Replace LR with Capture One

Presently, I am a LR user, I have used it from Ver1 through 6. I have not gone to the subscription version. I greatly dislike the monthly subscription models as I become dependent on the company. Since I purchased and own the versions, they continue to work no matter the location or internet access.

My question is can I replace LR with Capture One? What do I loose, what do I gain? I also do not look forward to the "re-edit" of the thousands of images within the LR Catalog.

Any guidance you can offer is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Charles

I think, with any software we use, are dependent on the company in one way or another and, unfortunately for you, the subscription model for all companies is increasingly popular. That aside, for your Adobe subscription model, you do not need access to the internet to use it and it works at any location of your choice; there is one requirement however that is internet dependent but can be managed easily, you need to sign in once a month (at least I think it is once a month...I'm always signed in!). I do this routinely on my laptop prior to taking any trip as I use the laptop and Adobe products on the road. Yes, you can replace your current software with any other software of your choice but there are always caveats when you do this. In LrC your edits are in the catalog, not your images, unless you have told the software to save the edits to the side car files or the image, depending upon the type of file. Some programs can read these edits and some cannot, you will have to research this. If you decide to use a program that cannot use the LrC edits then your best bet is to output in tiff file format any finished products and at least you will have those and you could, conceivably, work on them later on in your new software. I don't know if Capture One has created some way to transfer files across, another thing for you to research. I don't use Capture One but from what I've read it is a very good software program but it's hard to beat the Adobe digital asset management system that LrC provides.

Thank you very much. I have been bitten by the once per month login - in that it does not work and, at least in my case, I have been without an internet connection within a week or two when I have been unable to use the product because of no internet access. That is the primary reason that I stick to LR 6 (although the version number is 15). I have found that my catalog of pictures and some movies has been enhanced by the database features of LR. I know that I can edit in Capture one but I think that the thing that is keeping me from switching is the database functions - are they as good as LR?

Be aware that Capture One will cost you more. I was going to switch to CO 21 as their subscription rate was $129.00, for the first year. Then it jumps up to $195.00 a year. With Adobe you get Lightroom and Photoshop and a couple of other programs, if you want. The updates and upgrades also come free with the Adobe subscription, plus there are a ton of tutorials for Lightroom where Capture One is lacking.

Capture One does not have key word synonyms which was a show stopper for me as no way would I remember to use all the synonyms every time I used a keyword. If keywords are important to you this is worth considering.

Adobe subscription also comes with things like Adobe Spark Page which is a great way to publish your photos to friends and family or even publically if you prefer.

Thank you very much. Yes the subscription to Capture one would be more expensive than the subscription to Adobe. But I would not go the subscription route. While it may be improved, I want to use it when I want, not when they say I can. I refuse to go the subscription route with Adobe because, if I am at a location without internet I may or may not be able to use the product and that is simply unacceptable. At present because I have the actual CD installation - I have never been unable to access the application. If I go to Capture one then I would purchase the version where I own it.

I like the synonyms, although I don't use it very often. I am not sure on that one - thank you for pointing it out.

I'm also still using LR6. I have no plans to change unless/until I buy a newer camera body that's not supported. Even then I may elect to use another software package to convert NEF files to DNG and continue to us my antique version of LR. That said, you may want to do additional research on your concern about the need for an internet connection. It may not be as limiting as you imagine it to be.

Adobe seems to have a liberal policy of reminders before you get knocked off for not logging in. I would get capture one if you think it has advantages over the Lightroom/Photoshop combo, but the internet login thing is a red herring.

NorthernFocus, you and I are similar, I was resigned to stay with LR until the camera no longer worked - but your though to convert the Raw to DNG is excellent.

As for the internet, unfortunately it is not everywhere and about 8months ago. I was using the subscription product during the week, on the weekend, I attempted to use it. The internet was miles away - it did not work. The max time from the previous use was 3 days. While it may work normally, it did not work for me. That is simply inexcusable.

Charles Robles said:

NorthernFocus, you and I are similar, I was resigned to stay with LR until the camera no longer worked - but your though to convert the Raw to DNG is excellent.

As for the internet, unfortunately it is not everywhere and about 8months ago. I was using the subscription product during the week, on the weekend, I attempted to use it. The internet was miles away - it did not work. The max time from the previous use was 3 days. While it may work normally, it did not work for me. That is simply inexcusable.

Click to expand...

I think one has to be aware of whether they are using the cloud version or the more powerful desktop/classic version. Both are included plus photoshop with the subscription plan.With classic everything is on your hard drive, the issue you describe couldn't happen. I don't use the cloud version, but when using it you can choose to store images locally or in the cloud. Choosing cloud storage would need the internet to get the images, choosing local wouldn't.

Charles Robles said:

As for the internet, unfortunately it is not everywhere and about 8months ago. I was using the subscription product during the week, on the weekend, I attempted to use it. The internet was miles away - it did not work. The max time from the previous use was 3 days. While it may work normally, it did not work for me. That is simply inexcusable.

Click to expand...

bleirer said:

I think one has to be aware of whether they are using the cloud version or the more powerful desktop/classic version. ...

Click to expand...

This must have been the issue Charles. The "Classic" product will also continue to function on your stand alone install if you elect to drop the subscription at some future date. With no future updates of course.

When complaining about loss of access due to no internet it is important to include what product it happened with. Was it Adobe or some other internet dependent product? Which Adobe subscription and product? I've heard there might be a difference between time frames with CC if you do a pay each month or do a yearly subscription. I sign up for the yearly "contract" but do pay by month. I have been without internet longer than a month without PS/LR classic problems. I do make it a point of making sure I am logged in right before leaving on a trip. The only time I ever had a problem with my Adobe subscription was when I forgot to update my credit card and hadn't paid for 2 months. My bad. I avoided CC for several years until I found I enjoyed the improvements enough to bite the bullet and subscribe. (That doesn't mean I like every "improvement) Your mileage will vary, but for better or worse time marches on.

NorthernFocus said:

This must have been the issue Charles. The "Classic" product will also continue to function on your stand alone install if you elect to drop the subscription at some future date. With no future updates of course.

Click to expand...

When you drop the subscription the develop module stops working, but you continue to have access to the classic library module, you dont lose images or your edits and you can continue to import, organize, print and export..

https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-acco...-when-I-cancel-my-Creative-Cloud-subscription

Yes, you have a crippled application. LR 6 may be old, and CC has improved features, but with 6 everything works.

Thank you, this is helping, there are insights that are helping me.

I started with Nikon Capture and Photoshop ver 3. This was some time before LR was even released. Then went to Lightroom when version 2 was announced as I started to have issues with Nikon Capture software, and stayed with LR through version 6. Decided to try Capture 1 when version 11 was released. I do seem to much prefer the files comming out of Capture 1 over those from Lightroom. In 2019 my iMac was getting a little long in the tooth and decided that I needed a laptop for those occasions that I traveled or attended workshops. Ended up getting a 2019 Macbook Pro and went ahead and also got the Photoshop subscription which came with updated LR. Tried to process a number of files with the new LR but ultimately kept with Capture 1.

I actually update each catalog LR and C1 with any new images as well as the processed /saved tiff files. I would say 100% of my portrait work is done in C1 as I find color adjustment are just better handeled in C1 vs LR, landscape and wildlife are probably 80% C1 with the remainder in Lr. The raw when opened in C1 just look better than the raw opened in Lr.

C1 has the ability to use Catalogs, Sessions and the ability to use keywords. Keywords is not something I've explored in C1 as I never did use them in LR. I do find that with C1 layer function allows me to take a image farther than I could in LR . This reduces my time to make the final adjustments in PS. Never ran any plugins directly out of LR so it's something I have not explored or missed in C1. I would say that C1 is better if you shot tethered. Always had problem when trying to shoot tethered in LR.

Take a look at some of the C1 instructional videos, there is a very comprehensive set covering almost all aspects of the program. Usually C1 releases a new video each week. My experience has been with files from the D800 and Z7 as well as going back and processing files from the D100 and D200 that I was never able to process to my satisfaction using LR. The image that I recently posted "Sidney Lanier Bridge - Sunset" from the D200 was one of those files that I had problems processing in LR but was satisfied with the results out of C1.

JohnW, thank you, thank you, thank you! I need an evaluation and you gave it. Thank you again.

I believe all of today's apps get the job done, so it is the feature set, amount of training material, speed of workflow, and amount of effort to get the job done. I have the LR+PS subscription and the C1P subscription. I was a LR user for several years but when Nikon released the D700/D3, the RAW process just did a horrible job. I don't use the term "horrible" lightly. I eventually went to Nikon's Capture NX-2 which I quickly learned to admire with its U-Point technology from NIK and of course it had the best RAW processor - it is Nikon. When Nikon couldn't license the NIK technology anymore I again started the search. It boiled down to LR and C1P (version 8) at the time. Bottom line (at the time), C1P was a better RAW processor than Adobe was producing. I would have to spend at least 5 to 15 minutes in LR just to get the image where C1P started. This was huge for me. C1P also provided the organization capabilities of LR and many of the editing features of PS in a seamless package, not compatible packages. I settled on C1P.

Years later, I decided to test again. I must say, Adobe came a long way. I believe these were D810 files but could have been D850 files. 70% of the time C1P was the clear winner with the RAW conversion. Adobe was the clear winner about 20-25% of the time. The remaining was a toss-up between the two. I was so impressed with Adobe and how far they had come in the RAW conversion. Still, C1P was just saving me a lot of time over LR.

I use the C1P subscription as opposed to the perpetual license. I don't like the cost, but I've gone through 5 full versions and many, many updates. cost-wise, I think I've broken even.

Thank you very much! This is wonderful!!!

Just a hought. Have you tried ACDSee Ultimate 2021.
I went from LR 6.x to ACDSee a few years ago and newer looked back as they have the best DAM on the market in my opinion.
You can download a 30 days trial.

bwest, I have never heard of ACDSee Ultimate 2021. Thank you very much - I will check it out!

Gidday Charles

FWIW, I dumped LR for Capture One when Adobe went into the software rental business. I haven't regretted it. In fact, I live in an Adobe-free world.

It was obvious very early in the piece that C1 gets more from my raw files than does LR, and while I did re-edit quite a number of my files, no-one need work through their entire catalogue after making such a transition. Unless you have a superhuman level of achievement in your photography, I'd expect that no more than 10% of your images would warrant re-processing - and much of this could be done on an as-needed basis. (Of course, your crops and keywords would come across from LR so a little heavy lifting is done for you.)

If you haven't already done so, why not download C1 and use the 30 day free trial? A little messing about should make it clear in your mind whether it's worth the investment of time and money.

All the best.

ShaneB, you are living the world that I want to go to - ADOBE-FREE. Thank you very much! I was thinking that once I bring them all into Capture One - I would only redo as needed as well. Thank you again.

Anthony Morganti has a number of YouTube videos on Capture One, including comparisons to Lightroom and how Capture One differs from Lightroom. I think you might find them helpful. Just search Anthony Morganti on YouTube.

Going there now!

If you are on an older Mac and for some reason need a new one you will have to switch to something. Big Sur is not compatible with LR6.14 and lower. Nor is it compatible with PS Elements 2020 and older. I have Luminar 4 and it has a lot of the functionality of LR but its just not as complete. My choice is to keep using two computers or switch to the LR/PS subscription. I think that if you purchase a year at a time it costs less than monthly bills.