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Recently ON1 has released four new plugins for Capture One:

ON1 plugins are standalone apps that offer features beyond Capture One capabilities: apply LUTs, blur images, add textures, auto-retouch portraits, merge HDR, and more.

All the new plugins are implemented into a Capture One workflow for round-trip editing. Thus, you can quickly send an image from Capture One into an ON1 plugin, apply adjustments, and auto-import the processed image back into Capture One. Plus, ON1 plugins support batch editing.

I’m planning to review all the new ON1 plugins, and the first I’ve already tested is ON1 Effects 2021.

ON1 Effects 2021

Basically, ON1 Effects 2021 is a full-featured photo editor that offers ready solutions to enhance your images. You can quickly apply different color grading filters, add visual effects, stylize images, adjust image tone, and more.

Since Capture One offers plenty of color and tone correction tools, I’ve been looking for features that Capture One lacks. So, the first thing I have tried in ON1 Effects is batch editing with LUTs.

Batch editing with LUTs

LUT is a universal format of color grading settings that is widespread in video production. Thus, you can easily find pro-quality LUTs and use them in your work. Here is a nice collection of free LUTs that you can add to ON1 Effects.

There is no native support for LUTs in Capture One, and ON1 Effects offers a simple way to implement LUTs in a Capture One workflow.
You make all the regular adjustments in Capture One, and when you want to apply LUT, you just select images and choose Edit With –> ON1 Effects 2021.

Here are two options for batch editing:

  • Pause on First Photo – use it to apply adjustments in ON1 to the first image of the group. All the other photos will automatically return to Capture One with the same adjustments.
  • Pause on All Photos – use it to adjust every image individually in ON1 Effects.

I love batch editing, so I choose to adjust only the first image from the series manually.
In ON1 Effects, you’ll see a variety of filters, but we’re looking for LUT’s:

As you applied LUT, you can adjust Opacity to decrease the LUT impact on your image, set blending mode, and change other settings. Plus, ON1 Effects supports masks, so you can easily apply LUT locally.

BTW, the RAW file of this image is available in my 100 RAWs for Image Editing Practice set.

When you finish, click Done to apply the same adjustments to all the images from the batch. ON1 Effect will process your images and send them back to Capture One as TIF files, so you can continue editing.

Although, Capture One is designed to work with RAW, so if you need to recover highlights or shadows and correct White Balance, it makes sense to make all the RAW-related adjustments before sending your files to ON1 Effect.

Apart from LUT, the new plugin allows you to add some effects that are missing in Capture One. For instance, you can quickly blur images in ON1 Effect.

Blur images

There are two types of blur filters in ON1 Effect:

Blur

Here you’ll find common effects like motion blur, radial blur, shake and jitter blur. That’s a useful tool when you need to add some movement effect to your image:

Lens blur

Lens blur filters imitate bokeh effects:

Unfortunately, unlike iPhone photos, regular images don’t store 3D mapping data, so you would need to mask bokeh areas manually:

Another popular effect that is not presented in Capture One is adding borders to your image.

Borders

In ON1 Effects, you’ll find 65+ variants of borders to apply: from classical designs to film rebate borders and art style borders.

You can also adjust blending modes, opacity, and color for each border:

Textures

There are even more textures to choose from:

Textures in ON1 Effects are also fully adjustable, plus you can combine them with any filters there. For example, you can apply LUT, blur the image, and add a texture.

Here are two more useful filters for Capture One users:

Weather

This filter adds such weather effects as snow, rain, fog, or blizzard:

You can easily rotate, scale, and modify the impact of each effect.

Sun Flare

A simple filter that can nicely enhance some images:

Every ON1 plugin has a 14-day free trial so that you can safely try it in your workflow.

The ON1 plugin bundle looks like an interesting option to extend Capture One capabilities. If you still use Photoshop to add some final effects after Capture One, ON1 can offer ready solutions for these tasks.

Capture One Hidden Features eBook

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You can download four chapters from the Capture One Hidden Features ebook free of charge:

  • 3. Must-Have Shortcuts
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  • 27. The Power of Mask Inversion
  • 38. Automation with Macros

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Alexander Svet – Professional photographer and photography instructor. Phase One Certified Professional and Capture One beta tester.