Here’s a random thought on this Wednesday as I opened up my email and saw a full version upgrade for Capture One. Their last update was one year ago (Capture One 12). Now they’re at Capture One 20. Most likely following the industry by numbering the software based on the year.
As I looked at the list of new features, I thought to myself “How are people not hating on this like they do when Adobe comes out with an update?”.
If Adobe had waited a full year to add 8 “things” to Lightroom and charged you $159 dollars for the upgrade, the photography community would freakin’ be on fire!
I can only imagine the venom that the old Peta-Stoppers websites would be spewing. Imagine the click bait headlines now “Adobe does nothing for photographers!” or “Has Adobe abandoned photographers?” or even better “Is Lightroom Dead?”.
Now, first and foremost… I’m not trying to make any Capture One user feel bad about their software. I’m actually trying to make those that are on the Adobe $9.99 plan feel better about what they have. It’s those tabloid-like websites I mentioned above that constantly bombard you (and the venom-spewing commenters in them) that try to make anyone that likes Lightroom feel like crap all the time by only posting two words to any Lightroom article… “Capture One”. Those tabloid-like communities are the worst of the worst in photography, and I hope you never listen to them.
I Really Like Capture One
Honestly, I really like Capture One. I’m even working on a course on it for early 2020. I think it’s one of the best and smoothest raw processors on the market next to Lightroom. They have several tools that I wish Lightroom had. Like the way they implement local corrections as layers. They aren’t Photoshop layers by the way, but still very cool with features I wish LR’s local adjustments had. I love the way you can customize their interface as well. Their color tools are really cool too. And anyone that uses it has great software, and should be happy with their purchase.
Heck, I’d consider using it if they had two (well, 2 and a half) things…
- Photoshop. Not having Photoshop is a deal breaker for me. And C1 isn’t good enough for me to drop LR, and use C1 with PS (which would cost me even more money). And no, Affinity Photo isn’t even close so don’t go there.
- A good mobile platform/strategy (nobody can even TOUCH Lightroom when it comes to this right now).
- 2.5 – Their interface is just too small and “techie” for me. My eyesight sucks and I have to lower the resolution of my monitor every time I open C1.
Anyway, it’s great software and, like I said, be happy if you choose to use it. But don’t try to make me feel like crap by saying Adobe doesn’t update LR Classic anymore and that $9.99 is too much money to spend each month.
Let’s Do the Math
Let’s do the math for a second. Capture One costs $299 (almost 3 years worth of the Adobe Photography Plan). And every year they release an upgrade which costs another $159 ($40 a year more than you’d spend with Adobe if you paid $9.99 a month). So, for two years of C1 you’re in for $460, where as with Adobe you’d be in for $240. That’s almost double.
SIDENOTE: for Sony / Fuji Verisons – Many people will say that the Sony/Fuji version is cheaper. And yes it is. But if you shoot Sony/Fuji now, chances are that you shot some other camera before. Are you willing to give up the ability to open those files in your raw editor? Because your cheaper Sony/Fuji version will only let you edit those raw files – not ones you have from other cameras.
Next, the most common response from people is that they hate subscriptions. But what do you call it if the software is updated every year and you have to pay to upgrade it. Yeah… you’re on a yearly subscription whether you like it or not. I know… then you get the whole “I don’t have to upgrade” line “because I own my version”.
Ask yourself this if you’re one of those people that purchased an alternative? Have you upgraded every year? Most of you will answer yes.
You do need to upgrade, whether you like it or not. Why? Because there’s going to be that one feature that you really want and you’re going to be mad that you don’t have it. OS changes will eventually phase out your no-longer-supported version. And EVERY new version of everything has improved performance right? Nobody is ever satisfied with the performance of their software – we all want faster. Not to mention if you get a new camera, you’re out of luck because your old version won’t support it. Trust me… I know the stats… the vast majority of people pay each year to upgrade to every new version.
How About Features?
Now let’s compare features. Capture One’s list of new features has 14 items on it. Adobe’s has 30. I won’t get in to how useful those features are because they vary in usefulness to every person out there. I’ll admit, some (on both sides) are small and incremental. However, somebody wanted them or they wouldn’t be there. But some people will find them useful and some won’t, so it’s not really worth debating. But here’s a graphic that shows LR’s new features for 2019 compared to Capture One’s.
But Wait… There’s More!
Those features above are just in Lightroom Classic. That doesn’t include anything in Photoshop – which comes with your $9.99 payment (but used to cost $700). And it doesn’t include any of the Lightroom Mobile, and Lightroom Web changes which include portfolios and a bunch of other things I use all the time.
As I said in the beginning. If you’re a Capture One user, I don’t want to make you feel bad about your software. My hope for people is to decide on a pricing model and a software package that works for them – and don’t look back. Spend your time getting good at it, and not second guessing the decision you made because some click-bait Peta-Stopper article tries to stir the pot.
I Miss The Old Days
I hate to say this, because it just sounds like the old guy complaining about the new age. But I miss the old days. The days when we all mostly used the same software and we could all talk about one thing… editing and improving our photos. Now the conversations so often revolve around what software to use, more than what to do with that software and how to do it.
People are switching software left and right. I see it and hear it every day from my readers. Trying one thing… and then going back and trying another… then buying yet another one (because it’s on sale for 24 hours!) and their email marketing ad told you it’s the best software out there.
I guess, as they say, competition is good. But sometimes it just doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes it feels like the photography community, at large, has spent more money on software in the last 6 years than needed, and is (still today) more confused than ever about their workflow.
As I said earlier. This wasn’t to make anyone feel bad about what they use. Quite the opposite. It was only to point out how silly the hatred is for a company that led the charge in making photo editing software cheaper than it’s ever been in history. Try Goggling some old prices. You’ll see that everything used to cost $400 and above.
If you don’t want to use Adobe, no sweat. You should use whatever fits your price point and needs as a photographer. But don’t try make Adobe users feel bad when you don’t have a leg to stand on. If you’re a Capture One user, you have great software – no doubt about it. But it’s not cheaper and they don’t update it more (and add more features) than the program you switched from.
No kidding. This is called fraud. They are reneging on the contract. Class Action suite time?
Take better pictures.
Remember, only pixel peepers with their gadget computer screens can see the differences in well photographed images from decent equipment taken 10 or 20+ years ago versus now.
Print those images in typical sizes or upload them to the internet for “regular” people to view – nobody can tell the difference.
We’ve gone from being accomplished, skilled, intentional photographers to mass clickers and computer jockies.
Anybody who needs anything more than a 10-20 year old software to make their images stand-out or be of “professional” quality has probably just become a lazy shot-snapper.
Think about it, what do you really need to do to a well photographed image?
Crop it?
Extremely slight color adjustment?
Extremely slight adjustment to lightness/darkness?
Just take better pictures – quality over quantity!
I agree with you to an extent. Taking a better photo is 100% always the way to go. However, not everyone reading this has the want, need, or capability to create “professional quality” all of the time. Many reading this are hobbyists and I would always encourage them to try to take a better photo. Some can’t get to places at the ideal time of day because of health, travel or mobility. Some may not have had the knowledge earlier in their hobby when they took the photos, and now go back to older photos and try to make something better of them. And some just don’t yet have the knowledge, and find themselves having to maybe “fix” more photos than some one of your caliber does.
Again, I agree with you, but remember not everyone is you and “just take better pictures” doesn’t really help them (even though I think it should be something EVERYONE strives for).
C1 offers little in updates and always a charge a fortune! I find C1 not very customer friendly and really clumsy licensing procedures! I am a perpetual license guy and hate these subscriptions…. never take them on…. I have Capture 1 20 and LR5 . I was basically forced i to buying the C1 a I jumped ship from Canon to Fuji. Never really been impressed with C1…
Lightroom and Photoshop are the industry standards, bar none. And $10/a month? Less than a fast food combo meal. I’m not screwing around with other software options.
I wish Adobe had a Lightroom only plan, for like $6.99/month or something. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve use Photoshop in the past couple years, and for my needs my perpetual license of Photoshop CS6 is all I need.
I’d be tempted to rent Lightroom only if they offered such a plan at a cheaper rate. How many hobbyists get the full benefit or use of having Photoshop I wonder? Heck, if I subscribed to their photo plan, I would not install whatever version of Photoshop came with the plan.
It’ll never happen I realize.
I think most hobbyists find that $9.99 a month to support a hobby is a pretty darn good price. Even if you don’t use Photoshop, a $10 a month hobby is very reasonable and I can’t see saving $3 pulling a lot of people over to the plan. My gym costs me $40 a month and I use that a heck of a lot less than Lightroom and Photoshop 🙂
Oh, I think there are a lot of hobbyists who have moved from Adobe because they do find $9.99 a month to not be such a darn good price. You can argue the rent vs. own angle as much as you want, but rational or not, many hobbyists have chosen not to buy into the Adobe photo plan for the simple reason they do feel $9.99 a month is too much. It’s what’s keeping me away. And it’s not really $9.99/month. It’s really $120/year, because you can’t just subscribe to Adobe for the months you want to use it. The agreement and large cancelation fee makes it in reality $120/year. I can buy the upgrade to On1, or DxO PL, or ACDSEE, or Luminar, etc. every year for less than the annual Adobe cost, and I think that’s how a lot of us view this decision. It’s too bad because I prefer USING Lightroom over all the others, so will be sticking to my copy of LR6 as long as it will run.
I’m playing the Devil’s Advocate: I agree with everything people are writing. These are excellent photo applications. However, the business models take a good deal of the satisfaction and fun of digital imagemaking as far as I am concerned. Those of you who dislike Adobe I agree with; those of you who have undergone the Capture One torture of activation-deactivation-reactivation when changing to a new machine, may agree with me, that the switch to Capture One may not be entirely satisfactory, after all.
But here’s the Devil’s Advocate part: Now that I have just upgraded to a fast machine with plenty of SSD storage and a 5K display, I have discovered that I don’t need either one for my own non-professional digital imaging work. Yes: Mac Photos in 2021 is not Dad’s 2008 iPhoto. If the image is good to begin with, minimal if any adjustments are called for. I hope there is full agreement on this point.
agree with our comment about the ” torture” of the Capture 1 license procedure, it was super frustrating and for that reason I dislike C1 customer relationship! They also offer very little for an upgrade at a really high cost………. dislike Capture One for their arrogance!
I just changed machines again, deactivated my old licenses online, installed and activated C1 20 on the new machine. What torture?
Assuming you don’t have a camera whose raw files aren’t supported in an old version, it’s usually worth upgrading every 2nd or 3rd cycle. Price is much more attractive that way. Also they offer both perpetual and subscription giving you a choice, which is not the case for adobe anymore.
First off, I’m subbed to the Adobe photography plan and don’t own C1. I purchased LR 4 for about $130 on sale and got 7 years experience out of it only upgrading to CC when I purchased a Z7 in 2019. This era of having to constantly upgrade, especially physical things like phones and cameras, is ridiculous. At least software doesn’t produce the waste it once did given most is downloaded (even what’s owned). Sadly I’m seeing some 20 somethings who now upgrade all their gadgets now (laptop, phone, smart speakers, sous vide gadgets, sprinkler controllers/Rachio, etc). Gotta have “the best” and the perception is, upgrade always because old is bad…
I’ve considered jumping to C1 or ON1 for years but feel trapped with LR because they don’t make it easy to leave. I could continue to use LR library module but they haven’t made that easy with CC. To many unknowns. I could continue to edit my legacy catalog in LR 4 but LR’s DB has changed so I’d need to maintain those in LR 4 and not open/upgrade then to CC. That means it’s not just edits but views must be done in LR4. ON1 has a good catalog upgrade option but they’re engine results in some oddities for certain lighting situations. Luminar’s engine is very similar to LR in terms of edits/results. Nearly 1:1. I could probably write a program to convert one sidecar to another and get in the ballpark, bit Luminar is slow. C1 is too different and they have no upgrade utility. In short I feel chained to LR CC
On to your argument…
It’s one logical fallacy after another. In particular given that you’re immediately and unilaterally dismissive of the key benefits of license ownership. Namely we chose when to upgrade and until then the software works no matter how much or little that I use it. Perhaps in the Apple ecosystem your OS argument holds water after a few years, not so on Windows.
Furthermore, there have been years that Lightroom has made few if any meaningful changes. Even then, right out the bat, you’re dismissive of and say you’d rather count features than what they add.
Point behind, when I’ve demoed C1 is extremely fast. Faster than LR, so in that capacity it’s not required one update after another to improve performance.
Half of what’s added in LR is fluff or bug fixes. A buddy of mine whose been on CC since 2016 tells me that for 3 years the upgrades were minimal at best. Maybe 1-3 key features depending on the year.
In C1 those upgrades feel more meaningful, but even so my workflow is such that the 2019 Verizon of C1 would still work for me had I switched to it and on sale that can be had for $180. I was so tempted last week to just pull the trigger on that last sale
If I’m happy with my current version of ON1, Capture One, Luminar, etc, I can stick to it for years. I stuck with LR 4 for ages. I own PS CS 5 Extended and it’s more than sufficient for the touchup work of dune pros as well as a semipro enthusiast or must any hobbiest. I rarely use subject select. Perhaps 3-4 x the last 3 years.
All these years why has Adobe failed to give us local area HSL? Pretty much all the competition has effective layers, not Adobe, unless you go to Photoshop and then have massive tiff files or disassociated PSD files.
In short, you’ve embraced the new world of zero ownership, where everything is a subscription. I instead subscribe to Steve Wozniak’s view. He’s shared that view in a number of interviews. It’s sad when I spent $200 on a FitBit, however to unlock certain health metrics touted on the box that the watch is already collecting I have to subscribe… So my younger friends don’t better any of this because they become so indoctrinated the last 5 or 6 years, however they have in some cases 10 plus subscriptions to one thing or another spending over $200 a month on things as they usage just own. Legit, a gym subscription used to be the one subscription we all wasted our money on. I’m not saying I waste my money on Lightroom, I don’t, but it used to be a much cheaper endeavor for me. When I ran my own dark room all my equipment was from the 70s and 80s, all I had to do occasionally by was chemicals and supplies.
PS – After 3 years of wasted gym memberships you could own a RowErg and a set of PowerBlock adjustable dumbbells. A more than sufficient home gym, after that a bike for outdoors. Pushups and crunches are free, a pull-up bar or core ball are cheap…
As for operating system issues. Those are pretty much exclusively for Apple/Mac’s. Now that is a company you should be angry with always breaking your software with upgrades. In comparison, Windows is practically immortal and will run software for a solid decade if not longer.
My Lightroom CS6 doesn’t work with Apple Big Sur OS.
The answer is pretty simple. Capture One doesn’t shake you down with the subscription model. With adobe you have to pay every month every year so people expect something in return. Capture One has a perpetual license. If you don’t like the new features or don’t need them you can continue to use the software. Two years. Three years or more. You aren’t shaken down for money. Pricing is individual. What works for you may not work for others. For example. I bought a Capture One version under $100 for Fuji and only shoot Fuji. I have used it for years. I don’t need nor use Photoshop. Compared to an Adobe subscription I am way ahead financially. Your needs may vary, but the bottom line is people aren’t upset because they aren’t shaken down for money like they are for Adobe’s subscription plan.
Timoteo said: “The photo editing part is really good. Everything else – organizing files, searching, managing folders, etc, etc. is horrible.”
I think that says it all.
I Strongly recommend people are wary dealing with this software, despite its powerful image work.
Not all our art and business relies just on imaging prowress. It has to help us, not the other way around.
I agree Capture One is beautiful on imaging, BUT horrible on organising, finding, and filing. Constantly found that images were in random places.
The Final Straw. I tried to get out of the 2020 subscription and revert to older version, but I find myself completely de-activated, and unable to contact the company, or support since December. Support falls over every time I open it.
Activation has always been problematic. The whole company is problematic. Hence My Recommendation to Run Away
They have a lot of my money yet I feel like a pirate or something for wanting to open a program I purchased.
Mim
I’ve been using C1 v11 for four or five years now. As someone else said, it’s great when it works. The photo editing part is really good. Everything else – organizing files, searching, managing folders, etc, etc. is horrible. As another person said, this software is a terrible example of software engineering. If I worked on this software I would NOT want my name associated with it publicly in any way. The quality of this product harks back to a software project I worked on several decades ago. Management decided that it was time to release the product – against the warnings of the senior developers and team leads on the project. The result was literally thousands of bugs in the product. The Director of Engineering also got axed. The management team who led the development of this software should be taken out behind the barn and shot and the entire software development team should be fired. There will be no QA team for fire since they no QA was ever done on this software.
C1 crashes or locks on up on almost daily. It has done this for years on diferent hardware and different versions of Windows. I have finally reached my limit – I renamed a folder in C1, it crashed, and I had to restore from backup. That didn’t work so well and I now have a directory of files for which all edits and masks have been lost. I just can’t live with the constant crashing and lock-ups and trashing of my catalog anymore. It just isn’t worth the pain. I should have stayed with LR years ago when they switched to a subscription model. LR crashed at times too but C1 is in a whole other class of trashiness.
Actually in the old days we used to take more about software than work… but that was the 1990’s before Adobe ruled the creative software market.
I bought a capture one 20 license recently assuming the next version would just be an update I thought that was the point of paying so much feels like I got scammed
Hi Ben. A good rule of thumb to go by is this… no photography software company (or at least most of the good ones) can exist on you buying a one-time purchase. Every company will come out with new versions every year or so and those will indeed be paid upgrades. It’s just the way this industry (and just about every other industry out there) works.
Unless you’re talking Davinci Resolve. One purchase, upgrades forever. I’m with Ben, just bought C1 (at the recommendation of some friends) and now they offer an upgrade with no details on what’s in it and I’m supposed to pay another fee. I misunderstood their notion of the word “perceptual.” Otherwise I might have chosen subscription. I’m not familiar with LR, but have used PS forever. Looking at getting more experience with ACR at the upcoming Adobe Summit. Can definitely say that I like C1 a lot, but I’m still printing out of Photoshop since I have issues with C1 on that score. Most of my pro friends don’t print so they’re no help. Perhaps I just need to develop ACR skills so I’m not round-tripping.
This was a great article, I think a big part of their not being an uproar is that anyone who uses C1 now probably didnt upgrade unless they had the subscription fee already which doesn’t change with the new software.
Personally I bought the perpetual license for the Fuji specific C-1 12 and when looking at the upgrades to 20 i was able to decide quite easily that it wasn’t a necessary upgrade for me.
I in the same boat with you I will stay with C1 12 and pray that it keep working because I’m not even updated my MB this just out of hand. And for sure I’m always looking at the cost of things. I’m so with you on this one all the way. Everybody out for the dime.
Editing raw photos with C1 is very good, better than Lightroom, though with more work you can get to similar results with Lightroom. However, the catalog in C1 is grossly unusable–incredibly poor software engineering that results in horrible slowness. As many posters have said, use C1 for tethering or session by session editing. But, there is a problem: with RAW we need our catalog to “see” the photo processing changes. Sadly, this requires integrated photo management with non-destructive editing.
Oh, I wanted to have C1 work but at about 12,000 images it is overwhelmed. I wanted to use C1 as my editor with Lightroom as the catalog. But, this cripples Lightroom. All the C1 edits need to be saved as sidecar files and the only changes Lightroom can show are crops (good) , overall exposure changes, and metadata changes (ratings, etc). So, as you view photos you often need to load them in C1 to see what they really look like. Or you can export them as tiff or png, but this creates a meaningful management headache as your important, edited photos would all be duplicated.
So, I learned that I could use non-Adobe profiles as the start of the raw editing process. This is a big improvement. I could set camera processing defaults. And then I could use Lightroom’s wicked fast cataloging. So, that was it. We only have so much time in life to fight software. After 4 new major versions of C1, all of which promised catalog performance improvement–and none delivered, I decided that Phase One didn’t care to improve cataloging. Their choice. My choice: drop C1 for good.
Hi Matt
Many thanks for the review…. Do you sell Presets for CI also or just for Adobe ?
Best regards
D
There’s no reason to upgrade software EVERY YEAR! There’s nothing in newer versions of Photoshop or any other Adobe software that would make me want to upgrade/rent from Adobe, I’m using all Adobe CS6 programs and have never felt the need or desire for a software upgrade.
I’m actually in the process of moving from InDesign to Quark (no need to rent the software) and I’ve never really used Lightroom – I’ve been using DX Optics Pro and just purchased PhotoLab 3.
There’s also no reason to upgrade the OS every year either, so I don’t and have NEVER had an issue.
Used to edit in LR for years, than tried C1 and never looked back at LR!
Nice article and I totally agree !
For me capture one is too techy and the interface is a bit too “cold Pc “ style for me .
A couple of things that still bother me are : still no before/ after real function !!! Crazy ( like slash in Lightroom )
The second is the little lag in applying any sliders adjustment .
Un lightroom any effect is instantaneous while you move any slider …
then , capture one actually shifts color way more than Lightroom To make it more pleasing I guess
.
I think since lasts Lightroom updates the results are very similar in terms of.
Quality and I saved an “ capture one look “ preset in Lightroom that does really look like how capture one import files .
I still don’t understand while no one freaked out about this big capture one 20 announcement with so little new improvements.. ( best one for me is highlights and shadows going both direction finally .. )
Thanks
Well, at the risk of sounding dire warnings etc., my recent experience of Cap1 v20 has been awful. I love the quality of output, especially colour, and some of its tools are really useful but….. my (trial) version hangs every time on start up – force quitting (on a mac) is the only way to escape it (and even so it will sometimes lock up my system), and similarly force quitting is often the only way to shut it down after use. I’m not stressing the software or my hardware here – when Cap1 is functioning its sings along beautifully – I really want it to work! So, off to the community forum for Cap1, except that it won’t let me sign on – that also just hangs. Support? – after all relevant details were sent I receive (apart from the usual acknowledgment of receipt) a ‘standard’ response – a clear signal that my email(s) were not read and/or considered. Not a great start. I press on, no response at all. This is one week and more between times. I’m supposed to be impressed by my trial such that I purchase at the end of the trial !
Having to reinstall each time I try to use the software is not a good way to proceed. I don’t know what’s going on at Cap1 (I see suggestions that a split from “Phase One’ has brought new ownership – that may or may not be relevant – but this is supposed to be high quality, professional supporting software.
I have today emailed support again (there is no other apparent means of contact, not even sales) as I’m on the brink of dumping it. So, if this is happening elsewhere to others, steer a wide berth!
Pity! I have been chasing my first support ticket, and have waited for some days since submitting a second ticket (same issue, in the absence of any meaningful response to the first). Maybe I’m being too suspicious, or cynical, or both, but all I’ve had since the acknowledgement of the second ticket is exactly the same response from exactly the same name. All just as unhelpful, and no progress whatsoever. I’m beginning to wonder if in fact a real human being has been anywhere near it yet. And all that time, the only way I can use Cap1 v20 is by reinstalling each time – someone tell me, please, how that’s meant to help with workflow.
Why am I raising this here (if indeed anyone reads it!) is because, if I were Matt, I’m not sure I’d want to be associated with something that gives every appearance of going horribly wrong. Sigh….
Hi Peter… 2 things:
1) Capture 1 is legit software. Probably at the very top right along with LR and PS. There’s always going to be some one with a problem (Just like with Adobe) but 99% of users use software with no problems.
2) I’m not sure how you see me (and this article) as “associated” with C1. My guess is after this article I wrote, if I were to email or call them, my name would promptly go in to their “blocked” folder 🙂
Hi Matt
Sorry Matt if I caused you any concern- not saying it with accusatory tone, more advisory – if that makes sense! 🙂
Ironically, Cap1have at last responded to me to say they recognise that on the latest macOS (10.15.3) none of the Cap1 versions currently work! Thats after advising me to delete all old versions and reinstall Cap1 v20 – I don’t see the point if they know it doesn’t yet work.
No concern at all Peter. Just wasn’t sure what you’re advising me of? I don’t think anyone reading that post would think I was associated favorably with C1 🙂
It was just your reference to running a course in 2020, but I take your point on the remainder of the article! 🙂
Peter,
I’m running v12 on 10.15.3 without any issues – could you post the reply that phaseone sent you saying that no version of C1 works on that version of MacOS? I’ve been tempted to upgrade to v20, but have been holding off, and if they are acknowledging instability on v12, I’ll certainly hold off.
Peter G, it’s funny but I have the exact opposite problem from you. Lightroom always crashes 3 to 6 times whenever I open it before it will finally load and work. When it does load, it immediately jumps to 1.5GB memory usage and as I use it it quickly climbs until it’s using as much as possible of the 32GB available, which causes other software to start lagging noticeably once memory swapping and compression begin. Despite using all this RAM the software is still slow and clunky. And the only support Adobe offers is their community forums, where mostly people who don’t know anymore than me and often less try to help each other since Adobe won’t.
CaptureOne on the other hand has only ever crashed once on me, uses way less system resources and is always lightning quick. I’ve never needed support from PhaseOne but I’m sorry to hear their support is no better than Adobe’s.
Hey guys…..we have been phase one camera system owners for years and use Cap1 as well. Just installed the 2020 trial and it is not stable. crashes all the time. At this point we are sticking with cap 1 12 which has been very reliable for capture. We spent enough years with the software being very buggy and going down with clients on set all the time and we always use top Los Angeles based digital techs.
The big attraction was that you had a company that built software to go along with their hardware and now if the companies have split I have to say I am very concerned.
Bruce Eisenberg
Eisenberg + Bonem
Los Angeles
I watched the live stream with Scott, Serge and yourself discussing C1 transitioning. Elements were definitely biased and others were fair.
To give context I was an Adobe Photoshop user from about version 3 and a Lightroom user from the beginning. I bailed when the subscription model became vogue and my last products were LR6 and CS6. I still use CS6 on occasion but mainly for the printing interface that I am familiar with.
I remember not being happy with LR 4 and 5 and started used what became Iridient Developer for my RAW conversions. I dabbled with C1 from version 6. I now use Capture One Pro 20 and Affinity Photo (Scott lost my support when he dismissed a good product labelling it a severely inferior product although I appreciate it was more about C1).
Present day, I am in need of a new computer (Mac) and that means saying goodbye to CS6 as mine is 10 years old and I am two version of OS behind. I agree that C1’s increasing pricing and yearly updates is a subscription by any other name if you upgrade yearly. I did this year because I was able to upgrade at a significant discount, about the same as Adobe. Realistically I didn’t need to as I really don’t need the new features. I have a much better alternative for noise reduction which was the only worthwhile addition for me. I reckon next year I can go without an update as the way I process my images doesn’t really change.
I agree that the current situation re software subscriptions is different from a few years ago with compatibility with new OS being more an issue than new features. My major issue with Adobe is the need for an internet connection to continually validate the license and being unable to view my previously processed images. I travel for extended periods of time and do not always have access to the internet or my internet may be down on the day Adobe needs to validate my account. Really, how is that fair. There will come a time when the new features will have little value for me and my photography, that is when the perpetual license becomes more valuable. I’m pretty much there. C1 seems to support 4 Mac OS’s and my cameras are 7 years old. To upgrade every 2 to 3 years seems a better option.
You seem a moderate voice which I applaud and your business model means that your upcoming C1 class is a necessity. I hope it is a success for you.
Finally do I think that the photographers plan is reasonable value in todays environment, yes I do, however it is the limitations (internet connection) and inability to let me access my images when I no longer wish to subscribe that means I will always look for alternatives. Although Adobe’s record earnings is good for investors it shows where their loyalties lie, and its not with photographers.
Hi Mark. Thanks for the comment. A couple of things. First in all fairness I believe I was the one who dismisses affinity. It simple is not there. It’s not Photoshop. Most people want Photoshop for distraction removal and selective. Unfortunately on the surface affinity looks close but simply isn’t. I open and try it out often as some of my courses do support it and it doesn’t compare.
Next adobe does give you a 30 day grace period and 99 days if you pay yearly. And I have several friends who have called support and had the extend it when they needed.
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/internet-connection-creative-cloud-apps.html
As for noise reduction, I’ve done extensive tests between both and I can get them both to look the same and both are good. But I guess everyone’s needs are different so if it works for you, like I said on the show, you have a great program.
I watched the Grid episode about the reality of switching to Capture One and found it very interesting. I personally use Photoshop for other things other than photo editing and I use Photoshop actions all the time. I couldn’t do without Photoshop, so the argument about getting Lightroom AND Photoshop with the Adobe subscription was especially pertinent for me. Since Capture One offers a subscription model in addition to the perpetual license model, it might only be a question of time before they switch to subscription only. The idea of a license only for Sony or only for Fuji doesn’t appeal to me at all. No switching to Capture One for me. I am happy as a clam with my Adobe subscription, though I was one of those who originally said they would never go for a subscription model. The new features finally won me over and I don’t regret subscribing at all, even though I don’t need or use the mobile apps.
I use both LR and CO and in my experience they’re both mediocre at best for noise reduction. So I use Noiseware by Imagnomic in PS–it’s amazing.
Because Capture One users have a choice. If they don’t feel like the upgrade is worth it, they don’t have to buy it. And their current version keeps right on working no matter what they do.
LR users have no choice. The cost of the subscription is over twice what I paid for LR for the five years prior to the switch. And if you don’t like what LR did this year, too bad.
What I think about Adobe has nothing to do with photography websites and everything with how they’ve abused their customers. I’m still on LR 6, and when I finally install Catalina, I’ll leave it behind completely.
I, too, dislike Adobe because of their business practices. They’re not a software company and don’t care about making good software. They’re an investment company and they care about showing returns to investors. They obviously have to have a competitive product to market but they’ll never go the extra mile or spend a dime more on their software than is necessary to keep the market cornered.
Funny you say that. I’m doing a series right now on the blog about all of the things you get from Adobe apart from just the apps. If I did that for C1, I wouldn’t get past Day 1 because there is nothing. Can you point me to one thing that proves or shows that C1 doesn’t first and foremost care about their investors and profit (remember, you don’t have to be a public company to have investors). But everyone sees the world different and that’s fine. To you they care about no one – to me, I talk to people there all the time that… want to / do / and will continue… to develop great things for their customers that surpass their competition.
I couldn’t agree more about the good old days. In the first decade of digital, things were easy. I was loyal to Canon, Lightroom emerged as the only real option for me as a windows user at the time, and social media didn’t exist to constantly tell me everything I was using was junk. In this decade, social media has now made everyone an expert. Adobe’s subscription model made everyone mad, fueled the rise of a million alternatives, and filled the web with “why you should be using this instead of Adobe” and “Adobe sucks” articles. The rise of mirrorless and Sony has done the same thing to Canon and Nikon.
So instead of investing my time in trying to master my chosen system and software, as I did early on, I switched from Lightroom to Aperture, Capture One, Apple Photos, some combination of Capture NX-D and Photo Mechanic, then back to Lightroom (Not including Photoshop to dabbling in Pixelmator and Affinity). System-wise: Canon for the first ten years of digital, to Panasonic m43, to Sony APS-C, now happy with Nikon APS-C, slowly transitioning to Z. Much of this was fueled by social-media and blogger know-it-alls.
What a massive waste of time and money. I’d be ten times the photographer I am today of I spent this time mastering a single system and software.
The worst part is that with 90% of the photography information on the web being Peta-stoppers style garbage it takes real effort to sort out the high-quality resources for learning without being drawn into the sensational click-bait BS.
In general I agree, although I primarily use C1 now. I actually started with C1 a very long time ago (maybe version 3 or 4 I think, definitely before 6) then switched to LR when I got the first version for free (I had a raw editor that Adobe purchased; I forget the name, and Adobe gave us LR for free) and used it for many years. I will say both applications are excellent. I am still probably a little faster with LR, but what I really like about C1–which I don’t see mentioned in any comments here–is its customization of the layout. No, I don’t want to spend forever customizing all my software to make it non-standard. However, LR is terrible–essentially, you can’t change its layout. Yes, it has that second monitor feature, but it is very limited as to what you can put on that second monitor. Plus, if you have more than 2 monitors (I do), your guess is as good as mine as to which of the other ones it decides is the second one–and it doesn’t remember which one you move it to. Tools cannot be moved. C1 allows you to put pretty much any tool anywhere, and ever more than once (handy in some cases where it can show different layouts, like the color editor).
As far as raw processing, I expect both are similar. And yes, I use Photoshop occasionally (I try to avoid it as much as I can, and with the functionality in either C1 or LR I usually can) so I am stuck with paying for both. I’ve not gone with the C1 subscription because I believe the cost was too high. They have a deal now that brings it to around $10/month which is more tolerable and I will consider it. In the past I hadn’t upgraded to every version, although lately I have been doing that more often. I really do like the fact, though, that if I decide to jump off the subscription method I can buy a perpetual license for the current version and use it forever.
I would actually like to have Adobe Illustrator (not related to my photography), but only for very occasional use. A subscription is useless to me, but they provide no other option. So, I do without it.
I have both and stepped back to Lightroom, using C1 only for tethering (better than LR). There is no magic in C1 or superiority that makes you achieve a better result.
1- I don’t like subscription either. The main reason is—let’s say you stopped your subscription and want to open or alter an old file that you shot and edited when you had the subscription. You can’t. So, I find the ‘subscription’ idea very sneaky.
2- You have ‘no subscription’ option with C1, which is good. You have a better ground. You switched to C1, in many respects, it will satisfy your needs (there are some good new features, but file management is better in LR). What are you going to do with Photoshop? C1 substitutes LR, but not PS! You are still dependant on Adobe. Package price is cheaper than paying for both.
The thing I find pathetic with the C1 sales process is that they keep sending out emails offering discounts to get new customers sucked into their product, but for people who own the product they offer an upgrade price higher than the price that they are offering to new customers. For this new version they sent me a discount offer to purchase the Version 12 with a free upgrade to the version 20; so I checked their site to see what they would charge me to upgrade and the upgrade of my current version was almost twice the price of purchasing their new discount version. So it appears that they do not care about current customers since they feel that they can stick it to the current customer; they are only interested in sucking in new customers; I find this practice very repugnant and disrespectful to loyal customers; only con artists do this type of business. The only reason I use the product is for tether shooting. I agree with others on this site that a lot of customers are not speaking out because they don’t want to admit that they feel fleeced by the C1 sales force.
Hi Art. I’ll actually stick up for them (and other software companies) on this one. So imagine you’re a new customer to a software company and you don’t know that every fall they come out with a new version. So let’s say in September or October you buy the software. Then less than 60 days later you’re asked to pay an upgrade fee. You’d be pretty ticked right? And they know customers are hesitant to buy wondering if they’ll just have to pay to upgrade very soon after. So they try to get you in as a customer, giving you the peace of mind that you won’t have to pay to upgrade right away. But you wouldn’t offer that same deal to an existing customer. That customer paid for your software a year ago. And you got a full year’s worth of use out of it. So you got what you paid for. So you really shouldn’t get the upgrade for free, as a new customer who just purchased would.
I disagree, I bought CaptureOne ver. 12 June 30th, 2019 to be exact at a discount and and now they want to charge another “discounted” price for an upgrade ver. 20 (just skip 13-19) they just came out with in December, which means I got less than 6 months use out of the “old” version before they want to charge me another “discounted” price for the supposedly completely new “major” version. Yeah right, I’m definitely not a happy camper. This is my first and last purchase from CaptureOne. I didn’t like Adobe’s subscription pricing, but as many have pointed out I prefer it to paying $220 or more every year or two for a barely upgraded “major” software with a new version number so it can’t be called an incremental upgrade. I definitely feel like I was cheated, but I won’t fall into that trap again. Will definitely encourage everyone I meet to stick to Adobe’s upfront subscription plan. No I don’t have to upgrade and yes I can continue using it, but this is the first software purchase that I’ve made where they did a “major” (not really) upgrade less than 6 months after I purchased it and it’s not included in as a free upgrade. I’m glad I didn’t purchase the pro version so I could use it for my canon files, I would have really felt cheated.
I’ve been a long time LR user (and a real fan), shooting mostly for personal use. Over the last several years, I’ve transitioned my “career” to become a headshot photographer. After seeing other headshot folks use C1, and wanting to have a better tethering solution (before LR updated their software), I took the plunge and purchased C1. So first, both are great products – C1 (IMHO) is more oriented towards the Pro doing studio work – tethering that is rock solid, the ability to view images/control the camera on an iPad or iPhone during a tethered session, color processing/skin retouching is superb (although I still go to PS for really intensive retouching), and built in layers makes processing very easy. Is the RAW processing better? Out of the box, it appears so – however Scott Kelby did a video a while ago showing you can get there with LR. LR seems to have better library management tools, printing tools. Is one better than the other? “Tastes great, less filling” ….in terms of value – you always have the power to choose with your wallet. As you pointed out, PS alone used to cost $700 and LR another ~$200, now you get it all for $240 a year. It’s an incredible value – as photographers, we are so fortunate to have all these choices at a variety of price points, features, etc. – competition is healthy – and the last thing we should want is for every program to be exactly the same – what would be the point?
Hi Barry. You actually get it for $120 a year 🙂
Let me pick out skin retouching… the ability of C1 to dial in the “homogeneity” of skintones is very handy… In fact it’s just about picking a color and adjust the “neighbourhood” of this color to more or less similar colors is awesome…
I’d like to know how to do the same in LR in quite a similar way… any suggestions?
I also remember the good old days, when the only thing I could afford was an Olympus 3 megapixel point and shoot camera and Photoshop Elements 2. Photoshop was something I would aspire to if I won the lottery. Ever year I would fork over another $79 to get an upgrade. For my level of expertise it worked but was not great. Then I bought a Mac and was out another $139 for the Mac version. Later my photography instructor suggested using RAW files and demonstrated Lightroom, I was blown away. Imagine all that organization, searching and processing availability. I could try it free for 30 days and when I discovered I could have an annual subscription for around $10/month that included full blown Photoshop I was sold. I signed up and never looked back. It is a steal! Maybe Adobe will raise the subscription price and if they do I will consider the cost benefits to stick or look for something else but until then I rejoice every time I sit at my Mac and edit my images with the Adobe products.
I use Photoshop / Lightroom and also On1. That’s partly because I like some of the On1 filters/effects and partly because I like the comfort of having software on my own system I can use without an annual fee if I ever decide the Adobe universe no longer works for me. I agree that the $9.99 / month price is a good value, but there’s no guarantee they won’t hike that someday to a level I find unacceptable to pay for my hobby or otherwise change their business model.
Is there a guarantee that any of the others won’t hike the price as well? So you end up going through the hassle of moving your whole library to another system, then they double the price and now all of the work you spent switching is gone, because now you need to switch to something else? I’m not saying any of them will, but the whole “what is they raise the price” question really works across the board right? There’s no guarantee anywhere if you think about it.
I use both C1 and LR. I keep going back to LR as C1 is so very frustrating to use. Both have their advantages but C! goes out of its way to make it very hard to work with. Example: just the other day I tried to create custom tabs in the tool section. No matter what you name it, C1 renames it “1”. If you create 5 tabs you have 5 tabs with the “1” as the name. Sad, because I love how C1 renders raw files. It goes downhill from there in terms of user ease of use. Even sending in a support request is made difficult and cumbersome. When you can finally find where they hid the support login on their website, it requires you to fill in something like 10 fields before you could ask the question, Then you have to sign in again later to read the answer. Every other company I have ever used sends back the answer in an email.
I really think C! believes they they have the superior product over LR and that eventually everyone will see the light, drop LR, and run to them. That will never happen until they get serious about updating their software from being so clunky and non-intuitive. If they truly did that, I wouldn’t mind spending more money on them than LR. C1, at this point, you don’t have the better product though you think you do. If you did then LR would not have the huge share of the market over you. Why not sit down for a moment and ask yourselves why that is?
The only reason I would be tempted to dole out another $210 CDN is because this latest update boasts of improving their horrid crop tool. Why should I pay for something that didn’t work properly in the first place. Wow. And they updated the look of their icons and font!( I thought they already did that two updates ago). Sorry C! but people won’t be flocking to you because you improved things that were clearly dysfunctional in the first place and then you charge us for yet another update.
C! ,the really bad news is that most people only liked you because your tether capture used to be much faster LR. We used you for that alone and then exported images to LR.
That all said, I just noticed that C1 has just updated their support and I have discovered that they have made it easy to submit a request, you don’t need to fill in a ton of fields before submitting, they respond through email, and they answer with a name. Maybe this latest update might be the first of future updates that seriously seeks to develop a product that is user friendly.
“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Steve Jobs
“Example: just the other day I tried to create custom tabs in the tool section. No matter what you name it, C1 renames it “1”. If you create 5 tabs you have 5 tabs with the “1” as the name.”
Erm, no, this isn’t correct. When you create a new tool tab you name it, and then the box next to it that says “ICON” and has a 1 is the icon to represent it on the toolbar. Click that, it drops down, you can select from 1-9, then a hammer, heart, quarter moon, star, sun, hamburger icon, pallet tool, layers, and sunset/sunrise icon.
They all have a “1” next to them because you haven’t changed their icon.
When you hover over a tool set, it’ll show you what you named it.
I’d love to continue using Adobe software but for me the sums don’t add up. I’m 60, in 20 years time when hopefully I’m still doing photography I don’t want to be forced to pay rent on my tools. At some point I’ll want to settle with the tools I have.
The subscription model does not allow me to do this. Period. At least Capture One user have the choice to choose which model works for them.
I’m 72 and still gladly paying for the increasing abilities.
You will never be able to “settle down” with a particular version of anything. Eventually OS system changes WILL obsolete software that pushes the hardware the way the graphics programs do.
The more sophisticated the program the more easily an OS change might break it. Its why many major companies have massively delayed some OS changes. I don’t think there is anything of this nature that you can buy today that won’t eventually get obsoleted.
I was a user of Photoshop since the 1990s, But now as an amateur, I find that for a one off small payment, PhotoScape X Pro does it for me now.
I do not like LR, can’t stand it for one feature that it forces on me. You must use a catalog. If I need LR, I use ACR instead. 🙂
I use C1 considerably more than ACR/PhotoShop. I have a workflow that just works for me with C1.
For focus stacking I use Helicon Focus with a plug-in to C1 (I sometimes stack as many as 50 images with some risk of movement – PS failed me with this were Helicon did not).
I use PS mainly for the harder stuff like near infrared (deep IR is easy to edit in just about any editor), or going further into the art of photography with lots of layers and different brushes and so forth. Really don’t care that I’m paying double the price for having both pieces of software to use because it is the workflow that fits my style for post processing that is important to me.
I used Photoshop from it’s earlier versions (1980s?) and also the pre-Lightroom software program before Adobe bought them out and changed the software name to Lightroom.
I had no problem with the subscription initially (including the US$ to Aus$ Exchange Rate ) until I looked at my automatically payments from my bank account and found:
(1) the payments were not being made to their Australian Office but to their Tax Free office in Ireland;
(2) the bank was charging a fee to send the payments to an overseas account virtually doubling the cost. So I had two reasons to cancel my subscription:
(1) the hidden cost of additional exchange rates when transferring money overseas when it should have been paid to their local office and the exchange rate was supposedly included;
(2) the extra hidden cost in bank charges for transferring payments overseas;
(3) my moral problem with Adobe using tax havens to launder money.
Gary, The foreign currency fee is a blight for sure. It even occurs when the invoice is in AUD but the company’s head office is overseas, as I found out the hard way with Garmin. I got myself a credit card that does not charge these fees, that I use for foreign currency charges and also use it when I travel. Just do a search and you will find a few options.
As for tax havens it is disappointing that large companies all do this. The list of companies that paid minute amounts of tax in Australia this year is substantial. Unfortunately if you did not do business with companies based on their tax avoidance strategies you would severely limit your options. The world we live in I’m sad to say.
Thank you for this Matt.
Well thought out and you saved me from making a big mistake.
Well said, Matt, thank you! A calm voice in the middle of the storm… 🙂
I think the reason you see fewer complaints from C1 users is that there are very few hobbyist photographers using C1. It’s just a business expense, and not a very large one. It’s also a far better RAW processor and can’t be matched for tethering.
Agree on part 1. Disagree on better raw processor. They’re all good. To me there’s nothing quite as smooth and accurate as LR. If there were, I would use it. Don’t get me wrong. C1 is great – probably my next choice after LR. But, at least for my style of photography, LR’s NR and shadow/highlights are work better. At the end of the day they all do the same thing right? Some just feel better for certain photographers, but it doesn’t make them better as a whole.
I use LR/PS combo as well as C1. I like how LR file manages. When I shoot sports I like to use C1 as I find the RAW conversion better and pictures seem sharper. I have done comparisons with LR and C1 as far as sharpness and the difference is noticeable. I do like how LR handles the colours etc with Landscapes. Am I ready to give up on LR? I am like you, if they had PS I would give LR up in a heart beat but they don’t so I keep both. Just my 2 cents
I actually use bother C1 and LR. C1 sucks as a DAM, but I find out of the box without a lot of tweaks, my RAW files come out closer to what I want upon bringing them in to Photoshop. I’m willing to pay for that time saving. So my workflow is C1 for RAW processing, export from that (as 16 bit TIFF) to an auto import folder on LR, and then go to and from Photoshop from LR.
Matt, Thanks so much for your honest and objective assessments about the current status of photo-editing software. Your insight is as refreshing as it informative. Keep it coming. Your educational material reflects that, and I own just about everything you offer. The next time I’m in Tampa, dinner is on me.
I use Photoshop with Luminar and ON1 plugged in. It works beautifully and allows me to switch between and combine all three platforms. Capture One isn’t even competitive in my humble opinion.
The replies shown the one consistent thing about Capture One. It’s users have signed an oath to vocally justify their purchase in the face of all logic. It’s actually quite humorous, just say ‘Lightroom’ and ‘Subscription Model’ in the same sentence and watch the fly to their keyboards.
Lol!
Nice call-out. Capture 1 users are so tiresome. I wonder if they, as a group, are so vocal trying to justify the over-priced software they stuck themselves with. I looked at it once,seems it’s more for pixel-peepers than photographers.
Good sensible blog. I own both as subscriptions. Cheaper and updates are free. I mainly use LRCC Classic but shoot tethered so much that C1 is a must-have for me….at least until LRCC makes a more robust tethering update. They’re both great programs and can do more than almost any of their users will ever do.
Long time LR/PS subscriber. However, I prefer the control Capture One provides and haven’t use LR in years. Perhaps LR’s many new features are a catch-up?
Did you not see the comparison chart…
I began using Photoshop nearly 30 years ago and faithfully upgraded every year or two. That all stopped when Adobe began renting their software. It will be a cold day in Hell before I spend one cent renting software.
I still use Photoshop CS 5.1 for whatever I can’t do in On1 Photo RAW. The downside is that I can’t upgrade my iMac’s operating system since Photoshop will stop working completely, which is causing issues with other software.
I’m just treading water until I can rely on other software and delete EVERYTHING with the word Adobe on it from my computer.
Woo, woo! At last, someone with the **lls to call out the hypocrisy of the “no, we don’t have a subscription model – we just nudge you into upgrading your software every year” vendors. Way to go, Matt!
Yes, of course, you can choose not to upgrade your “purchased” software. The reality is that many people do, just because they can’t stand that feeling of being left out when new features are released (whether they actually need them or not). Likely the same folks who are forever upgrading their equipment, but rarely proficient at actually using it.
Incidentally, I put “purchased” in quotes because you don’t purchase software, neither do you own it. You purchase a license that entitles you to use it. The only difference between “buying” and “renting” software is the license duration – a month, a year, or for perpetuity. And, of course, the perpetual license comes with a perpetual set of features and limitations . . . . .
Now, all we need is for someone to post this thread somewhere in the dpreview forums. Then we’ll see the fur fly!
I love the RAW editor in C1. Except for their implementation of luminosity masks, which are basically Blend-If applied to the lower layer. Meh. But I absolutely hate their Digital Asset Management. They got variants (LR virtual copies) ALL WRONG. You can’t flag them as picks. You have to be careful about editing the one you have selected vs. all virtual copies. You can’t split them across collections (albums) unless by star rating or color flag, a big restriction (You end up looking at all your virtual copies all the time). If you are project-based as I am, these restrictions are a nightmare. Now, I never shoot tethered, so I really can’t comment on sessions, except to say that the Move to Selects folder command moves the underlying source file, which is a big no-no for people like me who design filesystems to hold their photos.
So I’ve gotta say LR supports my project workflow a whole lot better. I input using Photo Mechanic, import new folders into LR, make different collections for each project, control output for each project basically by hand, though I wrote my own LR plugin to automate a lot of it. Thanks for listening.
BTW Matt, I’ve watched or bought just about all the videos you’ve done. Well done, but try to stay away from hate and haters. It just lowers the level of discourse.
I use LIghtroom and Photoshop to manage over 100K photos, about half that I took and half historic images, since I write books on the history of the Lake Erie Islands. So I have complex demands for photo tools and writing tools. While most of my books until 2016 were done in MS Word, I used the Blurb photo book tool integrated into Lightroom for a coffee table pictorial history book that I wrote in 2016 and that integration helped dramatically, since I could touch up photos in Lightroom and have the change automatically appear in the book. This year I started work on a new book that neither MS Word nor Blurb/Lightroom worked well for. I also tried the stand-alone Blurb tool but it didn’t work for me either. So where did I find the more flexible layout tools I needed? They were in Adobe InDesign, which was very, very easy to learn to use after my Lightroom and Photoshop experience. I had the subscription to the entire suite but this was the first time I needed the layout flexibility of Photoshop within each page of a book, and Adobe was there for me. I use half a dozen Lightroom plug-ins that I love and couldn’t live without, so you really need to look at an entire environment that can grow with your needs. Only Adobe does that for me.
I have only looked at Capture One and never used it, but I do use Lightroom/Photoshop. Maybe there are just more people that comment (negatively) about Lightroom because there are more of them using Lightroom vs. Capture One. Or maybe the Capture One users are just nicer people. That being said, I haven’t complained about Adobe and if it gets to a place where I am not happy with it, I will look for another program. But even then I won’t complain – just move on.
I have used LR since it came out and do not see myself switching any time in the future, I started using Bibble Raw software at first but switched as soon as LR evolved. It is well worth the price and convenience.
Like you I have used Lightroom since its inception, and before that the software they bought out which was designed and developed by photographer Martin Evening and some other guys. I cant remember what that software was called, but it paved the way for Lightroom. I have stuck with Lightroom over the years because it is what I know. I have tried C1, On1 P/Raw, Affinity and others but I always come back to LR because quite simply I can get things done quicker because I know it. Admittedly I do use On1 P/Raw 2020 because it also gives me a simple layer function that works the way I want it to but all my initial raw editing is done in LR first. And as Matt has said I always have the latest version, available immediately via automatic download.
That cost is misleading, I am on their subscription and use the Fuji Pro Plan. My cost per year is $89.10. If you use Sony (or Fuji) exclusively as your camera system there is no need to get the full Pro subscription. I still subscribe to the Adobe world as I need it for their other Cloud programs and yes I use LR for my Analog film scans with the plugin Negative Lab Pro. So I’m paying 60+ bucks a month for the full Adobe CC, but for me, I enjoy how C1 makes my Fuji files so I chose to pay for C1 even though I could use LR since I’m already paying for it…I also use QImage Ultimate for printing even though both LR and C1 have good printing modules.
Hopefully you jumped on the Black Friday special. $29.99 a month for the year. And of course next year they’ll most likely do the same thing.
Matt, although your cost comparison is valid for someone who wants to stay on the leading edge of software evolution with either LR or C1P, you left out one important point. Once I pay for C1P, I can use it in perpetuity without ever paying another penny. That’s not the case with LR and Adobe’s software rental program. Both applications have reached the point of only incremental improvements as they continue to minimally evolve. Unless you purchase a new camera that isn’t supported, it’s hard to justify an upgrade on either product. Given that, I’d much prefer to purchase a particular version only when necessary, and not pay a monthly penalty for the privilege of using it.
Hi Teddy. I understand that you can use your purchased version in perpetuity but what does that really get you? For starters, while you “can” we all know you “won’t”. Maybe you will, but again… we all know the vast majority of the people will not. Like I said… like it or not, you’re on a yearly subscription. You just don’t want to call it that.
Having worked in the Far East in the business software industry for two decades, I got a kick out of some your responses to your excellent points about licensing. It has been commonplace for Japanese and Korean companies to license and pay maintenance on single releases of software and go to extraordinary lengths to avoid moving to the current releases.
Unlike PC/Mac users, they do so since they go crazy using APIs to hook in a wide array of custom code. To upgrade would mean making too many changes. But the parallel may be that personal computer users often get too fixed in their workflows even if they rationalize everything in perceived frugality.
In any case, these Asian corporations have gigantic (expensive) in-house IS departments mostly dedicated to maintaining systems with most resources invested in regression testing to keep essentially mountains of spaghetti code from crashing. To me, those cases are the penultimate examples of stick-in-the-mud thinking. Our photographers sometimes seem to mimic some of that thinking on humble levels.
(By the way, while LR/PS remains the core of my workflow, for the past six months I have been using DXO PhotoLab for the RAW conversion for selected files. I have noticed the snap in resolution with DXO with many files that Adobe fails to offer.)
I guess if you also use your current camera in perpetuity and lock yourself into yesterday’s features in perpetuity…
Not gonna lie, I LOLed at “Peta-Stoppers”. Good one 🙂
🙂
Matt, Thanks for comparing the two programs and their costs. Good information.
As an LR/PS user I largely agree with your take on this. One thing I understand that C1 excels at, however, is tethered capture. Since I don’t use it, this is purely academic for me. I’d appreciate your take on this issue. You’d think Adobe would want to supercharge their efforts here.
It used to excel more but Adobe has made big leaps for Nikon and Canon. Sony shooters still have to use C1. But as you said, it’s academic. I’d bet that less than 5% of C1’s user actually need tethering. Remember that tethered shooting is a very “Pro” like feature. Most enthusiasts and hobbyists don’t need it. And the vast majority of people buying photography software are enthusiasts, prosumers, and hobbyists – not professional working photographers.