When Capture ONE Pro 10 came out end of 2016, one new feature caught my eye: The support of the Tangent Element retouching panels. I have been looking for panels like this for quite some time, but usually, they all lack support for Capture ONE. And when I read the announcement, it was just a question of time. So, a couple of weeks ago, I bought the panels.
What is a retouching panel?
If you are familiar with image processing software, be it Lightroom, Photoshop, Capture ONE or such, you know that there are tons of tools and filters you can use. You only have to find them when you need them. Typically, many of the tools can be reached by more or less hard-to-remember keyboard shortcuts, while for others you have to dive deep down the mists of the menu. To help you with shortcuts, you can even buy dedicated keyboards (Photoshop, Capture ONE) which have the tools marked on the keys.
Shortcuts or even dedicated keyboards are a great step, but using the tools often requires using the mouse to move some sliders. In the process of working on an image, this is a big distraction. Firstly, the tools require screen real estate, and secondly, you have to move your eyes around to guide the mouse. You lose contact with the image.
This is where retouching panels come into play. They are dedicated input devices, providing buttons, knobs, trackballs, or sliders for direct interaction with the image. Yes, you interact with the image, not with a certain tool.
Why use a retouching panel?
The most obvious advantage of using a retouching panel is speed. No need to open any tools in the software, no need to clutter the screen with dialogs, no need to hunt-and-push the mouse. Just press a button or turn a knob and you immediately see the result. After only a short time, you will gain muscle memory to quickly find the right button or knob without even looking at the panel. No distraction from the image anymore.
But it’s not only about the speed of using one dedicated tool. With the right layout of the panel, it is even possible to adjust several parameters at the same time and see the combined results as you go.
Because I was unsure, which of the panels would suit my workflow best, I decided to order a bundle of all four.
The compact panels feature a stylish, ultra-slim design. The front side is about 1.5 cm high, the rear side 4.5 cm (8 cm incl. display). The complete panel is 77 cm (30.1 in) wide. The cases are of solid aluminium, the top surface is made of a very touch-pleasant plastic. All buttons provide great haptic feedback. The knobs, trackballs, and rings run smoothly. A bit more tension would be nice, as I sometimes accidentally turn a knob unintentionally.
When you look at the panels, you will notice that most of the controls do not have any tags or icons. Instead, each panel has a high contrast, high resolution OLED display, which indicates what each control does. Using the Tangent Mapper software, you can customise the layout of the controls and even change the text of the label.
While using the knobs, trackballs and rings, the display shows either a progress bar, a percentage value or the real input value.
Each panel has two special buttons, labelled “A” and “B”. In the default layout, the “A” button is similar to the “Shift” or “Alt” key of your keyboard: While pressing this button, the layout of the panel switches to an alternate layout.
The “B” button is used to step through different so-called “banks” of layout. This is more like the “Caps-Lock” key: You don’t have to press and hold. In the Tangent Mapper you can configure whether the “A” and “B” keys shall refer to all panels simultaneously, or separately. You may configure as many banks as you like.
However, in my usual desktop layout, the button panel is easier to reach while working through my images.
The mapping software not only allows you to customise the layout but also the sensitivity of the knobs. If you like, you may use the “A” button to toggle the sensitivity, which is useful for many tools that sometimes may need higher precision.
By pressing the knob, the tool is reset.
If you use the colour balance tool in Capture ONE, this panel is the one for you. Once you use this panel, you will never want to go back to using your mouse or graphic tablet for colour grading your images. It is just THE natural way. Serious
With the trackballs, you control the colour balance of the shadows, mid-tones and highlights, while the rings are used to control the brightness. Pressing the “A” button increases the sensitivity of the controls, offering high-precision control.
In the default layout, the “B” button is used to temporarily reset the colour balance settings to easily compare before and after.
Although it is possible to map other tools to the Trackerball panel, to me colour balancing is the only one that really makes sense. For all other slider-like tools, the knob panel is the better choice.
The number of possibilities is enormous. I can only recommend spending some time thinking which functions you usually use, where to place them best. You can even configure several mappings and switch between them using the mapper. This helps to try out different layouts to find the one that suits you best. Of course, this is also something that may change over time.
Another missing minor feature is filtering images based on rating. You can use a button to filter images with a certain rating, but there is no chance to filter images with a minimum rating. Sure, you can define a smart album for this, but you cannot activate it with a button.
I already reported this to Phase ONE. We will see what happens.
Is it worth the costs?
It is true, the panels are not really cheap, although they are a lot cheaper than usual grading boards. As long as you don’t run for medium format, you can buy a camera and some lenses or other gear for the price of the Tangent Element bundle.
But: The panels are simply great. They bring your workflow to a whole new level. It is sheer fun working with them. And even more important: You will speed up your workflow significantly, saving more time to go out shooting.
Which one to buy?
Which panel you should try depends on your workflow. If you are using colour balance a lot, then there is nothing better than the Trackerball panel. If you prefer using other tools, leave this panel out.
For more or less every workflow I can imagine, the Knob panel will be a real benefit. Using a dedicated knob instead of a slider is way more natural.
The Multifunction panel is useful especially for curating images and working with the catalog or session. However, for my workflow, the default mapping didn’t really make sense, so I built my own mapping completely ground up.
And currently, I don’t actually use the trackball. As long as panning is not supported, I can’t think of any function which would genuinely fit. In the default mapping, this ball is used to control the overlay image, which is only useful when shooting tethered, which I rarely do (and even if I do, I don’t need any overlay).
The Button panel will not give you much benefit over a normal keyboard. Although it may help to reach some functions more easily than a keyboard. Especially if you use the banks to organise your workflow (see above), the Button panel can be quite useful. Depending on the step in the workflow, usually only a very limited number of functions is needed. Putting them on the Button panel can really speed up working.
No drawbacks?
Well, there are some. First, even with these panels you will not be able to ditch your mouse, graphic tablet or keyboard completely. There are tasks where you will always need a keyboard, like any kind of text input (renaming images, editing metadata and such). Some tools like Levels or Curves and of course masks cannot be controlled with these panels. You will still need a mouse or a graphic tablet for this. The same applies for drop-down menus or checkboxes.
On the other hand, the goal of using such panels is not to eliminate a keyboard or mouse. Both are great input devices – for specific tasks. But for other tasks, panels like the Tangent Element are suited a lot better.