I started using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop for my photo processing and cataloguing about 16 years ago. Over the years I have built up my expertise in using Lightroom through a mixture of online and physical courses and a lot of hands on user experience.
Until recently I was using Lightroom 5 which I had purchased years ago and which was running very satisfactorily on my 9 year old Mac.
About 6 years ago Adobe changed their Lightroom business model and introduced what they named Creative Cloud- which incorporates Lightroom and Photoshop- in a subscription model for which they charge a monthly fee. The option of purchasing the software outright was discontinued at that time. So to update my Lightroom and Photoshop to the latest editions I would have to pay Adobe A$12 per month. Included in the subscription is what Adobe call Lightroom Classic-the latest version of what I had before-and Lightroom which is cloud based. Adobe obviously consider that the Classic version is for old stagers-that's me- as they angle the presentation of the package to the cloud based Lightroom which allows you to edit across multiple platforms including mobile devices.
As I was content to continue with my old owned Lightroom 5 I stayed away from Adobe's revenue maximisation subscription model for as long as possible. However when I came to upgrade my Mac to a current model a few weeks ago I found that the old Lightroom 5 is incompatible with the latest Apple OS so I was forced to go to Adobe's subscription package-Creative Cloud.
I have been using Lightroom Classic from the package for about 5 weeks now and I have had a few issues with it but essentially it is what I had before in Lightroom 5 at a higher cost.
There are a number of alternatives to Adobe’s Creative Cloud on the market and the most popular of which is Capture One developed and marketed by a Danish company. Initially Capture One was primarily designed for studio photographers using large format digital cameras but in recent years it has evolved and has grown in popularity.
A photographer acquaintance has recently moved over to Capture One after many years of using Lightroom and this caught my attention. Now in the covid-19 lockdown era I have more than enough free time so when I found that Capture One are offering a 30 day free trial I decided to give it a try. I should say that Capture One is also only available as a subscription model and that is even more expensive than Adobe's but I decided to overlook this until I had tested it thoroughly.
I should emphasise that I have been a happy Lightroom user for years and a major part of Lightroom’s appeal to me is its cataloguing capability which is not Capture One’s forte although Capture One does have the capability to import an existing Lightroom catalogue which I have not explored.
After downloading the Capture One software I spent quite a few hours getting upto speed on how to use it through the excellent Capture One learning hub. It has many similarities to Lightroom but also many differences. I would definitely not recommend it for beginners.
After satisfying myself that I had a good handle on the basics and some of the complexities I decided to do some back to back comparisons with DNG ( RAW) files which I processed in both Lightroom and Capture One to the best of my ability. After years of learning and use my competence with Lightroom is significantly better than my competence with Capture One at this point so it’s not quite an apples and apples comparison..
Two examples of the test photos are below. The top image is Capture One and the second image is Lightroom processed.
On this showing Lightroom maybe just has the edge to my eye however that is a very subjective call.
So in summary I see no benefit for me personally in switching to Capture One. There is no doubt that it is, like Lightroom, an excellent programme but this old dog has made a substantial personal commitment into learning Lightroom and can see no point in learning new Capture One tricks. Besides I have a big Lightroom catalogue and Capture One is a lot more expensive than Adobe’s Creative Cloud. However it has been an interesting exercise and a challenging way to pass a few hours in lockdown. Thank you Capture One for your free trial. It is appreciated.
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