Tech Talk

Workspace: Landscape

Like any successful craftsman, your workbench needs to be large enough to accommodate the job. Your tools must be organized, within reach, and its organization should make sense to you – no matter what suggestions others make. Photography is a craft and Capture One Pro provides you the ability to customize your workspace to fit your needs specifically, allowing you to focus on the craft of creativity.

For me and my workflow, screen space and editing time are finite commodities. Capture One Pro allows me to quickly obtain as much space as possible and work quickly without distractions or redundancies. All necessary to get the job done the right way.

Flexibility

First and foremost, Capture One Pro gives me the ability to remove the clutter. By default, you get access to EVERY tool, and that can be overwhelming. With the flexibility to remove the tools I’ll never use, I keep a clean workspace that provides me an efficient workflow. For example, in my workflow there’s absolutely no need for the entire Camera Tool tab. Tethering is indeed a major strength of Capture One, but when shooting landscapes, I run without a wire and import from the CF card after the shoot.

Efficiency

With the tools removed that aren’t relevant to my workflow, I have more space to customize the locations of the tools I do use. This provides me the ability to build an efficient workflow with as few mouse clicks or hand swaps (taking a hand off the keyboard in favor of the mouse) as possible. For example, adding the Color Balance tool to its own Tool Tab three times, gives me the ability to balance all three channels quickly and easily. Also, small changes like adding the Levels Tool twice –  once for RGB and once for Luma – helps to balance the two quickly without flicking back/forth.

Accuracy

The flexibility to adjust the Capture One Pro workspace gives me the freedom to build an efficient workflow tailored to my needs. The last trick Capture One Pro has to offer my “workbench” is the ability to change the color/look of the software and viewer. When I hide the tools and browser (2 quick shortcuts) I’m left with a large viewer that I can define the color of. Having images on a black background may look cool, but it’s a terrible reference for accurate color and density. Changing the background color of the viewer to white ensures my images are well balanced and any color variations stand out clearly.

Download my Mac Workspace

Mac:

Download the workspace for Mac here.

It only works on Mac, as workspace files are platform dependent. To install it, follow these simple steps:

  • Close Capture One Pro (if open)
  • Open Finder
  • Open the ‘Go to Folder…’ dialog (CMD + Shift + G)
  • Insert path: ~/Library/Application Support/Capture One/
  • Click ‘Go’
    • If you previously have created a custom workspace, go to ‘Workspaces’ folder.
    • If not, create a new folder and name it ‘Workspaces’.
  • Copy workspace file (.plist) to this folder
  • Start Capture One Pro
  • Select the new workspace from Window -> Workspace…
Windows:

Download the workspace for Windows here.

To install it, follow these simple steps:

  • Close Capture One Pro (if open)
  • Open Explorer
  • Go to /*user*/AppData/Local/CaptureOne/
    • If you previously have created a custom workspace, go to ‘Workspaces’ folder.
    • If not, create a new folder and name it ‘Workspaces’.
  • Copy workspace file (.xml) to this folder
  • Start Capture One Pro
  • Select the new workspace from Window -> Workspace…

That’s it for now. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Best regards,

Drew Altdoerffer

Drew Altdoerffer
Drew Altdoerffer

Drew is a Product Manager and Marketing Specialist for Phase One as well as a previous member of the Technical Supporter team. He works directly with customers in addition to assisting partners and sales associates alike to better understand the features of all of Phase One’s products. His role in the company extends to the PODAS photographic workshops, training seminars and sales events.

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Comments (8)

Martin Ekwall

Hi Drew,
Thanks for the tips and your thoughts of work spaces. I´m using your work space now. Yes, I agree that the white background is the best for judging light qualities in the photos. How can I add the rgb values/numbers, I can´t find that bar?
How can I change from my default language to english in Capture One 10?
Best, Martin

Hey Martin,
The RGB/CMYK Values are in the “Viewer Toolbar”. You can add them back under View>Show Viewer Toolbar.
Your language follows the default language of the OS. Changing your OS to English will change Capture One to English when you relaunch it. If you want to have Capture One in English but your OS stay to your native language contact support and they’ll walk you through the soft “hack” to trick your OS.

Dr Michel Jodoin

Hi Drew,
Maybe I can answer your question. Each time I upgrade CO, the upgrade will always be in French as it is my OS default language, but I want CO in English. Here is the easy way to fix this on a mac.

Open applications folder, find Capture One 10, right-click and choose “show package contents” then open the folder called “Resources”, look for the equivalent folder *.lproj for your OS language (Example : if your Capture One is in french, look for fr.lproj, if it is in german, look for de.lproj etc) then rename that folder adding a suffix like fr.lprojOLD for example.

By default, your CO will then be using En.lproj (the english version) over-riding your actual OS language. Hope that it could be useful for you !

Martin Ekwall

Hi Dr Michel Jodoin,
Yes, now its in english : )
Best, Martin

Martin Ekwall

Thanks, I found it!
Best, Martin

Hi,
Thanks for creating downloadable workspace & making it available for Capture One users.
I am a free Sony version user (10.2) and I am wondering, is there any other way or a method to install your workspace in the free version. The normal Window>Workspace>Import is unavailable. Your help will be highly appreciated!
Thank you,
Foto

Aleksander

Hey Drew! Are you able to put up a new workspace for V11? 🙂 I guess you made some changes to your DJA-PC workspace when interface changed 🙂