Powerful raw image editing on the move
> £4.49/month > FROM captureone.com > NEEDS iPadOS 15 or later
iPad User Magazine
A top-quality debut iPad app for software with a prestigious reputation.
★★★★★
+ Fast and stable
+ Well thoughtout features
+ Easy-to-learn interface
- Lack of export options
For photographers who like to shoot in their camera’s Raw file format, to get every last scrap of sharpness and dynamic range, the market for serious mobile processing solutions on iPad has been narrow. The top three being Adobe Lightroom Mobile, Affinity Photo, and Pixelmator Photo.
Capture One’s entry to the market is an interesting one. It’s long been a prestige brand for image editing – the more expensive alternative to Lightroom – with a processing engine capable of getting the very best results.
The iPad, even the larger Pro models, isn’t ideal for Raw processing. It’s not a device to build up a catalogue on, and the lack of ability to adjust the screen beyond True Tone is a disadvantage compared to a properly calibrated monitor. Better, then, to use Capture One on iPad for edits on the go, quickly emailing shots to the newsroom, for liaising with clients on location, or for touching up vacation photos by the pool.
Connect your camera directly to your iPad, or slip the SD card into a compatible reader, and you’ll be able to import files into the app. Performance on an M1 iPad Pro is excellent, even when processing 60MP Raw files, testament to Apple silicon’s fearsome memory bandwidth.
The tools will be familiar to anyone who’s used Lightroom Classic, or indeed Capture One, on the desktop. Exposure, cropping, clarity, noise reduction… the gang’s all here. They’re presented in a similar way to Affinity Photo, where you choose the tool you want from a line of vague icons you will eventually learn the use of.
