I finally managed to get out of our local virus induce containment this past weekend. We went for a walk by the sea, and while I brought my camera with me, I hadn’t really intended to take photos, so when I did, it was more of an off the cuff snapshot, than an intentional photo shoot. At first glance, the photos I took were pretty “throw away”, but after some playing around I managed to create a pretty good (in my opinion) image from something that started off as a dull and boring shot.

While I’ve covered quite a few photo workflow applications here on the blog over the years, especially as it pertains to Fuji processing, one of the applications that I haven’t really dealt with is Alien Skin Exposure. It’s also probably the application I get asked about the most. A new version has just been released, and so I decided to give the trial version a spin, and here are some of my initial findings. This is just a first look and is by no means a comprehensive review.

Capture one has long been a rival to Lightroom, and I’ve been suggesting its use for Fuji X-Trans shooters for some time. However, Capture One Pro 9 seemed to be lacking in the quality of its conversions for X-Pro2 users and there were a number of issues holding it back. Today, Phase One launched a new version, Capture One Pro 10, and I’m happy to say that those issues are gone. 

One of the useful settings on your Fuji Camera is the Dynamic Range settings, or DRO for short. What DR does is allow you to capture more information in the shadow and highlight areas when shooting JPEG files, effectively extending the dynamic range of the shot. This information doesn’t translate directly into the raw files. I this tutorial I'll show you how to get close to the in-camera settings.