[Fat Albert]

Lightroom is the most popular one , but Capture One seems to export better looking images in the end.

If I had to pay for one, Capture One would be my pick.

Interesting reply. Frankly, I'm open to any software that delivers high IQ RAW conversion and development with a well-designed user interface. Oh, and it'd be nice if it worked well as a database, too. Free, paid, whatever.

[Winder]

My little 11 inch MacBook Air with 2GB of RAM is now a 27" quad core i7 3.4 gHz, with 24 GB RAM, 1 TB HD, and 2 GB in video RAM. Needless to say, things have changed.

There's a lot of conflicting info as to the most appropriate RAW converter and photo editor for a beginner. It seems like Lightroom and Capture One both do a great job. Which do you like, and why? Up until this point I've scratched by with bare bones software that my little machine still struggled with.

Brilliant Article From Martin Evening on Lightroom vs. Capture One Pro - Lightroom Killer Tips

[ballhog]

I've struggled with this one after downloading both trials. They both are great tools, I dislike the adobe approach and all the bloat-wear that comes along with installing adobe products. C1p is nice but the initial cost is higher and there are just so much educational materials for Lightroom. In the end I just crawled back to Lightroom. Maybe someday I'll switch...

[Oakland Rob]

Winder, thanks for that. Describes my experience with C1 and Lr as well. I wanted to use C1 just because I kinda liked that "juiced" look on my Olym files. As I got better with Lr I found I could duplicate it, and with presets and whatnot I found myself using C1 less. But I still wish they would license just their adjusting stuff as a plugin, since their complete package is so expensive, and lacking in what at least I need in metadata work. They had C1 Express, but killed it.

I find DxO starts, as Lr does, with a more conservative approach. Which I now prefer. It's a great program. I use Colorchecker generated camera profiles for my Pentax, but the one in DxO is quite excellent. I assume C1 has something similar.

[boriscleto]

I think I'm going to have to consider ON1 Photo RAW when it comes out. But I'll probably need a new computer...(my 2009 Mac mini supports OpenGL 3.3 but only has 256MB of shared RAM).

[mattb123]

I'm content enough with Lightroom and have owned it from version 2 onward (on 6 now). I haven't had much trouble with bugs, and as a software engineer myself I understand there will always be some bugs in a big application.
I've toyed with others but always come back. Performance is OK for me and I process a lot of 100MB raw files from the 645D. Once the previews are generated performance is OK and until they are generated I'm better off getting coffee or something. That workflow works for me and I am used to it.
The database and keywording is great and when publications are looking for a particular theme of images it helps me find what I want to submit quickly.

[Class A]

Brilliant Article From Martin Evening on Lightroom vs. Capture One Pro - Lightroom Killer Tips

The author of that article has written books about how to use Lightroom and the puffery about the article from the publisher comes from someone (Kelby) who has made a fortune from creating educational material about Adobe products.

The article is almost the equivalent of a book authored by Satya Nadella published by Microsoft Press entitled "The Truth about MacOS" giving you some colour settings to make the Windows desktop look similar to the MacOS appearance without ever mentioning the term "virus".

I agree that a simple "out of the box" comparison of two RAW converters is too shallow, but it is ironic how the article itself is incredibly shallow in its comparison.

[Oakland Rob]

The author of that article has written books about how to use Lightroom and the puffery about the article from the publisher comes from someone (Kelby) who has made a fortune from creating educational material about Adobe products.

The article is almost the equivalent of a book authored by Satya Nadella published by Microsoft Press entitled "The Truth about MacOS" giving you some colour settings to make the Windows desktop look similar to the MacOS appearance without ever mentioning the term "virus".

I agree that a simple "out of the box" comparison of two RAW converters is too shallow, but it is ironic how the article itself is incredibly shallow in its comparison.

Shallow? Huh? The article only attempts to answer the question of whether a C1 and Lr processed RAW could look the same after processing, in order to explain some of the defaults in both programs, and it succeeds in that. It's not purporting to decide whether one is better than the other, which would be book-length given the number of features of each. I'm sure it won't ever appease fanboys of either product, but having used both, I can't say there are any errors and it's spot on in its conclusions about the differences. Specifically, where did it go wrong?

[awscreo]

Tried capture one for the first time yesterday, and I much prefer color rendition of it over lightroom. I heard that Adobe isn't doing a very good job in terms of color profiles for smaller brands (Olympus, pentax). I'm by no means a professional colorist, but with what knowledge I have of using lightroom, I managed to get nicer results in capture one in my first try. If they had a flexible payment plan like Adobe does, I'd switch over. For now using trial, and thinking if improvements are large enough to invest into. Thing is, I still use photoshop a lot, so canceling photo package from Adobe is not really an option

[emalvick]

To chime in again, in terms of software interface and workflow. It's been my finding throughout all my computer use, including outside of photography, that user interface differences can usually be overcome once you commit to using a software. With RAW processors, I've found that most of them have reasonable interfaces that I can grow accustomed to. That being said, I think the things that matter most are how good is the output and how fast can you get there.

LR has perhaps one of the easiest interfaces out there, which is good because it often takes me the most steps to get to a processed image I'm happy with. DxO has a bit of a more complicated interface although now that I understand their terminology and what everything does, I've gotten over that challenge (which alludes back to my initial comment). The huge advantage I find with DxO is that my image is basically done when I open it. DxO automatically does a lot of things, and everything is basically how I want it before I touch a slider. I use way fewer steps and I get an image I like better than LR almost everytime (but not 100% every time). DxO isn't badly priced either, comparable to LR's standalone prices although I have splurged on their FilmPack and ViewPoint software. That combination gets a bit higher, but it does go on sale often.

For editing, Capture One and even SilkyPix Pro have done well for me in the past with similar interfaces. Most complications people find is because things aren't exactly the same, but if they were, then there would be Copyright infringement by the software companies. It's just a learning experience and finding the features you want.

My biggest complaint with LightRoom is that Adobe doesn't support it greatly. There are bugs that have been there for years. My second biggest complaint is that it is a software that tries to be a catalog and RAW processor simultaneously. It's actually rare that software can two do different things well. It may seem natural that it should work well, but a catalog software is about being a database. In photography, it's about managing your photos and their metadata. While the Developer function is about processing an image. Those two features are significantly different, and when you buy LR you are essentially getting two different software (and more when you think of the other modules). LR doesn't really do either of its features as well as it could. I think the catalog works for most people because they don't need much out of it.

I was (un)fortunate to have fell into a different catalog software prior to LR, and it does a lot more (that I like) than LR does now. Of course most of what that software does is more than many people need, but it makes my life so much easier and it is fully compatible with LR's catalog; LR can show me all the metadata that LR supports. This was convenient because I feel LR does a better job of processing photos. I am only disappointed that LR makes browsing by metadata a little more complicated than it should be. LR allows one to keyword photos very simply, but to find photos by keyword is not quite as simple (at least not as simple as my chosen software).

Many other software are adopting a similar model, like Capture One, but with Capture One, which was a developer first, the catalog is even more lacking (at this point).

Anyway, the point I'm making is that a user should focus on the output they want and then the features they want in a program. The user interface will generally work itself out with practice. That's the beauty of 30-day trials anyway.

[Class A]

Specifically, where did it go wrong?

It is entitled "lightroom vs. capture one pro" (sic) and the synopsis is "A comparison of Lightroom and Capture One's Image Processing".

Kelby calls a "brilliant job on this eye-opening article" and promises you will be "enlightened".

So after all this one gets a "look, if you tweak the sliders in LR for some time, you get kinda close to what C1 does straight away". The article and its announcement are also inconsistent in sometimes calling the C1 results "better straight away" and other times a "juiced look".

Although the term "CLOSE-UP" is used in yet another tite, there is no closer evaluation, e.g., how sharpening behaves regarding different settings, how well the processors cope with certain detail, challenging motives, etc. LR allegedly supports deconvolution sharpening as well as the more common unsharp mask approach. Why not look at when which works best and how it compares to C1?

From a general comparison article, I would expect a trade-off analysis of the features/UI, and from a processing comparison article I would expect a comparison of what operations are supported and how well they are executed.

There is a tiny bit of comparison of features at the end of the article so the article clearly does not only want to be about how the programs differ in their default settings, but essentially it does not say much more than they have different philosophies regarding what a good start for editing is.

[Class A]

If they had a flexible payment plan like Adobe does, I'd switch over.

You don't have to buy C1. They have a subscription model as well. I personally wouldn't go there, but if you prefer it, it is available.

Many other software are adopting a similar model, like Capture One, but with Capture One, which was a developer first, the catalog is even more lacking (at this point).

How is it even more lacking? I understand the cataloguing features were bad before C1 8 but since then they have been beefed up. I don't really know what anyone would be missing compared to LR.

BTW, I also find the user interfaces between LR and C1 very similar. I don't understand how you see C1's being closer to Silkypix. The last time I used the Pentax version of Silkypix (which was a while ago) the interface was nothing like the C1 interface, but rather pretty much horrible and as users are still complaining about it, I'm assuming not much has changed.

C1's interface is very customisable -- you can move things around, exclude or add panels, etc. -- which is great when you don't like the default. No such luck with LR.

As I said before, LR also has some advantages over C1; there are certainly pros and cons to both programs. However, overall I wouldn't want to go back to LR even though I enjoyed it a lot at the time I was using it (when it did not slow down to a crawl or forget all my image orientations, etc.).

[emalvick]

How is it even more lacking? I understand the cataloguing features were bad before C1 8 but since then they have been beefed up. I don't really know what anyone would be missing compared to LR.

BTW, I also find the user interfaces between LR and C1 very similar. I don't understand how you see C1's being closer to Silkypix. The last time I used the Pentax version of Silkypix (which was a while ago) the interface was nothing like the C1 interface, but rather pretty much horrible and as users are still complaining about it, I'm assuming not much has changed.

C1's interface is very customisable -- you can move things around, exclude or add panels, etc. -- which is great when you don't like the default. No such luck with LR.

As I said before, LR also has some advantages over C1; there are certainly pros and cons to both programs. However, overall I wouldn't want to go back to LR even though I enjoyed it a lot at the time I was using it (when it did not slow down to a crawl or forget all my image orientations, etc.).

I don't think I said C1's was closer to Silkypix. I was arguing that most user interfaces for all the software are similar. i.e. Silkypix, C1, LR, DxO, RawTherapee all kind of work the same, in a broad sense. If you learn one software, you can probably learn the others. BUT, you aren't going to be an expert right at the start either.

Silkypix's interface isn't that complicated nor different than any of the others. The only real difference is language related and terminology. But that occurs with most software to some degree or another.

As a result, I look at things more broadly. To get picky about specific interface and tools I think misses a point because of what I stated above and in my previous post. Heck, if any software is different and relatively unique, it would be LightZone, and even that software wasn't tough to figure out after having learned the ins and outs of LR and others.

As for C1, I've not tried it since Version 8, so I apologize for misrepresenting its Catalog feature (it's too expensive for me, so I'd rather not find I like it better until I'm ready to buy another RAW program in a few years). As far as catalogs go, I honestly don't even look at those features except to the point that I HAVE to use them. I use IMatch for cataloging and don't need multiple catalogs. I'd rather not be constrained to one with my RAW processor, but I did make use of LR's to find information. When I tried C1 I found I could use it without its catalog, so I didn't look to closely other than to see others negative reviews. I also independently looked at the features of their catalog, but nothing sold me to use it.

I do like the fact that software like C1 (and DxO) let you customize panels for editing. It's an added benefit, but not something that has a huge impact on whether I buy a software or not. It really is about the output and how easy it can be to get there.

[Oakland Rob]

DxO uses ICC profiles it makes for cameras, and I find them quite good.

Lr has it's own profiles for Pentax and Oly as well, and I can't distinguish them from the OEM stuff. So I suppose if you don't like how Oly and Pentax do color then maybe they wouldn't be for you; not sure how C1P now handles that.

But if you want accurate color you should be using a color card. I use Xrite's Colorchecker Passport, and it works as a plugin in Lr. So on any given day in any given light with any camera I can generate calibrated accurate color. C1 can do that, although it's not as automated: The Image Quality Professor's Blog » Blog Archive Tweak the default color look of your camera - The Image Quality Professor's Blog Doing it by eye can work as well, IF you've got a color calibrated monitor, and depending on your gamut. It's like the other adjustments: most all have the same stuff, it's just a matter of how you get there, as awscreo noted.

As far as lacking organizing tools, for me it's as simple as say the lack of georeferencing tools. The IPTC location module was weak, and didn't distinguish location shot vs shown. The last time I tried it I couldn't figure out how to change some other exif info, like shifting timestamps or adding lens names; maybe it's somewhere but I couldn't find it. I also didn't feel slideshow and print layout was as easy or complete as in Lr. Searching and replacing wasn't there, nor were there customizable metadata views or synching options. It's also lacking a whole publishing scheme, which again is a must for me. But Capture One isn't really concentrating on that stuff; it's playing to other strengths and has an organization model that's adequate for a lotta users.

But the other thing that made me drop it is the lack of plugins, and of course Photoshop, Bridge, and now Lr Mobile (which is fast becoming an excellent app, especially if you use iOS). When choosing one should really take those into account. Editing images with the power of Ps, even if just for layers, is a whole other league. It does require a learning curve, however.

[awscreo]

DxO uses ICC profiles it makes for cameras, and I find them quite good.

Lr has it's own profiles for Pentax and Oly as well, and I can't distinguish them from the OEM stuff. So I suppose if you don't like how Oly and Pentax do color then maybe they wouldn't be for you; not sure how C1P now handles that.

But if you want accurate color you should be using a color card. I use Xrite's Colorchecker Passport, and it works as a plugin in Lr. So on any given day in any given light with any camera I can generate calibrated accurate color. C1 can do that, although it's not as automated: The Image Quality Professor's Blog » Blog Archive Tweak the default color look of your camera - The Image Quality Professor's Blog Doing it by eye can work as well, IF you've got a color calibrated monitor, and depending on your gamut. It's like the other adjustments: most all have the same stuff, it's just a matter of how you get there, as awscreo noted.

As far as lacking organizing tools, for me it's as simple as say the lack of georeferencing tools. The IPTC location module was weak, and didn't distinguish location shot vs shown. The last time I tried it I couldn't figure out how to change some other exif info, like shifting timestamps or adding lens names; maybe it's somewhere but I couldn't find it. I also didn't feel slideshow and print layout was as easy or complete as in Lr. Searching and replacing wasn't there, nor were there customizable metadata views or synching options. It's also lacking a whole publishing scheme, which again is a must for me. But Capture One isn't really concentrating on that stuff; it's playing to other strengths and has an organization model that's adequate for a lotta users.

But the other thing that made me drop it is the lack of plugins, and of course Photoshop, Bridge, and now Lr Mobile (which is fast becoming an excellent app, especially if you use iOS). When choosing one should really take those into account. Editing images with the power of Ps, even if just for layers, is a whole other league. It does require a learning curve, however.

For oly the profiles Adobe used were not good. I've compared side by side two raws with no processing done, in Olympus software and in lr, and color was quite different even with use of lr profiles. One from Olympus app had more natural look closer to what you see in the back of the camera. I haven't used Pentax silky pix thing, so I don't know how it processes Pentax raws. But I personally like c1 color and detail over lr.