Photo answers review
Photo answers rating 
While the list of actual editing controls is basic to say the least, there have been a number of improvements over the previous version, Capture One LE. The trouble is, most of its new features are what we would class as standard for an advanced RAW converter – things like multi-view, card import, batch conversions and highlight/shadow recovery (or High Dynamic Range as it’s called here).
The new Variants option, which allows you to make several copies of the same image with different effects, is admittedly handy, while the web page generation could prove useful too – although it is incredibly basic.
One of the best things about Capture One 4.0 is that you don’t need to import files to view them. Instead you can just browse folders by clicking on them in the browser and the thumbnails will start to load onscreen.
The only downside to this is that every folder you browse will now have a couple of Capture One 4.0 folders with all the edit, thumbnail and preview information stored there too… They aren’t particularly large, but can build up to a few hundred MB per folder. This will eventually clog up your hard disk and can be fairly hard to manage – unlike the centralised cache offered by programs such as Lightroom and Aperture, which you can set up to automatically manage itself.
Performance:
The import option is only set up to copy files onto your computer, for example from a memory card. Once you get beyond this hurdle, the software isn’t in the same league as rival packages in terms of file handling and archiving. The edit controls are housed in tabs that seem logical enough, but there are so few options they would probably all fit easily on one tab.
All the standard editing options are included, but the lack of options such as clarity, vibrancy and recovery, or any form of chromatic aberration control, are a bit of a let-down. For example, on many shots, once you boost saturation you may find you need to change the white balance to prevent the yellows from looking false.
One final drawback – the High Dynamic Range option has two sliders, one for highlight recovery and one for opening up the shadows. These settings can work well on some images, but on pictures with high contrast, the sliders affect far too much of the scene and end up giving you an over-cooked image.
Verdict:
You may think that as it’s so cheap, Capture One 4.0 is bound to score highly on value for money – but think again. With only a bare minimum of editing options, it isn’t a great solution. It’s capable of some great colours, but without full control you’ll have to do further editing in Photoshop to finish the pictures off.
The license allows you to run the software on two computers, so you could install it on both a laptop and a desktop computer if you’re lucky enough to have such a set up. If you’re already a Capture One user, you can upgrade from Capture One LE for free. Users of Capture One Pro can use Capture One 4.0 for free until the new version of Pro is released sometime later in the year.
Product information:
Operating system Windows XP SP2 or Vista/Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher
Processor Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent/Mac G4, G5 or Intel-based Macs
Recommended RAM 2GB
Hard disk space 1GB