Capture One just announced version 16.2 of its powerful Raw converter with some interesting—and useful—updates.  

Perhaps the most exciting new feature is Face Focus—an AI-driven must for portrait, wedding, lifestyle and event photographers. Frankly, it’s great news for anyone who photographs people. I wish I had this feature when photographing runways at NY Fashion Week—it would have saved me bundles of time. Available via the importer and the cull window, a click on the Face Focus tab opens a closeup of the face in the upper corner of the viewer. The feature can be fine-tuned with 50%, 100% and 200% zoom options and the ability to limit the focus feature to the face or to the eye. The former is best for checking facial expressions and for images that include multiple people. 

Face Focus speed (in demo) was fast and responsive so you can quickly scroll through images to identify which faces are sharply focused and whose facial expressions are pleasing. 

Another AI-driven time-saver is the new Automatic Dust Removal tool. Instead of the nitpicking process of clicking on each individual dust spot to make them disappear, just click on the “remove dust” feature and, like magic, they’re gone. Another click and the image shows multiple circles where the spots have been eliminated. In the demo, a large number of dust spots were removed in about two seconds. The feature was still in Beta at the time of this article because the Capture One team wasn’t totally happy with “how it renders the removal of the dust spots on all images.” Still, the demo was impressive and we expect Capture One to improve this feature even more until it meets their criteria. 

Although Smart Adjustments are not new to Capture One Pro, they’ve been improved in this update. Previously if you chose a reference image for its white balance and exposure and applied it to a batch of similar images, they might still look different. But now, AI makes better decisions on how to adjust those images based on the reference photo. You can even choose multiple batches of different images. Capture One will then recognize each batch’s unique properties and adjust the applied settings accordingly.  

Capture One has also added the ability to create a custom keyboard shortcut to apply styles as well as a shortcut to edit in Photoshop. If the particular style already has a keyboard shortcut, you can easily edit it. 

Like Capture One for iPad, Capture One Pro now supports wireless tethering for select Fujifilm cameras: X-T5, X-H2, X-H2s. It’s a wise decision that will make Fujifilm shooters very happy. Mac users can now access Frame.io from Capture One Pro for collaboration and under-the-hood performance improvements like those for v.16.2 are always welcome. For more information, please visit captureone.com. 

P.S. We’ve received several codes for a free (yes, free) 12-month subscription to Capture One’s “All-in-One” bundle—regularly $22/month billed yearly or $34/month for a monthly subscription.  We will be choosing 4 winners so if you’re interested, please provide your information here by May 30, 2023. Good luck!