One of the things some people often like about Capture One when they first try it is that they find it gives them sharper images or more detail than other software. However, I also often see complaints that details can look pixelated and over-processed. Depending on your camera and the type of images you take, you may notice this too, especially with older images. In my opinion, Capture One’s defaults are set too high. Whenever I get a new camera, it often takes me a little time to get the settings just right, but in the following post, I’ll share the parameters I often use when in a hurry, or where I start with when dealing in a new camera.

When you are working with RAW files in any software, an important part of the conversion process is sharpening. Sharpening must be done to compensate for the inherent softness that is a part of the raw conversion process. I’ve discussed this before, but there are times when you need to do additional sharpening on top of the RAW level sharpening. While some software separates the RAW sharpening pass, most just have the one set of overall sharpening controls. In Capture One, you can use layers to split your workflow when you need to do more creative sharpening.

I’ve written a lot about sharpening Fuji files in various pieces of software, and in fact, I have a whole guide for Capture One with details and corresponding presets. However, for some, this may be still a little too complicated, so I wanted to give you just the absolute basics. This is particularly suitable for those who may be using Capture One Express but the advice works for both express and pro versions. I fact, this advice will really work with any file.

I recently posted a video to my YouTube channel about processing some Sony A6000 images in Capture One. In the video I mentioned some sharpening and noise reduction presets that I use. These should work with any Sony RAW file, so even those from the Sony A7 series or the A9. You can find links to download in this post, as well as the video itself.