Recently, Capture One released their latest v14.3 update. It came with some great new updates like the Magic Brush, but their attempt to “streamline” the user interface experience seems to have made quite a lot of their professional users pretty upset. At least, that’s what the feedback on social media suggests.
As PetaPixel reports, the Output Tab has been removed along with specific associated features – breaking many workflows for photographers and editors. Some feel this is Capture One essentially trying to dumb down the interface for the more casual consumer and not their core professional user base that’s driven much of their growth since the product was first launched.
Honestly, @captureonepro what were you thinking removing the output tab? How is it at all efficient to be opening up a separate window for this export button? pic.twitter.com/1XDne5bETD
— Daniel Bray (@danielbray) July 23, 2021
Architectural photographer Daniel Bray obviously wasn’t happy with the change at all. Capture One responded to Daniel’s concerns stating that it’s “made exporting faster and more streamlined”. Not everybody, however, agrees.
No you haven’t put the whole suite of export options. You’ve ruined the ability to pause, lobotomized the ability to export images in order, and made complex file/folder naming impossible where it was easy before. Bring the old stuff back as an option for those of us who need it.
— Martin Knowles (@mkphotomedia) July 25, 2021
First Digi Berlin, a company supporting digital imaging techs, also wasn’t happy with the change, at all. They posted an extremely critical commentary to Instagram stating amongst other things that Capture One is shifting its attention towards picking up casual consumers rather than professionals to maximise profit at the expense of their core audience.
With this update Capture One is openly trying to please the average consumer and steers into the direction of its competitors to make more profit. Capture One is the only tool out there for professionals. Digital Operators rely on functions like the Output tab. Capture one claims to listen to their customers but with this change it is clear that their only goal is to get more out the consumer field and boost their profits.
This is just dissapointing and a slap in the face for all the hardworking professionals out there who rely on this tool.
Given some of the marketing images for the Capture One 14.3 update, one of which is shown at the very top of this post, you can understand where they get this idea from.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CR66nlPMdyV/
Not everybody is upset, however. Some users like the change, backing up Capture One’s idea that the previous way was confusing.
I’ve only recently switched to CaptureOne. It was a bit confusing to me why we had both Export and Output that sound like they do similar things. This update makes more sense in that regard. I’m sympathetic for existing users with established workflows though
— Justin Lin (@justinseinlin) July 25, 2021
Capture One appears to have paid attention, however and is taking the feedback from their professional userbase very seriously. The company issued a statement to address the concerns of Capture One users who aren’t happy with the new update.
On Thursday, July 22, Capture One launched a new update (14.3.0) for Capture One 21. Designed to increase functionality and reduce complexity across the varied workflows, the update aimed to meet the evolving needs of the Capture One community – a community of professionals both rich and diverse in their needs.
The last week has revealed to us that not all those needs were fulfilled.
While striving to create the most cutting-edge tools for our community, some of the long-established processes and tools our users rely upon were unfortunately lost in this recent update.
This was never our intention.
There’s also a FAQ section on the statement, which is worth checking out if you’re a Capture One user who’s a bit miffed about the latest changes and what’s going to be done about them. But the short version is that if you rely on the now-missing features, Capture One says you should stick with version 14.2, until they can re-add them in a future version.
Exactly when a new version will appear is unknown, but Capture One appears to be working on it, possibly with a configurable toolbar that will let users have the option of choosing exactly what appears there. Hypothetically, this should make everybody happy, regardless of whether they prefer the old way or the new way of doing things in Capture One, but it probably won’t.
You can read the complete Capture One statement and FAQs here.
[via PetaPixel]
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