Essential Capture One Pro tweak.

Anyone using Capture One Pro professionally has gripes with it. There's many features that should have been added years ago and many request are ignored. They just keep ignoring professional needs and focusing on expanding market share in hobbyist photographers. But, it's an essential tool that we need and we must endure their misguided road map. But there's one one small thing you can do to make it a little bit better. Below, I walk you through the steps to do so.

You might notice a few things that are different in the screenshot above (other than the browser and tools being swapped 🤣)
For years now, I've been doing a simple thing that makes C1 a little better for my needs. I've found that C1 lacks some visual contrast in some areas that I find essential. Things that should stand out a little more and be more obvious at a glance. The obvious one above is that my stars are now green.

On MacOS you can modify some of the resource files that C1 uses for visual elements. These files can be found here:

/Applications/Capture One 22.app/Contents/Resources 
(change the version number to the current version you are using.)

You can also navigate through finder and right click on C1 in your applications directory and select "Show Package Contents"

Once you've gotten to this folder navigate to Contents then Resources. In this folder you will find all of the .tiff files C1 uses for various visual elements. 

The files I've found worth modifying are:

• browser_process.tiff
• process_history_processed.tiff
• browser_star.tiff
• CaptureFolder.tiff
• viewer_star_light.tiff

Open these files with Photoshop and use the paint bucket to fill them with the color you desire. They are quite small so you will need to zoom in significantly to make sure you're coloring the correct areas. Then save.

Now you've got better visual recognition of certain elements to help your day. The one catch is that you must do this for each installation of C1 and after every version update.  To save time I keep a folder on my server that has these files pre edited that I can just drop in after each installation. I've decided chartreuse/green to be the best for most things. However, for the "Capture_Folder.tiff " I do red. The "process_history_processed.tiff" has been a recent change for me to easily see if and image has been processed. I really found the default grey for this one to get lost. 

I know others have been doing this for years as well. I can't remember when I started doing this but I still get comments on from people about the green stars when on set. It's a simple thing but I've found it to be quite helpful on set. If you have any helpful tips for Capture One share them here.

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