p.1 #1Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
What would you choose if you had to re-learn the software but still had the wisdom from experience?
Picking photography back up as a hobby after ~8 years, and I'm wondering what I should pick up. Primarily for DAM and basic editing for an amateur/hobbyist taking travel and day-to-day photos.
Capture One's optional single purchase licensing model is significantly more appealing than Adobe's indefinite subscription, but I'm curious on others' experience with the learning curve - especially those not using it professionally.
p.1 #2Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
I purchased C1 and rent adobe. I prefer C1 to adobe ACR, I find for myself, I can pull more out of the Raw file with C1. I have been using PS for decades and use it to make final adjustments and output. As a long time PS user I pay yearly and it work out to $10.00 month and Adobe has been pretty good to keep the price reasonable over the years. I never really tried Lightroom.
Find what works for you, most software seller usually offer a free trial period.
p.1 #3Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
For DAM quite likely Adobe LR. Kind of a swiss knife for editing. Subscription licensing.
Cheaper on a yearly base. Allows to be combined with 1 yr prepaid subscriptions from stores like newegg, B&H and Amazon. That's the cheapest way, when on sale. Newegg had great deals on black friday.
Capture One is my favorite. subscription and perpetual.
Focusing on Studio and fashion. Pricing is pretty steep. I will get a perpetual license, and will upgrade in a few years, in case some new features interesting for me will be integrated.
DXO Photolab. They just introduced their new version, yearly perpetual. payment yearly or in 4 quarters.
Capture One has the lowest Minimum System Requirements. Very fast on my windows 11 notebook.
p.1 #4Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
DXO does not offer a subscription, strictly perpetual. I haven’t upgraded for 2 years and my version still works just fine. I do plan to upgrade to PL 10.
p.1 #5Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
C1 has a higher learning curve but its editing capabilities can allow for extensive detail adjustments. LR without question has the best DAM and its current editing capability is darn good. Yeah it's subscription but at the cost equivalent of only 2 starbucks coffees a month it isn't a financial burden. For that you continually get updates which they do on a 1-2 month basis which has revealed quite a few new options along with improvements over the last couple of years.
p.1 #6Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
Alan4color wrote:
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Find what works for you, most software seller usually offer a free trial period.
I definitely plan on giving the trials a spin to see what the initial experience is like for both... once I can find a weekend with enough free time haha
p.1 #7Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
pete478888 wrote:
For DAM quite likely Adobe LR. Kind of a swiss knife for editing. Subscription licensing.
Cheaper on a yearly base. Allows to be combined with 1 yr prepaid subscriptions from stores like newegg, B&H and Amazon. That's the cheapest way, when on sale. Newegg had great deals on black friday.
...
Thanks for the tip on the sales from other stores! I looked up some past sales, and that's a significant discount - I'll have to see if it's possible to buy multiple years at a time that way.
p.1 #8Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
schlotz wrote:
C1 has a higher learning curve but its editing capabilities can allow for extensive detail adjustments. LR without question has the best DAM and its current editing capability is darn good. Yeah it's subscription but at the cost equivalent of only 2 starbucks coffees a month it isn't a financial burden. For that you continually get updates which they do on a 1-2 month basis which has revealed quite a few new options along with improvements over the last couple of years.
Good point on the relative cost of the subscription. It wouldn't be the only one in my life and definitely not the most expensive - even at full price.
p.1 #9Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
ephi518 wrote:
What would you choose if you had to re-learn the software but still had the wisdom from experience?
Picking photography back up as a hobby after ~8 years, and I'm wondering what I should pick up. Primarily for DAM and basic editing for an amateur/hobbyist taking travel and day-to-day photos.
Capture One's optional single purchase licensing model is significantly more appealing than Adobe's indefinite subscription, but I'm curious on others' experience with the learning curve - especially those not using it professionally.
If I were in that position I would go straight to Lightroom. It is a very solid product, widely used, and there are tons of tutorials and other aids to learning your way around it. In addition, it is the most widely used post processing (and cataloging) tool out there. It also comes with access to several other useful tools, including Adobe Camera Raw, Bridge, and Photoshop should you want to do more.
The (arguable) pluses and minuses of other options and the debates about them are not for people getting started with this.
On the other hand, if your needs are extremely basic (you don’t print or plan to do much serious post-processing) you could first try whatever software comes with your camera. For some people that is enough.
I was very resistant to the subscription concept early on, but in reality it has worked very well. And the cost of the subscriptions is no more than the costs of paying for the periodic upgrades to the programs where you purchase a license. On top of that, Adobe is very good about updating and enhancing their software.
(My personal workflow is based on Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, and Photoshop. I’m not a big LR user myself. But virtually every other photographer I know, including some fairly well-known folks, uses Lightroom.)
p.1 #10Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
Nothing does more than the LR/PS photography combo and there's no better deal in the industry IMO.
Sure, go pay for your "perpetual" license of another program...that magically doesn't support new cameras next year, requiring you to buy ANOTHER, NEWER "perpetual" license. Play that game a few times and Adobe looks cheap suddenly.
p.1 #11Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
I never liked the LR interface and have used C1 for more than a dozen years. I create a new session with the clients name or subject, create a recipe that's applied to each image and delete the unusable files to prevent unnecessary use of storage space. I've used Photoshop since '94 when it was multiple floppy discs and saved my work with Zip drive. I have the PS/LR monthly subscription and own C1.
p.1 #12Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
The thing about preferred interface is pretty tricky, and doubly so for people who are new to this.
First, interface preferences are very subjective. Some people will love and some dislike the interface of just about any application. So it is extremely hard to draw conclusions that apply personally from this.
Second, we tend to base our ideas about ideal interfaces on interfaces with which we are familiar.Let’s say that a person heard that Product A was better than Product B early on, so they bought Product A. It took a while to come up to speed on Product A, but eventually they learned and adapted to that system. At this point, if you put Product B in front of them they would be even more convinced that Product A’s interface is better… because it is now the norm against which they measure other interfaces AND because all of the others are unfamiliar.
There’s a bit of good news hiding behind all that jargon — no matter which interface you end up with (and no matter what anyone else says about it) the odds are extremely good that after you learn it and use it for a while it will become intuitive and natural.
All of this is to say that you need to be quite careful about buying into the notion that any one app has an objectively better interface overall than the others.
p.1 #13Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
I was a long time advocate of a C1 to PS workflow. But recently decided to eliminate the C1 subscription and learn to live with ACR, since I don’t care for the LRc interface. Anyway, short version is ACR to PS workflow is fine. C1 stand alone is NOT advised because of the frequency of their updates, and you end up paying as much or more and generally are behind the curve. Not only that, C1 is a very cumbersome UI to learn; a lot of power, but not very intuitive. ACR/LRc are definitely easier and more intuitive to learn. Hence, I think the Adobe photo package subscription is pretty clearly the best value period, especially if you use PS at all. Other raw software may do some things better, but I’m not convinced the benefits outweigh the costs for a lot of us over ACR/LRc unless you know specifically for yourself you want whatever the potential gain.
p.1 #14Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
If I were starting over today, LR, no doubt. As a DAM, it's the standard. Easy to use, and a stable platform. As an editor, it has matured to the point that it really does 99% of what 99% of images need. At this point I'm kind of frustrated that I started in PS before LR came along and so still find myself straddling both. I should tell myself that I'm going to use LR only for 6 months and see where I am. Anyway, I've tried C1, several times, and there just isn't enough there that is unique to make we walk away from Adobe.
p.1 #15Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
No simple answer but opinions often are based around purchase vs subscription. Trying to the work out the actual cost really depends on if you want to keep the software on the latest release and how long updates are discounted for. Volume of images being edited, whether the software layout works for you and how in depth your edits are can only be decided by your needs using the trials offered. Debates on which has the best output always seem a bit silly to me as I have no doubt any of the well known options can produce great results by someone who has taken the time to really get to know the software.
p.1 #16Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
Heh. I have tried more than once to move from PS to LR but always come back to Bridge/ACR/PS. ( not recommending that for our OP.)
Todd Warnke wrote:
If I were starting over today, LR, no doubt. As a DAM, it's the standard. Easy to use, and a stable platform. As an editor, it has matured to the point that it really does 99% of what 99% of images need. At this point I'm kind of frustrated that I started in PS before LR came along and so still find myself straddling both. I should tell myself that I'm going to use LR only for 6 months and see where I am. Anyway, I've tried C1, several times, and there just isn't enough there that is unique to make we walk away from Adobe....Show more →
p.1 #17Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
I do too much in PS to let it go. I’m not a fan of catalogs primarily because they don’t suit my historical image database structure, and I’m too lazy to do the reorganization. Which is why I use ACR instead of LRc.
But to the OP’s question, were I starting over, I would undoubtedly do LRc and PS.
p.1 #18Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
Really appreciate everyone sharing their experience. I'll trial Lightroom first and see if it clicks for me - sounds like there's good reason it's the default choice for many.
p.1 #19Fresh start - Lightroom, Capture One Pro, something else?
ephi518 wrote: pete478888 wroteFor DAM quite likely Adobe LR. Kind of a swiss knife for editing. Subscription licensing.
Cheaper on a yearly base. Allows to be combined with 1 yr prepaid subscriptions from stores like newegg, B&H and Amazon. That's the cheapest way, when on sale. Newegg had great deals on black friday.
...Thanks for the tip on the sales from other stores! I looked up some past sales, and that's a significant discount - I'll have to see if it's possible to buy multiple years at a time that way.
Newegg did have the best Black Friday deal. Around $80+ with coupon (included in the advertising) for the 1TB 1yr PS/LR Plan.
I use mulitple stacked licenses until 2028 with my older 20GB plan. Unfortunately the older 20GB is not available anymore as prepaid. When the stacked license expires it will automatically go into the grandfathered 20GB 1yr plan. Credit card on file with Adobe is necessary to stay in this plan.
Adobe PS/LR is heavy into AI with demanding GPU memory requirements under windows. It is a clear advantage for Apples memory architecture. Capture One has the lowest hardware requirement. It is the fastest on my windows laptop.
One point to consider when testing. How stable is your system with multiple AI masks, does it start lagging.