Julian Loc: Sarasota, FL

In my experience, the 30-day trial of Capture One trial was not sufficient to become half way proficient with its use. I wanted to learn, practice and watch as many tutorials as possible, which by the way are excellent; as a result, I simply ran out of trial time so I purchased a one month subscription for $24. This was a motivator to spend even more time practicing. I feel more comfortable with its use now so I became a full time subscriber. So far so good.

dandev Loc: Enumclaw, WA

I switched to Capture One from Lightroom in January. I think the results are better - specifically around color. But I do believe you can get similar results from other programs.

These are complex software packages that are hard to fully evaluate in 30 days. Over the Christmas break, I downloaded trials of Capture One, ON1, Luminar and a few others. It made me a bit crazy.

After buying Capture One, I went back and forth on whether I made the right decision. 6 months - and a lot of tutorials later - I am happy with the decision. I do miss some of the LR features - especially around exporting to SmugMug.

I am still learning Capture One. I work on a photo - get stuck - watch a tutorial - and carry on.

As for pricing - many of us don't even blink to spend $3K on a camera or $2K for a lens. But $300 for software seems horrible. :)

dino21 Loc: McAllen, TX

For me....Tried them all, Capture One gave me what I wanted. But I am not a photo geek. I just know it was actually easiest for me and gave me pictures that I was able to enhance to my liking without giving it that phoney, fake look that I despise.

gilpog

I vote for Affinity Photo; $50 for a one time cost and a superb program. I have now used it for a year and am glad I cancelled my PS subscription.

dandev Loc: Enumclaw, WA

I also use Affinity in conjunction with Capture One. Capture One is my raw editor and asset manager. I use Affinity for removing objects, compositing, and frequency separation which is great for portraits.

I like Affinity a lot. But I prefer the Capture One (C1) raw editor. When I got Affinity, I went back to Photoshop a few times. But now I just use C1 and Affinity. I also use Photomatix for HDR. And Photo Mechanics for upfront sorting when I do large photo shoots. It's a big timesaver.

Affinity just had an update.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Not everyone has that half hour per day for the evaluation. Some have jobs and families and are not full time photographers. As to how much time is needed, that will depend on the person. Some learn faster than others. We see posts about people trying to get a handle on Lightroom for months, while others find it completely intuitive.

The problem is multiplied if you are trying to compare two or more programs.

So it might be more effective not to try evaluating a program based on what it can do, but evaluate it based on whether you can get your head around the process involved.

chapjohn Loc: Tigard, Oregon

I use Capture One Pro (Sony) and Zoner Photo Studio. ZPS is good and easy to use. You might want to give ZPS a chance.

Minx Loc: Vermont

I too read about the Adobe change... I have worked w/ Matt Kloskowski to help educate myself in photography and I asked him..."what the heck?" Apparently so did a lot of his followers. So he put together a free download about changing out of Adobe and into other options. It's called "Thinking of Switching from Adobe" or close to that. It's free and he goes through several options...seems to be very thorough and does not cater to any one of them. I found it informative and maybe you would too. A lot of what is said here on UUG is correct that the other options aren't as "complete" as Adobe, but it's all "personal" and what works for you. Hope this free download helps clear things up.

Bill P

Here's the best advice anyone can give you:

DON'T WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEOS.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

I tried them both for a year after Apple announced the End of Aperture.  😢 RIP. Ironically Aperture still works...

But I digress. I liked the way C1 rendered raw images. They had more “snap” right off and because of raw editing took less time than with LR or PS. But Ultimately I went with Adobe CC because I bought a new camera and Phase One was requiring me to pay for an update to get raw support less than a year after I purchased the program! That rubbed me the wrong way. In the meantime Adobe pushed out A free update to ACR that included my new camera. So I stopped using C1 then and I haven’t looked back. I have been happy with the Adobe Photographers plan. I will renew agin this year when it comes due.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I use two combos, Lightroom/Photoshop and CaptureOne/Affinity Photo. Both have pros and cons.

I prefer Affinity Photo over Photoshop BUT haven't decided which of Lightroom or CaptureOne I prefer. Lightroom does have a slightly more extensive tool kit; however, it is quite possible I simply haven't found the comparable tool in CaptureOne.

bwa

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

Reading, perhaps too quickly, the posts before this, I did not see a mention of "sessions" in C1.

I'm a contrarian in that I don't want to use a catalog such as you must use in LR. I know that I'm not in the majority here. I prefer to use the native file system of the computer. I do not "import" stuff I don't intend to work with. I review and select (AKA cull) using FastRawViewer and recommend it highly.

I found the LR catalog to be oversized, corruptible, easy to lose altogether during a Windows update, etc. I also had a hard time doing just single edits with LR because it really is catalog based.

When I've reduced all the chaff to a little worthwhile wheat I put them in a small sub-folder, labeled appropriately. The parent folder can have any name including an event, a date or a subject. I can also "tag" files and folders and even add key words. I can do all of this in either Mac or Windows. C1 puts its session folder where you tell it too. I like to put it in the working file of images to be edited.

Then I can open just that folder with either FRV or C1. I can also open a single image directly from FRV using any of a number of user-specified applications which includes C1. That's a session in C1. I can have multiple sessions.

Sessions do not move files but they store file-specific data so that you can come back to work on the image from where you left off. You can also start a new "variant" without touching the current one. Both are retained.

btw: FRV can pass its adjustments to LR, just in case you want to. So you can still use it BEFORE importing files to LR. You can cull and adjust and then switch to LR and import. C1 does not, yet, recognize those xmp files but I don't care.

I don't have a master catalog but my Mac's Finder application can find stuff very, very well and very, very quickly. I doubt that LR can match that. I know Windows 10 doesn't come close on speed because I have both. LR uses a version of a "database" that is used in many applications so it needs its own code to find stuff, can't use the native file system for speed.

Your workflow may depend on a huge master catalog and if so, LR vs C1 may be a moot point. If sessions appeal to you, consider C1. I started with the free Sony version and now I have the Sony Pro version for which I paid extra and all I got was the ability to do sessions.

Another btw: sessions were originally designed for "tethered" shooting which is what studio work can take advantage of. It's not useful to me but C1 does it quite well as a result of having a purpose-designed mode.

Haydon

CaptureOne has one unique advantage over Lightroom. It's tethering software is unsurpassed.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I doubt you're in the minority on this. I use Lightroom and CaptureOne primarily for selective fast postprocessing of images and seldom retain anything in a 'catalog'. In fact, in my introductory course on Lightroom I highly recommend using the computer's file system for initial 'cataloging' of images.

bwa

rochephoto

Actually, you can seamlessly transition your Lightroom catalogs to CaptureOne. You would know that if you ever tried it. I have been the business since 1982 and in the digital age and I don't know a single Advertising Photographer that doesn't use CaptureOne as their sole raw processor. In fact, many of my corporate clients require me to use it.