Edit your first image in Capture One Express

Import your image

Click the Import icon, then ‘Choose…’ and navigate to your image. Select Review for Import followed by Import All; the image appears in the Image Browser. Click its thumbnail to open it in the Image Viewer. In the Colour Tool tab, open Base Characteristics. Select the Vivid Picture Control ‘look’ in the ICC Profile dropdown.

Set the white balance

Open the White Balance menu. You can adjust the white balance by using the Mode dropdown to select options that mirror your Nikon’s in-camera settings, or with the Kelvin and Tint sliders. If you select the ‘eyedropper’ cursor from the toolbar, you can click on the main image to target an area that should be white.

Balance the tonal range

In the Quick Edit tool tab, open the High Dynamic Range menu and adjust the sliders to balance the tonal range in the image. We increased Shadows to 55 to lift the dark midtone areas and White to 14 to brighten the overall image without blowing the highlights. Dragging Black to -58 deepened the darker shadows.

Tweak exposure and save

Open the Exposure menu, and then tweak the sliders, keeping an eye on the histogram to ensure you don’t clip the graph. We also applied some Clarity and Sharpening, as shown, to give our image added ‘punch.’ When happy, click Export, choose a destination folder and filename, ensure Format is JPEG, and hit ‘Export.’