Лучший фоторедактор: Capture One vs Lightroom vs Luminar vs Photoshop
Lightroom: преимущества и недостатки
Фотограф Степанов А. Пейзажная фотография
Photoshop: преимущества и недостатки
Фотограф Степанов А. Пейзажная фотография
Luminar: преимущества и недостатки
Фотограф Степанов А. Пейзажная фотография
Capture One Pro: преимущества и недостатки
Фотограф Степанов А. Пейзажная фотография
Capture One — a review of sorts & comparison to Lightroom
I use Capture One 20 to edit all my photos, both my old ones taken with Nikon D70, Nikon D90, Panasonic G7/GH5, and Sony A7II and glorious new photos taken with my Fuji cameras.
Capture One has a special Fuji version, which is cheaper and only works with Fuji cameras. They offer a similar version for Sony. I own a full license for the Capture One Pro 20, which handles all cameras, paid once, but they also offer a subscription-based version, similar to Lightroom.
After years with Lightroom — why change?
In mid-2019 my Lightroom catalog contained approx. 350.000 images, the first taken back in 2000. I never deleted anything and due to some failed attempts at re-organization, I’d imported lots of photos multiple times. It was a mess, a huge, overwhelming mess. Navigating this catalog was a nightmare as well so I started looking at the alternatives, but few solutions had good catalog performance and similar features, like rich metadata handling AND post-processing abilities. They were either good at metadata handling or mostly focused on photo processing (like Luminar), not both.
I’d just sold all my old photo gear and bought a Sony A7II, but trying my neighbors Fujifilm X-T2 made me switch completely to Fuji, which Lightroom didn’t handle very well, so another nail in the coffin for LR.
At the same time, Adobe did some strange changes to their subscription-based Lightroom plan, like suddenly doubling the cost for some users or telling owners of a license to old software that they might be sued if they tried to use their old software. They also seemed to focus mostly on their cloud-based solutions and lots of longtime Adobe users started looking elsewhere. All in all, they seemed to handle the whole thing rather poorly and this also strengthened my desire to find some non-Adobe alternative.
I looked at Luminar, and even bought a license for Luminar 3, but it didn’t have a catalog function at all. Later I tested Luminar 4, which had catalog features, but some of the editing features didn’t feel right, like switching out the sky in one click and adding artificial sun flares. Trying to catalog my huge amount of photos caused the software to crash after a few days of chewing through the files and when I tried to start Luminar again it never recovered.
I saw some youtube videos related to Capture One and after a few tests using the Fuji-only express version of Capture One I abandoned Adobe and went all-in on Capture One.
Ironically, the last time I started Lightroom Adobe had patched it and now it worked much faster in my enormous catalog, but it was too little, too late.
Untangling about 20 years of bad data management
I’m going to write a separate post about how I manage my photo collection, but in short, I use Capture One sessions, one for each photo event and all events sorted by year, but have planned a Master Catalog, which will contain only the selects from the separate sessions. When I consider a session to be done, I’ll import the selects into the Master Catalog and then move the session into an Archive-folder. Everything is stored on a Synology NAS, which is backed up to another local Synology NAS in addition to a cloud-based backup of everything.
I’ve imported old photos by year into sessions and are going to work through each year, sorting photos into groups/collections based on event, deleting bad ones, adding metadata, and rating as I go. Hopefully, I can export those collections into separate sessions somehow later, but as I’ll go into details below, Capture One has a few missing features and performance issues when it comes to session and catalog handling. Even if there are a few hiccups performance-wise, Capture One has nice organizing features and I feel I finally have a chance to get control over my enormous collection of photos.
What I like #1 — Small adjustments
In Lightroom I found small adjustments in a slider made huge changes to my photos. It’s probably a common problem with an inexperienced user like myself coming into photo editing software to overuse tools like shadow- and highlight-recovery, clarity, and sharpness. So the problem is certainly a user error, but I feel Capture One makes it easier to make small adjustments and keep my photos from looking over-processed than Lightroom.
In short, Capture One makes me feel like I’m still working with photography and not digital art.
What I like #2 — Layers
Capture One has great support for layers, making it easy to adjust only parts of the image and keep the adjustments separate. After lots of adjustments, you can still remove or reduce or increase the opacity of a given layer to fit the final goal.
What I like #3 — Color editor
The color editor in Capture One is more advanced than the one found in Lightroom. For a nice introduction to the color, editor go here.
What I like #4 — Customizable user interface
You can customize the Capture One interface to better fit your own needs. I especially like defining my own panel with the tools I use the most, in the order of how I edit my photos so my post-processing workflow is manifested in the editing software.
What I like #5 — Support for Fuji film simulations
I’ve written a separate post about Fuji film simulations and these are also found and applied by Capture One on import, which is a great starting point for additional processing.
What I like #6 — Tutorials on YouTube
At least in the past months, there has been new official Capture One related live streams or youtube videos every week. There are already lots of tutorials available on PhaseOne’s (the publisher of Capture One) website, but the live streams with guests are on youtube are especially nice and is a great way of building a community around a piece of software.
What I like #7 — Helps me focus on producing a few good photos
That might sound strange, but when you use Capture One sessions it will build a folder structure with one folder for all your imported photos, on for trash, one for output, and one for selects. The folder called selects are meant for the few, the best of the bunch and they’re kept separately. This mindset has made me more aware of sorting out the really good photos and setting those aside. If I take 1000 photos at an event I want only 10–15 in my selects folder (ok, sometimes a few more �� ) — that’s where to gold is.
I also like that my finished photos are processed and the produced JPEGs, or TIFs, are placed in the output folder. It keeps the folder structure simple.
What I don’t like
- Capture One 20 has crashed multiple times. It seems to hang some times, especially when closing one session to change to a different one. This is very annoying and will hopefully be fixed. Keeping the catalogs and sessions small in size seems to cause fewer problems.
- When importing large numbers of photos Capture One 20 becomes very sluggish after about 15.000–20.000 photos. We’re talking 2–3 photos per second on import. It also seems to be very harddrive dependant and a fast SSD is required for larger sessions.
My wishlist
- Be able to export a collection in a session or catalog to a new or an already existing session, optionally removing the collection from the source. In my workflow, I cull all my images, then process the selects and when done I want to export the selects into an existing master catalog.
- Support for automation and scripting, preferably using processing recipes, perhaps using Python as scripting language instead of AppleScript. AppleScript is very limited and using a more popular language would make more people use it. Like in point 1, I have a specific workflow, and after the processing of the selects are done (and they have been exported to the master catalog), I’d like to archive the current session and move it into a specific archive location. I want to be able to do this in one operation (export to master catalog, archiving the original session). This is just one example, but good support for automation like this would be great.
- Merge & stacking features for HDR or panorama, similar to Lightroom.
- More plugins! I tried submitting a plugin request, but the provided email failed :-(. An open standard or at least an easy-to-use SDK for the development of plugins would be great.
- Plugins for direct upload to Instagram, 500px, Flickr, SmugMug, Facebook, SquareSpace, WordPress sites, etc from inside Capture One.
In conclusion
I love Capture One for the editing features. I almost love the organizing features if the performance can be fixed and add a few features for organizing & automation. Capture One has been a perfect fit for my transition to a more mindful photography mindset, with a better focus on producing a few good photos. There seems to be a nice community among the Capture One users.
Lightroom vs Capture One: Important Differences You Need to Know
Let’s talk about Lightroom vs Capture One. Capture One and Lightroom go after different users with different needs.
Capture One is a tool more focused on capturing the professional photography market and hence has primarily been designed as a professional RAW processor.
Lightroom aims to capture a wider audience of people who take photos. It, therefore, has integrated functions like online services, making panoramas and creating books.
Overall, Capture One allows for functionality and control above and beyond Lightroom. From access to more editing tools to a quicker, more customisable and seamless workflow.
Table of Contents:
These summaries will compare some of the features from Lightroom vs Capture One that I think are most noteworthy about the two programs.
Capture One vs Lightroom: Complete Comparison 2023
If you want to find an advanced editor, then this Capture One vs Lightroom comparison will be useful to you. Both products are excellent software for color correction, cropping, dust removal, sharpening, basic work with skin defects, etc. The retouchers working for WeEdit.Photos use these programs when editing photos, especially wedding ones.
Both products enable you to apply adjustments to multiple images with a single click. This saves you a lot of time, allowing you to edit multiple photos at once in the same style. If you don’t know what program to choose, Capture One or Lightroom, it is important to understand that although both are similar in many ways, they were created for different purposes.
About Lightroom
- Bulk image editing
- Cataloging functions
- Integrates with Photoshop
- Intuitive editing features
- Slow updates
- Not for deep face retouching
Lightroom is a complete editing software for images from Adobe. It supports RAW, cataloging, allows you to use your own presets, and so on. It has rich functionality, supports layers and is compatible with most plugins. All these features make it a universal product, perfect for solving basic photo editing and color grading tasks.
Lightroom will be a great find for beginners. It is quite user-friendly, has a set of easy-to-use features, and automatic settings. In the Capture One vs Lightroom battle, the latter clearly wins since it has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to master it. What’s more, Adobe provides you with many simple tutorials.
About Capture One
- Plenty of pro-grade editing tools
- Drawing on images
- Annotation tools
- Layer support
- Steep learning curve
- Quite expensive
Capture One is a multi-functional picture editing software. It comes with convenient management and export options that will suit both novice retouchers and specialists. This photo editing software allows working with layers. So, you can edit images in a non-destructive way.
The program stands out from competitors since it has a special version for Canon cameras (Capture Pro), as well as versions for Nikon, Sony, and Fujifilm cameras. It supports advanced processing, tailored to the specific features of each camera.
If you don’t know how to edit your images professionally or don’t have time to master all the features and tools of Capture One, you can contact specialists.
Users can order deep color correction, blemish and red-eye removal, WB adjustments. Besides, the experts can adjust contrast, saturation, sharpness, etc.
Interface Possibilities
Lightroom comes with a modular user interface. Thanks to this, a user can find tools to perform a specific task in a separate module.
In the Develop module, you can scroll through the parameter settings without switching between tabs. Your project will be in the center of the window, with various settings on the right side. On the left, you will see the editing history and presets.
Capture One, in its turn, is more expert-oriented, which makes its interface somewhat difficult for beginners. The main components of the UI are the Tool Tab bar, Cursor, a Viewer, and an Image Browser. Each element can be fully customized: you can move any tool or tab to arrange the interface elements the way you want.
By default, you will see your project in the center of the window. Capture One displays the photos you have imported on the right and various settings on the left. They are arranged under tabs. However, some users would prefer to see all the settings options under one tab.
Both programs allow you to adjust settings using convenient sliders. If you compare Capture One vs Lightroom in terms of sliders functionality, you will see that the latter allows you to achieve a more noticeable effect. Capture One supports subtle changes.
Who is better: Adobe Lightroom
RAW Editing Features
Lightroom allows you to work with files in RAW format, but your photos might look less saturated. For most photographers, this is not a problem, because the program contains all the necessary functions to improve saturation, contrast, image clarity, and color brightness.
Lightroom offers professional color correction tools. With the help of convenient sliders, you can adjust the temperature, hue, brilliance, color saturation. What’s more, the program allows you to separately tweak each color in the photo.
The local adjustment settings allow you to improve the light, apply effects, and enhance specific areas. The program itself does not support layers, but you can use Photoshop’s layer system. If you don’t know what option to choose, Capture One or Lightroom, you should know that the latter makes it easier to work with layers if you use it with Photoshop.
Capture One also has a variety of RAW editing tools. Advanced color correction settings make it possible to fine-tune hues using the advanced color wheel.
It also allows you to apply certain effects to certain parts of the photo. For example, you can darken one area of a photo without affecting another.
The layering system allows you to use even more editing options. Thanks to this, you can select the parameters of each new layer and edit them without impacting the overall image.
If you need to quickly and efficiently edit plenty of pictures, but you don’t have time for this or you don’t know how to do it, entrust this task to experts and order photo retouching services provided by the WeEdit.Photos professionals.
Who is better: both
Cataloging and Organizing Options
Lightroom has advanced cataloging and organizing functions. Users can import as many photos as they want, and Lightroom will arrange them properly. There are also keywords and metadata editing features facilitating the search for specific images.
Users can arrange photos in folders or subfolders, assign tags, and set other options to make it easier to find required images. What’s more, the program has a face recognition feature.
The developers did not create an algorithm for managing images in Capture One. However, you can still quickly find the desired photo. Previously imported pictures are on the right, so just scroll through the list and choose what you need.
Who is better: Adobe Lightroom
Presets & Filters
Lightroom allows creating presets and using the ones developed by third parties. Lr presets are ready-made color styles using which you can make basic adjustments and add effects to a photo.
Thanks to ready-to-use bundles, you can process a huge number of photos in the same style with just a few clicks. The program supports batch editing, so you can apply the same presets to the whole photoshoot at once.
Capture One also enables you to use presets, but they are not as useful as in Lightroom. The program allows you to create both presets and styles.
A preset in Capture One allows you to save the settings of a specific tool, while a style is a set of preset options. Each preset can be found under the tab of the corresponding tool, which is not so convenient if you need to quickly edit photos using presets.
Who is better: Adobe Lightroom
Annotation Tools
Lightroom doesn’t have any advanced text and annotation features, but you can always use them in Photoshop. It has everything you need to create unique and original postcards, flyers, banners, and other designs with text. To switch to Ps, find the Edit in Photoshop option in Lightroom.
In Capture One, you will find many features for creating annotations. This software is perfect for teamwork since you can exchange ideas without using email and chat. Just highlight the parts of a picture using the Annotations tool and then send those pictures to your team members. To further simplify collaboration, you can also draw on photos.
Who is better: Capture One
Plugins
Lightroom is compatible not only with Creative Cloud software but also with several third-party programs, including Luminar, Nik Collection by DxO, Aurora HDR, Topaz Labs Studio, and so on.
Capture One works a big number of plugins, which improves its image editing capabilities. Among others, it’s compatible with HeliconSoft, JPEGmini, Prodibi.
Who is better: both
Price
Like all Adobe products, Lightroom offers you a subscription that costs $9.99 per month. It allows you to enjoy all the features and tools. Besides, you will have 1 TB of cloud storage for your projects. For this fee, you can choose Lr as a standalone product, or a plan with Photoshop, but the storage will be reduced to 20 GB.
You can also purchase a Photography plan. It allows you to use both Lr and Ps, as well as get 1TB storage for $19.99 per month. If you just want to test out some features of Lightroom, then you can do it for free for 7 days.
To use Capture One, you can pay for a subscription (for a month or a year) as well as purchase a lifetime license by making a one-time payment.
A monthly subscription costs $24.00 and includes all subsequent releases. You can cancel it at any time.
An annual subscription costs $179.00. By choosing it, you will save $9 per month.
If you don’t want to bother paying for a subscription, take a look at the single lifetime license which costs $299.00. You can also download Capture One for free and use it for 30 days.
Who is better: Adobe Lightroom
Final Verdict – Lightroom
If you are wondering what software, Capture One or Lightroom, suits you best, I can say that the latter is easier to use and has more tools. At the same time, Lr has powerful editing and organizing functions, which are perfect for professional image enhancement. What’s more, Lightroom is more affordable than Capture One, making it a perfect choice for Instagram users, photographers of all levels, and photo amateurs alike.