How Capture One Changed My Event Photography | Tiffinbox (2024)

My name is Joe, and I’m a professional photographer in New York City. My primary focus (I find it impossible to go one paragraph without running into a photography pun) is on event work and portraiture. Since falling into this occupation in 2013 and up through 2023, I edited my event work in the same manner that 98% of the rest of the professional event community does – with Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom in and of itself is a fantastic program and principally shines as a workflow workhorse – allowing you to get through huge volumes of images in a professionally respectable time (and let’s face it, its cataloging system is amazing).

My Process Prior to Capture

Prior to using Capture One for my event photography (you’re welcome to view my NYC event photographer portfolio here), my process for loading and editing was fairly standard and straight forward. I would:

1.Load the images
2.Cull the images
3.Adjust exposure as needed
4.Add a global contrast boost by around +20
5.Export to JPG

That’s it. That’s pretty much all I did – and every time. Sure, every now and again I might need to pull up some shadows or pull down some highlights in danger of clipping, but other than that, there was a rather large creative vacuum in my work.

Granted, the vast majority of said work was for corporate events and nightlife (two areas of photography in and of themselves that don’t require the most creative amounts of editing in the world), and so my editing process over the years was largely mechanical and clients never complained.

Where it all Began

My first forays into using Capture for my event work began with a bridal shower over by Wall Street – it was being hosted in the bride’s apartment building. Not really having an idea on what to expect, in I walked that afternoon on one of the most inordinately nice “afternoon tea” setups I’ve ever been to (not that I regularly walk in on afternoon tea setups, but you get the idea).

The room itself had this old Edwardian/Victorian feel, with a center long table decorated meticulously for the occasion and a couple lace curtain windows softly lighting everything.

Everyone in attendance (all women, as its a bridal shower) was dressed thematically for the day (the theme being something akin to Downton Abbey).

I didn’t think too much about all of it until afterwards, when while going through the album I felt the need to do…more. I’d photographed a hundred+ setups and showers over the years just like this, but for some reason felt the need this time to either express myself a little more creatively or simply just put a little more oomph into their edit. I suspect much of this came from familiarizing myself with Capture One over the preceding couple years as I pursued a career in fashion photography and became ever more familiar with what it could do, but either way, I felt the need to do a little more than just load, cull, exposure-adjust, contrast boost, and export.

And so I began an edit over the afternoon that, when the dust settled, I was pretty freaking proud of. I’d warmed things here, I’d exaggerated things there. I added massive amounts of grain pretty much everywhere. And the end result was a really amazing bridal album that made me look at what not just Capture One was capable but what I was capable of in an entirely new light.

Quality over Quantity

Backing up a bit, it was opening up a studio in Brooklyn and beginning to dabble in the world that is fashion that I came to more frequently use Capture One. As Capture One is the de facto application for commercial portraiture, I spent my days fluctuating between using Capture One for my headshots and fashion portraits and Lightroom for my event photography (which constitutes everything else).

And then the above bridal shower happened and everything changed for me.

The main difference between Capture One and Lightroom (at least in my eyes) is that Lightroom is primarily a cataloging and workflow system – built for large volumes of images that a professional needs to get through in an efficient manner. Capture One, on the other hand, is built for the development of one singular image at a time.

I do a ton of fashion testing, for instance, and multiple times per week. An average test shoot with a modeling agency here in NYC is around two hours. Out of those two hours, I’ll take anywhere from 200-300 images. Out of those 200-300 images, I’ll send out anywhere from 10-30 end retouches (and that’s fairly above the standard. The standard is between 5-10).

And with this said, the interface that Capture One uses is much more similar to the sort of interface found on applications like Adobe Photoshop (I actually call Capture One photoshop for RAW files all the time) – it has an absolutely massive array of singular tools; each one serving the purpose of developing one image.

Lightroom’s interface, on the other hand, is rather underwhelming in comparison. While Capture one places a veritable bevy of tools in front of you that are easily accessible, Lightroom’s are a bit scattered across the panel and just visually not anywhere near as neatly organized.

With this said, working in Capture One encourages you to spend more time on the development of one image (even if it’s just a couple minutes, whereas Lightroom for me has always been about editing in bulk.

Masking

Masking in Capture One is as second nature as breathing – I can’t recall a single capture session I’ve had of late that hasn’t involved me masking some area of the image for correction (bringing up shadows, for instance). I’ve an Intuous Pro, by Wacom, and using this with Captures Brush tool feels just so —- second nature.

Masking in Lightroom never felt quite as intuitive or responsive – and I’d usually only ever use it as either an afterthought or when some glaring part of the image required me to do so.

And, let’s face it – masking is definitely an editing pillar, to the point where I’ve no idea how I’d be able to function (whether it be in photoshop, capture, or whatever) without it.

Your Client Will Appreciate It – Summing Up

One of my larger assignments for the year was shooting for Docusign. They were hosting a two day conference at The Glasshouse NYC and it was for both a new brand reveal, as well as the usual set of conference promotionals and (occasionally) theatrics. I was chatting with my onsite coordinator the day of, and I made the off-hand remark that 250 super strong images are infinitely better than 3000 mediocre ones.

His eyes widened as if I was the first photographer that’d come along in years that ‘got it’ and he emphatically and enthusiastically agreed.

When shooting events (or anything for that matter), often times we fall into the trap that more is better. More images. More assets. More variations. More more more.

And that’s not the case at all.

Eight powerful images are priceless in comparison to 100, or 1000 bland ones.

And Capture One forces you to think this way – in that you’re developing a smaller set of infinitely more valuable assets for your client. Sure, some events maybe involve culling and exporting thousands of images – whereby spending five minutes on one photo isn’t really practical. But, even if you spend maybe thirty to sixty seconds more time on that one photo, or just think about it singularly, rather than just a small part of a whole, it might be that one photo that makes your client lose his or her veritable mind.