Phase One Capture One v4 beta released

[yelvertoft]

Phase One have now released a beta version 4 of their Capture One raw processing software. I'm having a play with it, and it's certainly massively faster than v3.7.7. The user interface has been given a much needed overhaul and is now much more akin to Lightroom; this was previously the worst thing about C1 before, it could do a lot, it just wasn't obvious how to!

There's a lot more features built in, again, more like Lightroom than the old C1. I can see I'll be doing more with the raw file directly in C1, and less in Photoshop.

Being a beta, there's still a few issues to sort out, but so far I'm impressed. The beta is a free download at the moment. Anyone who has v3.x.x is entitled to a free upgrade to the officially released (i.e. non beta) version 4 when it is available. I bet there's a fair few people bought Sandisk Extreme III cards which included a free voucher for v3.7.7 LE and have never used it. Well, download 3.7.7, activate it using the free voucher, and then you can get v4 as a free upgrade when it's available. Bit of a no-brainer really.

I should point out one of the bugs found so far is that it doesn't want to run on older AMD Athlon XP CPUs. So, if you have an AthlonXP CPU don't bother for the moment.

Some of the release notes:

Introduction
Capture One 4 is a new generation RAW workflow solution that enables professional photographers to make the most of their images. The workflow orientation is still high in Capture One, and the simplified new user interface leaves more of the screen area to your images. Providing best possible image quality is still a cornerstone of Capture One. New tools for this and improved “out-of-the-box” results are part of the new Capture One 4. Capture One 4 is still in the making, these release notes are for the beta version of the application.

What’s new
Capture One 4 is the successor of 3.x LE, and is a major upgrade from this. This new generation of Capture One builds upon the feature set of its predecessor. The features already found in 3.x LE have been improved and new have been added. Capture One 4 is a completely re-written application, building on new technologies, a new architecture and what users found best from previous generations of Capture One.

Highlighted features
Even in this beta state Capture One 4 includes a number of new and updated features, some of which will be introduced below:
• High Dynamic Range
o Easy recovery of details in highlights and shadows in images with a high
dynamic range
• Variants
o Experiment with different looks from one RAW image with virtually no disk
and performance overhead
• Web contact sheet
o Set up theme-based web contact sheets to share work with clients
• Multiple up viewing
o View up to 12 images, full resolution simultaneously in the new Viewer
Many more features are included in Capture One 4, be sure to try it out!

System requirements
Capture One 4 may run on older equipment but to ensure the best possible results we recommend that your computer conforms to the specifications below:

Microsoft® Windows®:
• Intel® Pentium® 4
• 768 MB of RAM
• 1 GB of free hard disk space
• Calibrated color monitor with 1024 x 768, 24 bit resolution
• Windows XP®, service pack 2 or higher
• Windows Vista®
• You will need the Microsoft® .NET Framework version 3.0 redistributable
package to run Capture One for Windows. If you do not have it already on your machine, Capture One will initiate installation hereof. You can also download it and install it yourself from Microsoft’s website.

Apple® Macintosh®:
• Intel-based Macs, G4 or G5
• 768 MB of RAM
• 1 GB of free hard disk space
• Calibrated color monitor with 1024 x 768, 24 bit resolution
• Mac OS X 10.4.8

You can download it from:
http://www.phaseone.com/Content/Downloads/CO4.aspx