As I stated before, I'm a big fan of free open source software.

But I wanted to give a try on commercial software, so I tested and even purchased some products in the last couple of months.

Based on that, I'd like to share my experience.

1) Lightroom Classic CC / Photoshop CC

Right, It is a solid package but I felt it somewhat "domodeè": You get Lightroom, which is pretty fast, but it lacks many modern editing features like masks, layers and so on. The main idea is that you do basic developing and then go to Photoshop for some of the shots.

As an amateur photograph with THREE kids and THREE jobs, I don't have the time for that, so I let the try time wear off, and uninstalled the software.

2) Luminar 3

Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE.

REALLY, DON'T

EVER

It is buggy, very buggy... what is worst, Skylum believes that bugs are "features".

For example: lens correction doesn't work for Sony cameras, geometric transformations (horizontal level, perspective, etc.) don't affect masks (WHAA...!?), switching from a photograph to the next can take MINUTES, RAM can get exhausted and the whole PC can crash, etc.

I couldn't finish a single workflow... it crashes, hangs, freezes, goes to sleep, does strange things, etc.

Maybe, in a couple of years, Skylum will succeed in making work Luminar just right... or not.

3) ON1 2019.2

This package is great! It has everything you could want: layers, masks, AI, masks, preset, a damn good DAM, HDR merge, panorama merge, focus stacking... etc., etc., etc.

And etc.

And then, etc.

Only drawback I've found: it's a little slow... it takes about 2 - 3 seconds to switch photos. (Note: I have a high end engineering workstation with an i7-7200 CPU, 32 GB GDDR3 RAM, 2 TB SSD and a nVidia GTX 1060 GPU)

Nevertheless I've purchased ON1, and I'll be using it for most of my workflow.

Price: (limited time) $69 for 5 PC.

4) Capture One Pro 12

This software is FAAST!

Let me rephrase that... it is GODDAM F*K#NG FAA-AST !!!

I've found my self switching photos from a folder and doing micro adjustments to give them the same look, and there is no delay... NONE WHATSOEVER It is so natural that I even noticed that I was going back and forth with the photos from the same shootout.

As a test, I've done a 200+ photos PP (culling, adjusting, cropping, exporting) in less than ONE hour!

The export quality is also excellent.

Also the color adjustment features are unique.

Drawback: the DAM lacks HDR, Pano, etc...

I've also purchased this software, because of it sheer performance and color adjustment features!!

Tip: the Capture ONE Pro 12 for Sony is only for $109 for a limited time.

So from now on:

a) I'm using ON1 when I need to merge shots (HDR, Pano, etc.) and do fancy filter effects.
b) I'm, using Capture One when I want to develop develop a shootout very quickly with excellent results.

Hope this helps.

Best regards.

As I stated before, I'm a big fan of free open source software.

But I wanted to give a try on commercial software, so I tested and even purchased some products in the last couple of months.

Based on that, I'd like to share my experience.

1) Lightroom Classic CC / Photoshop CC

Right, It is a solid package but I felt it somewhat "domodeè": You get Lightroom, which is pretty fast, but it lacks many modern editing features like masks, layers and so on. The main idea is that you do basic developing and then go to Photoshop for some of the shots.

As an amateur photograph with THREE kids and THREE jobs, I don't have the time for that, so I let the try time wear off, and uninstalled the software.

2) Luminar 3

Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE.

REALLY, DON'T

EVER

It is buggy, very buggy... what is worst, Skylum believes that bugs are "features".

For example: lens correction doesn't work for Sony cameras, geometric transformations (horizontal level, perspective, etc.) don't affect masks (WHAA...!?), switching from a photograph to the next can take MINUTES, RAM can get exhausted and the whole PC can crash, etc.

I couldn't finish a single workflow... it crashes, hangs, freezes, goes to sleep, does strange things, etc.

Maybe, in a couple of years, Skylum will succeed in making work Luminar just right... or not.

3) ON1 2019.2

This package is great! It has everything you could want: layers, masks, AI, masks, preset, a damn good DAM, HDR merge, panorama merge, focus stacking... etc., etc., etc.

And etc.

And then, etc.

Only drawback I've found: it's a little slow... it takes about 2 - 3 seconds to switch photos. (Note: I have a high end engineering workstation with an i7-7200 CPU, 32 GB GDDR3 RAM, 2 TB SSD and a nVidia GTX 1060 GPU)

Nevertheless I've purchased ON1, and I'll be using it for most of my workflow.

Price: (limited time) $69 for 5 PC.

4) Capture One Pro 12

This software is FAAST!

Let me rephrase that... it is GODDAM F*K#NG FAA-AST !!!

I've found my self switching photos from a folder and doing micro adjustments to give them the same look, and there is no delay... NONE WHATSOEVER It is so natural that I even noticed that I was going back and forth with the photos from the same shootout.

As a test, I've done a 200+ photos PP (culling, adjusting, cropping, exporting) in less than ONE hour!

The export quality is also excellent.

Also the color adjustment features are unique.

Drawback: the DAM lacks HDR, Pano, etc...

I've also purchased this software, because of it sheer performance and color adjustment features!!

Tip: the Capture ONE Pro 12 for Sony is only for $109 for a limited time.

So from now on:

a) I'm using ON1 when I need to merge shots (HDR, Pano, etc.) and do fancy filter effects.
b) I'm, using Capture One when I want to develop develop a shootout very quickly with excellent results.

Hope this helps.

Best regards.

As I stated before, I'm a big fan of free open source software.

But I wanted to give a try on commercial software, so I tested and even purchased some products in the last couple of months.

Based on that, I'd like to share my experience.

1) Lightroom Classic CC / Photoshop CC

Right, It is a solid package but I felt it somewhat "domodeè": You get Lightroom, which is pretty fast, but it lacks many modern editing features like masks, layers and so on. The main idea is that you do basic developing and then go to Photoshop for some of the shots.

As an amateur photograph with THREE kids and THREE jobs, I don't have the time for that, so I let the try time wear off, and uninstalled the software.

2) Luminar 3

Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE.

REALLY, DON'T

EVER

It is buggy, very buggy... what is worst, Skylum believes that bugs are "features".

For example: lens correction doesn't work for Sony cameras, geometric transformations (horizontal level, perspective, etc.) don't affect masks (WHAA...!?), switching from a photograph to the next can take MINUTES, RAM can get exhausted and the whole PC can crash, etc.

I couldn't finish a single workflow... it crashes, hangs, freezes, goes to sleep, does strange things, etc.

Maybe, in a couple of years, Skylum will succeed in making work Luminar just right... or not.

3) ON1 2019.2

This package is great! It has everything you could want: layers, masks, AI, masks, preset, a damn good DAM, HDR merge, panorama merge, focus stacking... etc., etc., etc.

And etc.

And then, etc.

Only drawback I've found: it's a little slow... it takes about 2 - 3 seconds to switch photos. (Note: I have a high end engineering workstation with an i7-7200 CPU, 32 GB GDDR3 RAM, 2 TB SSD and a nVidia GTX 1060 GPU)

Nevertheless I've purchased ON1, and I'll be using it for most of my workflow.

Price: (limited time) $69 for 5 PC.

4) Capture One Pro 12

This software is FAAST!

Let me rephrase that... it is GODDAM F*K#NG FAA-AST !!!

I've found my self switching photos from a folder and doing micro adjustments to give them the same look, and there is no delay... NONE WHATSOEVER It is so natural that I even noticed that I was going back and forth with the photos from the same shootout.

As a test, I've done a 200+ photos PP (culling, adjusting, cropping, exporting) in less than ONE hour!

The export quality is also excellent.

Also the color adjustment features are unique.

Drawback: the DAM lacks HDR, Pano, etc...

I've also purchased this software, because of it sheer performance and color adjustment features!!

Tip: the Capture ONE Pro 12 for Sony is only for $109 for a limited time.

So from now on:

a) I'm using ON1 when I need to merge shots (HDR, Pano, etc.) and do fancy filter effects.
b) I'm, using Capture One when I want to develop develop a shootout very quickly with excellent results.

Hope this helps.

Best regards.

I'm a Lightroom/Photoshop user. I don't have time to try out other software because (1) LR/PS works for me and (2) it generally takes me more than a 30 day trial to get me familiar enough to evaluate some piece of software.

No, LR does not have layers and pixel level editing. It comes close with some tools but it's not PS. PS has a significant learning curve.
LR also has a learning curve, but (in my opinion) the editing part is pretty intuitive (for what it does). The reason I use LR is for the organizational aspect of the software. Once I exceeded 10,000 images in my photopile I found it necessary to have help in locating things I wanted to go back to. LR makes it easy to add keywords for searches and allows you to group photos in collections without duplicating files.

If you're an amateur with a low frame rate, it's probably not necessary to have the organizational tools. But with age, my memory becomes more completely digital.

just for further information. you did not mention managing your library of photos. maybe your don't need that yet. but if you continue taking photos, eventually you will forget when you took what photo and will look for a cataloging program. this was why I originally got into lightroom. before it was an awesome editor of photos that did not alter the origional photo at all.

Not saying you should use it. but it is excellent at cataloging photos and excellent at 95% of the things you want to edit a photo for. with only one application to learn. photoshop is nice, but complicated for me and I only use it for 2 or 3 things a small percentage of the time.

since I have never used capture I have zero knowledge of that software so have no comment on it except that many people seem to like it.