Capture One 22 adds panorama stitching, HDR merging, auto aotate, wireless tethering and more: Digital Photography Review

Capture One 22 is now available. The latest major release adds new photo editing features, Capture One’s first AI tool, improved camera and lens support, and wireless camera tethering.

Capture One has previously teased a couple of Capture One 22’s key new features: Panorama Stitching and HDR Merging. The software now lets users easily merge multiple photos into a single panorama or multiple images captured with different exposures into a single HDR image with extended dynamic range. You can check out these new features in a pair of overview videos below.

By adding Panorama Stitching and HDR Merging to Capture One 22, the team has further reduced the need for users to open other applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, or some other dedicated stitching or merging software solution. You can even use Panorama Stitching to take advantage of the Brenizer method, which lets users create images with a wide field of view and shallow depth of field.

‘I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Capture One 22. Capture One 22 is the culmination of months of technological innovation. Guided by our deep understanding of photography workflows, Capture One 22 boasts even more powerful editing tools, from Panorama Stitching to HDR Merging to Wireless Tethering to our first AI feature, Auto Rotate—all equipped to serve the needs of photographers worldwide,’ said Rafael Orta, Capture One’s CEO.

As Orta said, the new AI feature, the first in Capture One, is Auto Rotate. Auto Rotate uses machine learning and a large training set of images to automatically evaluate a selected photo – or photos – and level them. For example, if you have a batch of images with a crooked horizon, you would have previously needed to manually rotate the images to straighten the horizon. Now, Auto Rotate can use AI to reduce the amount of time you need to spend doing such a tedious, boring task. And if it doesn’t work as you want, you can always still manually rotate an image.

Capture One 22 introduces a new wireless tethering feature. For now, the feature is only available with select Canon cameras. Canon was selected due to its high popularity among Capture One users. At launch, the Canon EOS R5, R3, 1DX II and 1DX III cameras are fully supported. Users have access to the full suite of tethering features, all wireless. The Canon EOS 5D IV, Canon R, Canon R6 and Canon 90D are also supported, although full functionality and high performance are not yet guaranteed. Additional camera models and brands will be supported in the coming months.

Capture One 22 also adds camera support for the Sony A7 IV, Nikon Z9 and Canon R3. Four new Canon lenses are supported, too, including the RF 85mm F1.2L USM DS, RF 50mm F1.8 STM, RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM and EF 70-200mm F4L IS II USM. Capture One 22 supports RAW files for more than 500 cameras and offers fine-tuned, custom optical corrections for more than 500 lenses.

For Windows users, Capture One 22 promises improved Catalog performance. It is now faster to browse, filter and search albums and folders.

Capture One Live is a new service, which is still in beta testing, that will allow photographers to instantly share photos in real time or share previously captured photos with others for viewing and rating on a web browser. The service should make for easier, simpler collaboration.

Capture One 22 is available now for macOS and Windows. The software is optimized for Apple M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, by the way. You can download a fully-featured 30-day free trial directly from Capture One. Capture One 22 is available as a perpetual license or as part of a subscription. License upgrades start at $199 and new users can purchase the software for $299. Subscriptions start at $24/month. Capture One 22 is also available in brand-specific versions for Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm. These are $199 for perpetual licenses, $149 to upgrade, and plans start at $19/month.