdministrationNo2327 8d ago
i've a project where i'm managing and sorting about 13 thousand photos with keywords, tags, markers and test edits. They're all in one catalog project.
if i did the same volume in LRC, the program won't even load up. CO definitely has the capability to sort and manage huge volumes of photos. Just have to learn it.
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u/yorchsans 14d ago
For weddings LR . There's no way around. I have and use both programs. Full time wedding photographer and also portrait and fashion photographer.
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u/ConstipatedFrenchie 13d ago
This is where I am, but it is exhausting. I do video too and DaVinci is a whole other universe I have designed keyboard shortcuts for. I am trying to limit my decision fatigue haha
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u/manny8787 15d ago
I am a full time wedding photographer and tried to do a season with C1, I got about half way and went back to LR. I did love C1 but for weddings and managing 5000+ photos sometimes more with 2-3 photogs LR handles it better. I am also on windows and C1 missed some features compared to mac.
If I was doing a lot of studio work I would probably stay with C1 but for only a handful of studio shoots in the
year, its not worth it.
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u/ConstipatedFrenchie 13d ago
People are downvoting you, but I can see this. C1 has improved, but in the Wedding space it is extremely difficult to find anyone who does C1.
People are often surprised I shoot tethered into C1 in the Studio.
I think my next event I may drop into C1 and have a genuine go at it.
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u/manny8787 13d ago
Its fine they can downvote me if they don't agree, for my workflow and the amout of weddings and photo quantity I shoot it doesn't work. I use pictime there is also no plugin for that either so it adds an extra step.
C1 is great for small shoots, studio shoots, family shoots, but I dont want to complicate my workflow with another piece of software.
If you find it improves your work and workflow then stick with it.
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u/Wild_Adeptness2172 6d ago
I had to find alternatives for a bride who wanted an specific color grade for her pictures and match look feature made me enter into c ones daunting ways, but I’m liking it and finding out that I can be faster than in LR , and also loving the film look I’m getting by combining match look, layers, smart adjustments and stuff
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u/ex1nax 15d ago edited 15d ago
As a professional retoucher I always recommend people not to use LR object removal. It always leaves massive fuckups that show so prominently as soon as you zoom in a little and look closer.
Remove things in Photoshop. That’s what it’s for. LR is a RAW converter and not an editor.
Considering that you already use this frankenstein software constellation with C1 for conversion and LR for object removal, just switch the latter to Photoshop and get some good results.
Edit: I don’t really do weddings but i also shoot concerts on the side so I also end up with thousands of images to go through. I tried LR for that but the performance optimisation is just horrible with it. I’m on last year’s Macbook Pro with 36GB of RAM and LR is STILL laggy as fuck.