Jump to content

Stick with LR or switch to Capture One?


Recommended Posts

On 12/10/2020 at 12:26 AM, teaandcake said:

My plan at the moment is to stick with Adobe until my subscription ends. I thought I just had a few months left but they recently renewed it for another year and didn't tell me! 

I would like to move to C1 Fuji and just buy the software as I have no plans to change my camera for a while.

However, I'm also looking into upgrading my MacBook in the future and I'm wondering if C1 will support the new M1 chip or if I'll have to upgrade from the software I purchased?

I've had a look on the C1 forum but it was mostly people complaining about a lack of transparency from C1 and poor customer support which was a bit off putting 😬

No worries, C1 will definitely support the M1 chip set. It'd be 'suicide' for them not to. Due to Rosetta 2 the current version of C1 already works great on M1 macbooks (so I've seen on someone else's brand new one). I personally wait for the 16 inch M1(X).

Forums are usually the place where people complain, so I wouldn't read too much into that. I've had to use customer support from C1 two or three times and I have no complaints. Very quick and professional. Even on the bug I reported, I got a follow-up request from their product dept. I've never had that with Adobe LR in all these years with them.

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Herco said:

No worries, C1 will definitely support the M1 chip set. It'd be 'suicide' for them not to. Due to Rosetta 2 the current version of C1 already works great on M1 macbooks (so I've seen on someone else's brand new one). I personally wait for the 16 inch M1(X).

Forums are usually the place where people complain, so I wouldn't read too much into that. I've had to use customer support from C1 two or three times and I have no complaints. Very quick and professional. Even on the bug I reported, I got a follow-up request from their product dept. I've never had that with Adobe LR in all these years with them.

Hi @Herco Thanks as always for your very helpful response. 😊
Do you know roughly how long a version of Capture One ‘lasts’? E.g. if I purchased C1 version 21 how many MacOS updates roughly before C1 would stop working? Ideally I want to avoid the subscription model but it may work out cheaper 🤔 

Link to post
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, teaandcake said:

Hi @Herco Thanks as always for your very helpful response. 😊
Do you know roughly how long a version of Capture One ‘lasts’? E.g. if I purchased C1 version 21 how many MacOS updates roughly before C1 would stop working? Ideally I want to avoid the subscription model but it may work out cheaper 🤔 

I bought C1 Pro 20 perpetual licence for Fuji last January and was locked out of it this week after running out of activations and after it let me download and upgrade to version 21 which worked for 2 days. Extremely annoying as I didn't have the previous installer and wanted to process the first rafs from my new 100v. In any case and doing the maths a subscription is cheaper so I moved to this. For my Nikon D810 files I use DxO PL4 which is a perpetual licence and works out over the years of using it more expensive than an LR subscription so it seems to me that a subscription is the way to go for a lot of things these days. Thing is there is always an upgrade with something worthwhile having  with software and this is where a sub makes more sense. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Jonno said:

I bought C1 Pro 20 perpetual licence for Fuji last January and was locked out of it this week after running out of activations and after it let me download and upgrade to version 21 which worked for 2 days. Extremely annoying as I didn't have the previous installer and wanted to process the first rafs from my new 100v. In any case and doing the maths a subscription is cheaper so I moved to this. For my Nikon D810 files I use DxO PL4 which is a perpetual licence and works out over the years of using it more expensive than an LR subscription so it seems to me that a subscription is the way to go for a lot of things these days. Thing is there is always an upgrade with something worthwhile having  with software and this is where a sub makes more sense. 

Hi @Jonno Thanks for your reply.

I was planning to buy Capture One 21 but thinking about it I may be better with a subscription as the upgrades will work out more costly. 
In any case, I’m still stuck with Adobe for a while yet. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi!

We're using Fuji as prophotogs and LR is without any question not usable for Fuji. Period. We tried several times - forget about it.

Capture One - excellent RAW processor for X-Trans - but the App is that buggy, that we now start to search for an alternative. But - it's damned slow. Importing is that buggy, that it won't show you the content of your Card, but random old images hidden in some cache.

As it seems Capture one isn't able to maintain the source code of their own app bc. bugs that are well well known are inherited over many (5 generations at least) major releases...

DAM: Never, never, never, never, never rely on Capture One... the worst DAM we know.

Just go for Photomechanic Plus.

So: Capture One is - as far as we know - the best of the worse alternatives for x-trans... But... honestly: if I'd been aware of the trouble x-trans creates I'd never gone for it... unfortunately...

But - the next thing I do is creating a thread searching for a Capture One alternative.

best

Link to post
Share on other sites

I use both.  LR as my catalog management, and C1Pro 20 (PRO) as my develop module.  I round trip my Fuji X, and GFX raw files from LR to C1, then back.  Takes mere moments and I'm on an old machine (2012) iMac.

I was just on another thread and some are saying C1Pro v21 is buggy (?).  Not sure what's going on there but I think I'll wait to upgrade from v20.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I have found one issue with v21 and that is the sessions getting confused with one another, ie even when the paths were set correct for a new session images would get saved in the output folder of the previous one. 

I do think in many ways  C1 is over complex especially for what should be a simple thing, images in and images out. It is also incredibly slow to load images in as well ,for example 300 raws and jpegs well over ten minutes on a machine that is gen 8 i7 ,32 gb ram and nvidia1070ti 8 gig on board, this computer can get 70fps with the Toliss airbus in Xplane 11 with all the sliders to the right! C1 is certainly not well optimised.

Having said that C1s output results are nothing short of superb, haven't found anything better and have tried most. It amazes me how much you can squeeze from a raf especially highlight recovery from bright over done skies. 

Edited by Jonno
Link to post
Share on other sites

Reading this thread, I wonder what the fans of C1 think about their subscription program (same as Adobe at $10month). I presume that, like Lightroom, the subscription approach will assure one of having the "latest and greatest" version as opposed to site licensing that generally implies additional payment must be rendered for the next full version upgrade.

Meanwhile, a question - does C1 offer the facial recognition capability that LR does? Having "taught" my LR across the 30K images I have, now if I want to call up all photos that include my brother (for example) it's simple to do. Looking over the Capture One site I do not see this function mentioned at all.

FInally, don't know if anyone has heard of or tried Excire Foto and Search - a new program that uses AI based image recognition to assign metadata to images. ("Foto" is standalone; the "Search" add-on is the plug in for LR). I did but it a couple of weeks back and can say it does a pretty impressive job. No individual facial recognition (thought it determines if there are one, two, three or more faces and whether they are smiling or wearing glasses) but, while not perfect, pretty impressive auto recognition of architecture, a variety of animals, etc.

Having heard good things about Irident I am going to give that a try, though frankly I have been pleased with how LR (on my Mac, if that matters) has handled the .RAF files.

Link to post
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, f8lee said:

Reading this thread, I wonder what the fans of C1 think about their subscription program (same as Adobe at $10month). I presume that, like Lightroom, the subscription approach will assure one of having the "latest and greatest" version as opposed to site licensing that generally implies additional payment must be rendered for the next full version upgrade.

Meanwhile, a question - does C1 offer the facial recognition capability that LR does? Having "taught" my LR across the 30K images I have, now if I want to call up all photos that include my brother (for example) it's simple to do. Looking over the Capture One site I do not see this function mentioned at all.

FInally, don't know if anyone has heard of or tried Excire Foto and Search - a new program that uses AI based image recognition to assign metadata to images. ("Foto" is standalone; the "Search" add-on is the plug in for LR). I did but it a couple of weeks back and can say it does a pretty impressive job. No individual facial recognition (thought it determines if there are one, two, three or more faces and whether they are smiling or wearing glasses) but, while not perfect, pretty impressive auto recognition of architecture, a variety of animals, etc.

Having heard good things about Irident I am going to give that a try, though frankly I have been pleased with how LR (on my Mac, if that matters) has handled the .RAF files.

I moved to a subscription as it works out cheaper, and as you mention you have the advantage of the latest version although that does not guarantee that something does not get broken in an update. Looks like C1 have added a dehaze in V21and graphical pop ups for some of the tool tips with tutorials signposted. Useful especially in the layers tool.  I don't see the facial recognition you mentioned, think Adobe are ahead on those kind of features. C1s strengths for Fuji is the excellent output which is a gear ahead of LR from what I have experienced. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

These posts are interesting!
 

I’m used to LR and find their subscription better value as you get Photoshop and the mobile apps too. I like the iPad app as it’s good for quick edits. I also like that i can organise my photos into collections. Unfortunately, it runs so slowly on my MacBook. Granted, my MacBook is 5 years old and only has 8GB RAM but even with no other programs open it’s still really slow. 
 

I’m still planning to at least try the trial of Capture One but the bugs and poor performance on the new MacBooks aren’t encouraging 😬 However, when I’ve used C1 Express I’ve found my raw files look nicer and don’t need to be processed so much. 
 

A hybrid of C1/LR would be great 😂 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Another C1 bug V21 Fuji version found and reported the export to 2048 web version is broken. The program completely ignores the path you set. It really is an excruciating experience at times, it really needs a simple explorer type file system that gives the user easy control over images in/out. This leads into the next issue...my last few tickets were at least a 2 week wait and never resolved by C1 support. Probably worth bearing this in mind before you take a leap into C1!

So now I have to save full res jpegs at 10mb a shot and resize them in Irfanview. 

Edited by Jonno
added note
Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree with the previous contributors. 
Capture One is complex; another option worth looking at is ON1. The 2021 version is just out and has a trial package and handles Fuji files.

Another option if you wish to retain LR is to use Iridium Transformer as a plug-in to convert the Fuji files.

Link to post
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, NormanCh said:

I agree with the previous contributors. 
Capture One is complex; another option worth looking at is ON1. The 2021 version is just out and has a trial package and handles Fuji files.

Another option if you wish to retain LR is to use Iridium Transformer as a plug-in to convert the Fuji files.

Huh - and here I thought these are really two different types of program. Perhaps I am mistaken.

Seems to me Capture 1 is designed to compete directly with Lightroom - both have DAM (digital asset management) and image editing capabilities...so the user can organize the images various ways (collections, libraries, whatever) as well as perform basic functions like color correction, cropping and more advanced things.

On 1 makes a number of individually useful tools, like Resize (which I have used since before they bought Genuine Fractals) - but I use that as a plug in to LR much like I use Topaz DeNoise or others of their suite of programs the same way.

So it's a bit like comparing apples to orangutans, no?

I started with Aperture back when it and LR were the only games in town, and after Apple said "screw you" to the pro community and dropped Aperture support moved to LR as it was closest in feature set (and at that time C1 was quite immature). But On 1 was never in the mix because what they offer are individual tools that are nice, yet no way to keep track of tens of thousands of images.

Link to post
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, f8lee said:

I started with Aperture back when it and LR were the only games in town

I love it when folks make statements like this since there was never a time like that, there has always been a great slew of bad mediocre and good photo software on the market of all kinds to satisfy all tastes and needs probably more then you can try and buy. I'v been in photography for over sixty years and with fuji (and Digital) since the S1 I believe it was 2003 and can't even begin to count the types of software I've used but in the beginning Correl was by far the more popular and easier to use program set unfortunately their updates lacked and they lost out to Adobe in the long run.

Ed

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, vancroft said:

I love it when folks make statements like this since there was never a time like that, there has always been a great slew of bad mediocre and good photo software on the market of all kinds to satisfy all tastes and needs probably more then you can try and buy. I'v been in photography for over sixty years and with fuji (and Digital) since the S1 I believe it was 2003 and can't even begin to count the types of software I've used but in the beginning Correl was by far the more popular and easier to use program set unfortunately their updates lacked and they lost out to Adobe in the long run.

Ed

Gee, Ed, I am unclear as to your problem with what I stated.

Aperture and LR were the only types of software of their kind at that time. Period. There were never any similar packaged prior to them, either. No other packages were designed to handle DAM as well as basic editing functions. There were (and still are) a number of DAM packages, to be sure, but they were single purpose only. Aperture and LR allowed the user to both organize and categorize their image files as well as do those editing functions.

Now, sure, I have only been doing photography for only 50 years, so perhaps I missed something - so please do iluminage us as to what I said that was so amusing to you...

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree with many here this LR vs C1 has been beaten to death here.  Both are AMAZING.  I use both. I always import into LR. I then sort my images.  The raw files I want to truly work on I then drop in a folder (in LR). I then open c1 pro up and synch that same folder to bring in the raw files.  I work on them, then export them into a different folder called "Roundtrip from C1" 

This folder with my finished JPEG's or TIFF's I have on my left side pane in LR that I also synch.  Waaaalaaaa My images are there for cataloging.  

I just finished two shoots for a local manufacturer last week.  I used my Fuji X and my medium format gear.  Since I wanted to limit my post-processing due to the fact the company was on a budget, I made sure the images were as good as possible on the LCD on location.  I then used LR exclusively to save a little time in post.  This worked out great for these two jobs.  I have another job scheduled for just after the holidays photographing office employees going about their business so I may be using C1Pro as I really like their color correction for skin.  

So making a short story very long:  It depends.  You can't go wrong with either one BUT I will say I find the C1Pro processing to generate much crisper, sharper, cleaner files than LR. But that's just me

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 6/19/2020 at 5:44 AM, teaandcake said:

Hi all,

I’m a very keen soon to be Fujifilm owner! I’ve had an entry level Canon DSLR for years but will be getting an XT30 next week 😀

I’ve always used Lightroom to edit my RAW files but have read that it doesn’t handle the Fuji RAW files very well and Capture One does a much better job. I’ve seen YouTube videos where the Fuji files look horrible in LR and it seems like a mission to get them looking decent, never mind doing the edits you want. 
I’m not great with LR but can do basic edits and don’t like to spend hours editing photos. 

I can’t afford to pay for both software packages so I’m looking for some advice as to what may be best. 

At the moment I’m keeping my Canon just as another option but if it turns out I never use it I’ll trade it in. 
 

I keep my RAW files stored on an external hard drive and they’re all organised into folders. In LR they’re organised into collections but I’m not sure if Capture One has this option? I have the LR app on my phone and iPad but don’t use it much. 
 

If anyone can offer some advice that would be great. 
 

Thank you 😊 

c1 is better option for xt-30 files .

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 12/7/2020 at 8:37 AM, teaandcake said:

Thanks everyone for your helpful replies. 
 

I’ve checked my Adobe account and currently stuck in a subscription for a few more months. 😩
 

I’m strongly considering purchasing C1 for Fuji outright and using that instead. The 21 version looks very good with a lot of useful features.  
My only concern is my laptop may struggle. At the moment it can run Lightroom but the RAM is almost maxed out and it’s quite slow. When I bought my laptop I wasn’t interested in photography so didn’t think much about RAM and processing power. I’m loathe to upgrade as it’s so expensive and my laptop is fine for all other tasks, just not photo editing! 
 

I love my Fuji camera and can’t see me moving from it any time soon. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve viewed my Canon RAW files since I’ve had my Fuji and I think my Fuji photos are much better anyway. 😛

I’ve been looking on YouTube for C1 tutorials and have noticed some good ones by pal2tech. I’m aware it’s quite different to LR in terms of interface but it looks like C1 have their own tutorials and there’s also a lot on YouTube which should help me get to grips with it. 
 

Any tips or advice welcome!

I use both LR and C1Pro.  My desktop is a iMac, Late 2012, 16g of Ram and my laptop is a MacBook Air, 2014, 8Mb Ram.  I use the XT1, XT2, XH1, and the GFX 50R system.  I shoot both Raw +JPEG, and when working in C1 for printing I save as 16bit TIFF's at about 300MB+ each.  Both machines work well enough for my purpose.  I shoot landscapes, weddings, events with the GFX and X series system, and I use the X series for sports and action.  Paul Riefer has some GREAT content on YouTube for Capture One, and search for CAPTURE ONE -- the company itself generates some outstanding tutorials as well.

Good Luck and I hope this helps.

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 12/10/2020 at 9:39 AM, ANovice said:

Hi All, 

I have an XT-1 (not sure what version )- I want to tether directly to my adobe lightroom Classic in my mac. But realized I need to buy the LR Fuji Plug in or CR  - Before I commit to a plug-in that may or may not work, can you share your experiences with connection XT-1 To Adobe Lightroom Classic with LR Fuji or CR?

Does it work if I don't have the latest version FUJI XT-1?

Thank you!

did you mean c1 (capture one) ? 

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 12/13/2020 at 8:27 AM, f8lee said:

Reading this thread, I wonder what the fans of C1 think about their subscription program (same as Adobe at $10month). I presume that, like Lightroom, the subscription approach will assure one of having the "latest and greatest" version as opposed to site licensing that generally implies additional payment must be rendered for the next full version upgrade.

Meanwhile, a question - does C1 offer the facial recognition capability that LR does? Having "taught" my LR across the 30K images I have, now if I want to call up all photos that include my brother (for example) it's simple to do. Looking over the Capture One site I do not see this function mentioned at all.

FInally, don't know if anyone has heard of or tried Excire Foto and Search - a new program that uses AI based image recognition to assign metadata to images. ("Foto" is standalone; the "Search" add-on is the plug in for LR). I did but it a couple of weeks back and can say it does a pretty impressive job. No individual facial recognition (thought it determines if there are one, two, three or more faces and whether they are smiling or wearing glasses) but, while not perfect, pretty impressive auto recognition of architecture, a variety of animals, etc.

Having heard good things about Irident I am going to give that a try, though frankly I have been pleased with how LR (on my Mac, if that matters) has handled the .RAF files.

Because I shoot for Adobe Stock amongst many others, and sell over X number of images per year, I do not pay for Adobe LR or PS.  I haven't paid the the Adobe Photographers Package in four years.  I really don't want to pay monthly fees - to Adobe or worse yet, Capture One.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, jlmphotos said:

Because I shoot for Adobe Stock amongst many others, and sell over X number of images per year, I do not pay for Adobe LR or PS.  I haven't paid the the Adobe Photographers Package in four years.  I really don't want to pay monthly fees - to Adobe or worse yet, Capture One.  

So, this is you showing off? I mean, kudos to you for being so cool as to not have to pay for the subscription, but that doesn't really answer the question I posted, does it?

Link to post
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, f8lee said:

So, this is you showing off? I mean, kudos to you for being so cool as to not have to pay for the subscription, but that doesn't really answer the question I posted, does it?

according to my experience , i might not have year's of experience . but according to my usage experience , capture one is still better than lightroom for fujifilm x-trans sensor camera files . if you need to use lightroom ,you can alternatively convert the raf file to tiff or dng using "silkypix raw x converter" or capture one itself , i assume that the free version of capture one express for fujifilm can do that . so if you only want to use a software which give the best possible results without so many tasks for fujifilm x-trans raf files capture one is the simple choice ,also topaz softwares and luminar works very nice with fujifilm x-trans sensor camera files . also "darktable" which is a lightweight and open source software ,also work very well with fujifilm raf files . i hope this helps . have a nice day !

Link to post
Share on other sites

I've been trying Capture One Express recently and I quite like it but it's definitely a learning curve coming from Lightroom! It may be because it's the free version so doesn't need so much memory, but it runs faster on my MacBook compared to Lightroom/Photoshop.

Once my Adobe subscription ends I'm going to try the free trial of Capture One Pro to see what I think and go from there.

Thanks everyone for your helpful advice and tips :)

Link to post
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, f8lee said:

So, this is you showing off? I mean, kudos to you for being so cool as to not have to pay for the subscription, but that doesn't really answer the question I posted, does it?

No need to be a dick.  You know what:  Do what you want.  LOL some folks can't be helped. Are you sure you aren't a Nikon or Sony user?  Here's an answer for you:  Capture ONE is THE BEST RAW processor for Fuji files bar none.  LR, comes in second.  If you did YOUR homework and checked other resources on this forum you would find that to be the case.  I use C1Pro for editing, whereas I use LR for ingesting, sorting, and eventually cataloging.  This is the reason why I wouldn't pay a subscription.  Also, I'm old school; I do not want to "subscribe" to anything.  I'd rather own it (as far as the licensing allows) as opposed to renting.  Just like I own my two homes (one outside of Acadia), thre vehicles - one at my summer home, and my freakin' Cessna!  There. How's that for showing off.  I can go on if you wish....

And if you ever need flight lessons, look me up. Jerk

 

Edited by jlmphotos
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...