A little while ago I wrote a post about the Canon EOS RP and how the RAW files were looking in Lightroom compared to Capture One. I had noted that RAW images from the camera looked pretty flat in Lightroom, and that for some bizarre reason, Adobe had not supplied camera matching profiles for the camera (or a number of recent Canon models) and if you opened the same images in Capture One they had much more impact before even doing any editing. At the time I was working with RAW files I downloaded from DP Review, and so couldn’t share my results. Since then a reader has kindly sent me some raw files that I can use, and so now I can show you what I mean.

A reader, Jörg Ritter (thanks Jörg!) kindly sent me a set of RAW files take with the EOS RP. I have gone back and forward as to whether to post this because I realise that when you do comparisons like this, with small images on a web page it can be hard to see the difference, but I still want to encourage people to try it themselves, so here it goes.

Of all the files Jörg sent me, I think that this one showcases the difference the most. These files are completely unedited - I literally just imported them and exported them again. So here is the Lightroom version…

And here is the same image processed in Capture One….

By the way, every time I post one of these comparisons, someone inevitably complains to me that I should be doing a slider or mouseover as that’s the “proper” way to do a comparison. Well, unfortunately, that’s not something that’s too easy on the Squarespace platform and so I have to do it this way.

Here are a couple of other files he sent me. I have done nothing to these, these are straight up comparisons between Lightroom and Capture One.

The results will vary from image to image, and I’m sure some people will prefer the Lightroom versions, but in my opinion, there can be a significant difference, depending on the contents of the image, and it’s hard to portray in a blog post.

When you see images scaled down on a web page the differences might not look that great, but when you’re viewing them full screen on a large monitor, you can really see it. (I'm not including high-res versions of these as they're not my images) It’s not a massive, “Lightroom is crap by comparison” type of difference, it’s just that images look more punchy out of the box in Capture One. You can match this in Lightroom - and more on that shortly - once you know what the alternative is, but if you onlyhave Ligthroom, you wouldn't know that they could look better. I’m not giving out about Lightroom - well, apart from the fact that they aren’t supplying camera matching profiles for many of Canon’s latest cameras for no particular reason - that I am giving out about.

By the way, it’s not just a matter of saturation. The tone curve is slightly different, and the colour response is different.

I'm sure some people will complain and say they can't see any difference or that this was a waste of their time, or that I haven't done a proper comparison, or something along those lines. Another one I get regurlarly is that I haven't "proved" that there is a difference. (I get this every time - which is why I steer away from comparisons normally) I'm not trying to prove anything here, I'm merely offering the information so that you can try it yourself.

As I said in my first post on this, I highly recommend that anyone who has a Canon Eos RP, don't take my word for it, but try this out on their own images, by downloading the trial version of Capture One, especially if you have been disappointed with the results they were getting with Lightroom.

Lightroom Custom Profile for Canon Eos RP

The other solution, for those who don’t want to use Capture One, is to try and match the Capture One version in Lightroom, and then use those edits to create a custom profile which you can apply to all your images. If this sounds like a bit of effort, don’t worry, I’ve done it for you! So, here’s one I made earlier….

I have done my best to match the results I was getting in Capture One in Lightroom, and then I saved the results as a custom creative profile. You can download this by clicking on the link below.

Download EOS RP Custom Profile

You should be able to install this by going to the develop module, and choosing to import presets from the pop-up at the top of the presets panel. Then select the zip file, and it should import the profile. You will find the profile in the profile browser, under the “profiles” group. If you need to manually install the profile, you can find instructions here.

Now this isn’t necessarily super accurate, nor is it perfect compared to what you might get in-camera, but I’m offering it for those who want to try it, and maybe you find it better, or maybe not, but have a try and see what you think.

Once again a big thanks to Jörg. You can find his photos on Instagram. Check it out and give him a follow!

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