Capture One has just announced the new 16.6 update with AI-powered retouching tools, an improved Library, and other enhancements.
You can now retouch portraits with AI directly in Capture One using a bunch of new tools:
- Blemish Removal
- Even Skin
- Dark Circle Reduction
- Contouring
The new AI retouching automatically detects faces, works with individual and group portraits, and doesn’t require an internet connection.
Capture One developers have also added a new Session Builder to simplify studio workflows, and the Library tool has received several useful updates.
The update is coming to Capture One at the end of May, but you can already try it out in beta.
Let’s discuss everything we know about the new update!
But first, a friendly reminder:
I’ve just launched a site-wide Spring Sale with discounts of up to 75% on Capture One styles!
My Capture One courses and books are on sale as well!
AI-Powered Retouching
Capture One now comes with a new tool tab – Retouch, where you can find the new Retouch Faces tool. It automatically detects all the faces in the image and you can retouch each face individually or adjust them all at once.
The Impact slider controls the overall strength of the AI retouch, but you can also adjust each of the tools separately.
There are currently four AI-powered tools available:
Blemish Removal
Blemish Removal uses AI to find and fix blemishes and skin bumpiness. I haven’t had much time to work with it yet, but the first tests look super promising:
The skin texture stays natural, there’s no artificial blurring, and it seems the AI is trained not to remove moles and scars. The latter is almost always left untouched, but if you go higher than 40-50 on Blemishes it can affect less prominent moles.
It’s also important to note that all the retouching is done locally, you don’t need an Internet connection and your images are not sent anywhere.
Even Skin
The new Even Skin tool smooths out differences in skin contrast. It’s not a replacement for the Color Editor’s Skin Tone tool; Even Skin doesn’t affect color, it smooths out contrast differences so skin looks smoother and amplifies the effect of the Blemishes slider.
It works very accurately with highlights, and you can use the Texture slider to adjust how much of the texture you want to keep.
Dark Circle Reduction
As you can guess from the name, this tool is designed to lighten under-eye areas, and I think that’s one of the most challenging tasks for any AI-based retouching tool. It’s really hard to find the right balance between a natural look and fine under-eye skin. The new AI retouching does a pretty good job of that, probably the best I’ve seen of any AI retouching tool:
Contouring
Finally, Contouring adds depth and dimension to portraits by darkening shadow areas, but it seems to work pretty smart. It doesn’t darken all of the face’s shadows, just the ones that actually create volume:
Batch Retouching
Best of all, you can easily copy retouching from one image and apply it to all your shoots:
When you copy AI retouch or shoot tethered, Capture One applies the same individual adjustments to each face in the same order as in the source image. So if you have the same people in the same order in the image, you can easily batch retouch them.
Also, AI retouching can be saved in styles and presets, but only the global adjustments – individual face edits aren’t supported yet.
I’ll continue to test the beta and post the full featured video on AI retouching closer to the official release, but I think this is already a really solid, pro-level AI retouching tool. Working with moles could be more accurate, and I miss a tool to reduce skin shine, but it’s a great addition to the Capture One toolset. You can now stay in the Capture One workflow for all tasks, from smart image culling to advanced color grading and AI retouching.
Session Builder
Another new feature of the 16.6 update is the Session Builder. It allows you to generate multiple folders and subfolders within the Capture folder. When you create a new session, simply add a list of names and Capture One will create create respective folders:
If you have a Capture One Studio license, you can automatically create such folders based on tokens such as current date, session name, etc.
Library Tool Updates
The Library tool has got a nice UI redesign, and by clicking the + icon you can now add multiple folders to the session using the Studio Builder:
I will continue to test the beta, and you can join the beta testers as well. Just make sure not to use your current catalogs/sessions with the beta! There’s always a chance of a critical bug in the beta, and it’s better not to risk your regular image archives.
