LR is just a piece of software, and so is C1. They do almost the same thing as LR has done for me for the last ten years (with hardly any real novelties to the user experience and interface). C1 is slightly more advanced and indeed loads a preset (aren’t you preset sellers?), which is good enough and in my view better than “Adobe Color”. Indeed, LR doesn’t load the native profile either for Nikon, only Capture NX-D does it and that’s the rendering I prefer, but that software is plain bad. Also, as with other Creative Suite programs, LR is bloated, unintuitive, and overcomplicated. I don’t want hundreds of ways to load a RAW image and thousands of presets. Just one and a couple of film simulations, that’s just fine, and C1 got it right.

For my workflow, C1 is three to four times more efficient and faster, although I have ten years of experience in using Adobe products. Despite your fanboy words, I still dislike their price plan and subscription model, and I don’t like PS at all, so as soon as I have no educational discount, I’m forever out of their ecosystem. If the open source programs become just a little bit better, I might even give those a try, but for now C1 suits my needs and I would recommend anybody who can get it at a discount price to give it a try. Generally with software I buy, I skip one or two upgrades before buying a new license. That way, some software lasts long enough, and there are no surprises and there’s not the feeling that the company is taxing away your hard work. Costs are sunk, we only have to use it and get the most out of it. Note that C1 is also selling stupid presets, and also offers a subscription model, so probably one day it will become just as annoying as LR and their gospels.

I’ll start with cost. Affinity Photo costs $50. C1 costs $299 for a perpetual license, upgrades are now $149 (or less). Total cost of ownership when starting fresh: $349. I have owned and used both for a few years now. I only spent $120 to upgrade to v20 of C1 (my upgrade was discounted). So total cost for next year will be the same for me as Adobe LR/PS.

What does Capture One do well? Customizing UI for your workflow, and output(s), better color management and better RAW rendering. Yes you can tweak a bunch of stuff in Lightroom to make the image look very similar and then claim “It’s the same”, but it isn’t and never will be the same simply because they both have different render engines. LR is excellent don’t get me wrong but when you get down to examining color gradients, and skin tonality C1 does it better and makes those changes easier to manipulate. Editing your RAW images with the layers implementation in C1 is very handy and is all about manipulating colors, tones, and sharpness. It’s not a full Photoshop replacement, but it does support all kinds of masking, and even clone & heal all on the RAW level.

What does Affinity Photo do well? Immediate feedback while using brushes, built in frequency separation tool, and supports many PS plugins. It doesn’t edit video, it doesn’t edit 3d objects, but it does edit images and has all the tools needed to do so. (Honestly, even if you are a LR/PS user I’d recommend buying it, it’s inexpensive and works very well) While I don’t think it will ever become a Photoshop killer, or do everything Photoshop does I can say that for your standard photographer it will do everything you need.

OOPS, I meant Capture 1!

Anyone that pays retail for anything, including software, deserves what they get. So no one is going to pay $450 for Capture One over a twelve-month period.

And that’s really the point, one that has always been completely ignored by Adobe and all of its shills. When an upgrade comes out, you make a value judgment. If the new features are worth the price of the upgrade, you upgrade. If they’re not, you don’t. But you have a *choice*. If you want to wait for the next upgrade, or the next one, you can. But you get to decide, and you get to continue using the product even if you decide to skip an upgrade.

You have no choice with Adobe. You keep on paying the $120/year regardless of the value delivered. (And I heartily disagree with the idea that Adobe is delivering great value. They are not.)

The audience for this wasn’t people thinking about C1. It was for LR/PS die-hards who want to feel better about themselves for sticking with Adobe. Mission accomplished.

(I’m not a C1 user. I still use LR6. I haven’t switched because I don’t *need* to switch, and Adobe hasn’t delivered enough value to get me to rent their software. When I move to Catalina, I will switch, but it may or may not be to C1.)

Best I could find was either On1 Photo Raw or Photoshop Elements (he doesn’t mind a one time fee of about $100).

Anything I overlooked?