[BruceBanner]

Affinity Photo is a really good piece of editing software. It's so good that I usually follow PS tutorials with it. It has limited PSD support. I have Photo, Designer and Publisher, all the pack .

I use C1 with Photo similar as you use LR + PS, and it integrates quite good in this way:

* When I want to finish a pic, choose 'Edit with' from C1, select Photo and use TIFF as the export format (plus color space, 8/16 bit, etc.).
* I make my edits in Photo.
* Save the TIFF and choose 'export with layers', this way all the layers, setting, etc, I made with Photo are preserved.
* On C1 I see the edited and flattened TIFF, and I can add more editing if I want, for example some film style or so.
* If later I want to continue editing the original TIFF, I choose 'Open with' from C1, the TIFF is opened in Photo and everything I created previously with Photo is there.

I bought the Lutify LUT package that are compatible with C1 but also with any editor that supports LUTs (as Affinity Photo), so I can choose to apply a style in Photo or in C1. Lutify doesn't support C1 layers, but I can use layers in Photo to apply Lutify LUTs selectively, if needed.

Great combination, IMHO

Tried Affinity earlier in the year, and returned/refunded (within the 30 day trial);

1) brush work was slower than in LR/PS for some reason on my PC.
2) No catalogue syncing ability (cannot edit one image and apply those changes quickly across a bunch of images).

Point 2 might not be quite true, macros and whatnot might of been possible, but really that's too much effort for event work every time. LR is king for event work with its Autosync/Sync feature set, haven't met a program that tackles mass edits quite as well as LR yet.

So many programs seem to be about editing one image well (like PS), but its the ability to do both things that LR and PS together have that seem to really be lacking.

A friend this week trialled C1, he says that it doesn't support Photomerge? So no HDR or Panorama merge capability?!? I find that hard to believe?!

LR is actually doing a great job these days for stitches. I also like the fact once the stitch is complete its still a DNG file which plays better with my LUTS and Presets.

[clickclick]

I believe this problem has been solved in ON1Photo RAW 2020, which was recently released.

I'll have to check it out. They made big improvements in 2019, but didn't have it quite dialed in. Thanks.

So I went and grabbed the newest 2020 version, and it's the same as in 2019. It will show the individual line items in your history for that session, but once you shut the program down, you loose that detail.

[clickclick]

Correct, for my K3-II I missed to have more profiles, not only the Adobe Standard, that is... well... 'not satisfactory'. My solution was to buy Huelight profiles: you can get Landcaspe, Neutral, Portrait, Standard and Vivid profiles, that are way better that the Adobe profile, and closer to the Camera profiles. They are not too expensive. In C1 I get way better rendering of my K3-II files 'out of the box', but also I bought some LUTs and Film styles from Lutify & 1styles, so now I'm most than satisfied .

I went ahead and grabbed the Huelight profiles for my K-1 II. Too reasonably priced not to. Thanks for the recommendation.

[PDL]

A friend this week trialled C1, he says that it doesn't support Photomerge? So no HDR or Panorama merge capability?!? I find that hard to believe?!

Capture One is a RAW processor. It does not do HDR photo merge, Panorama, Pixel Shift. It works with RAW data and is totally non-destructive and it does not use intermediary proprietary formats (like Affinity Photo and Photoshop do). Capture One is NOT a pixel editor.

If you read the description of what the program does, the above does not come as a surprise. Which is why I have a copy of LR v6.14 and Affinity Photo left around to do panorama stitching (when LR pukes I use Affinity Photo with usually does not puke) and adding text to Christmas Cards (something I have not done for the past three years).

I have DSU for Pixel Shift - and I have been completely disappointed in the results. Tried it twice (in my front yard on a tripod and in Alaska) no advantage was seen and the Alaska images came out blurry. Not a fan.

[BruceBanner]

Capture One is a RAW processor. It does not do HDR photo merge, Panorama, Pixel Shift. It works with RAW data and is totally non-destructive and it does not use intermediary proprietary formats (like Affinity Photo and Photoshop do). Capture One is NOT a pixel editor.

If you read the description of what the program does, the above does not come as a surprise. Which is why I have a copy of LR v6.14 and Affinity Photo left around to do panorama stitching (when LR pukes I use Affinity Photo with usually does not puke) and adding text to Christmas Cards (something I have not done for the past three years).

I have DSU for Pixel Shift - and I have been completely disappointed in the results. Tried it twice (in my front yard on a tripod and in Alaska) no advantage was seen and the Alaska images came out blurry. Not a fan.

That is interesting, so then... when LR does do panorama or HDR merges within LR itself, and leave you with a merged DNG file, is then still non destructive? Is this the only example of LR behaving in a destructive manner? I can assure you its actually very good (the results) and the fact its a DNG file still is so much better than visiting MS ICE or Hugins for similar treatment.

Lack of pixelshift support is sad, fwiw I use RawTherapee for that side of things and its quite a bit better than DCU (both my own findings support this as well as a few articles on the subject that you can find if you google it more).

[morenjavi]

Tried Affinity earlier in the year, and returned/refunded (within the 30 day trial);

1) brush work was slower than in LR/PS for some reason on my PC.
2) No catalogue syncing ability (cannot edit one image and apply those changes quickly across a bunch of images).

Point 2 might not be quite true, macros and whatnot might of been possible, but really that's too much effort for event work every time. LR is king for event work with its Autosync/Sync feature set, haven't met a program that tackles mass edits quite as well as LR yet.

I didn't upgrate to LR6 and I still have LR4.4, so maybe I'm not doing a fair comparison (LR4.4 vs C1 2019), but I think that LR6 is still using the same process version (2012) than LR4.

I don't use brushes intensively. I use Photo when I need to:
* make a lot of clonning / healing
* remove a lot of unwanted or complicated objects
* fix burned areas
* fix shinny skin
* soften skin and remove imperfections
* work with layers
* etc

C1 or LR can do some of the above but they have its limits. Photo brush engine is still a bit slow compared to other software, but this problem is more related to complex brushes that have bitmaps and so. If I compare Photo brush engine against Krita or ClipStudioPaint, well, I think Krita and CSP are way better. But the most common brushes I use in Photo are the classic round ones, that work more or less fine.

Photo can't edit a bunch of files at a time, but it's not designed to do that, this is what LR or C1 are supposed to do, isn't it ? About editing events, with hundreds of pics, my experience with C1 is better compared to LR: I spend less time editing and my results are more pleasing to me. I don't miss the LR auto-sync feature, C1 have similar tools to edit several pics at a time and sync settings.

I tried LR5 when it came out, I planed to get it just to have a better clone brush (and avoid using a external program just for cloning), but it was too slow on my PC, found no other advantages so I discarded it. Some time later I bought LR6. Yes LR6 have panorama stitching capabilities and HDR tools but still the same problems for me: slower than LR4, no good profiles for my cameras, slow cloning brush (on my PC). I returned LR after 30 days, and they accepted my claims about the slowness of the new version. I didn't want to buy a new PC just to make LR6 work.

Affinity Photo is a recent software so we can't expect to have all the features of PS, but it has all the features I need and more. I think that Affinity team is doing a great effort upgrading the software and improving performance. I started in version 1.4 and they have released 1.5, 1.6 & 1.7 releases, that are 'minor' releases but that added a lot of new features and improvements. I have seen other software companies releasing 'major' versions with way less new features, and asking for more money for the new version. Let's wait for version 2, to make a new comparison against PS.

So many programs seem to be about editing one image well (like PS), but its the ability to do both things that LR and PS together have that seem to really be lacking.

I have been just a casual PS user. When I needed to edit outside LR, I mostly used some freeware editors like GIMP, or software like On1 Effects. Then I discovered Photo. But I think that when I was using LR I did what most users did, do cataloging and most of the editing in LR, and then switch to a external editor to make more sophisticated editing. I do the same after I switched to C1, but maybe I'm missing something related to LR-PS integration.

A friend this week trialled C1, he says that it doesn't support Photomerge? So no HDR or Panorama merge capability?!? I find that hard to believe?
LR is actually doing a great job these days for stitches. I also like the fact once the stitch is complete its still a DNG file which plays better with my LUTS and Presets.

To look for specific features can be of course a factor to decide what software is more suitable for you. LR have HDR and panorama stitching, which can be very convenient. But a user that makes just casual HDR or panorama stitching can live using other solutions. Affinity Photo have HDR and panorama sititching too, but I don't know if it's better or worse than LR or Photomerge options. C1 2020 have a really great HDR module, but again, can or can't be good enough for other users. It seems very good to me.

I mostly make portraits, and the main reason to stop using LR and use C1 instead was the rendering. I found C1 skin tone rendering more pleasant to my eyes. I was comparing a lot of pictures that I edited in LR against C1, and I found that I liked C1 version most of the time. Also I needed less work to get a finished picture. C1 work better with the cameras I use, or maybe with my photographing style, or the marketing is better, or maybe I just like it without having any logical reason .

I have nothing against LR, in fact, after C1 I consider LR the best non-destructive photo editor. EDIT: RAW photo editor.

At the end of the day, you use the software that best fits your needs and with which you feel comfortable.

Regards.

[BruceBanner]

I didn't upgrate to LR6 and I still have LR4.4, so maybe I'm not doing a fair comparison (LR4.4 vs C1 2019), but I think that LR6 is still using the same process version (2012) than LR4.

I don't use brushes intensively. I use Photo when I need to:
* make a lot of clonning / healing
* remove a lot of unwanted or complicated objects
* fix burned areas
* fix shinny skin
* soften skin and remove imperfections
* work with layers
* etc

C1 or LR can do some of the above but they have its limits. Photo brush engine is still a bit slow compared to other software, but this problem is more related to complex brushes that have bitmaps and so. If I compare Photo brush engine against Krita or ClipStudioPaint, well, I think Krita and CSP are way better. But the most common brushes I use in Photo are the classic round ones, that work more or less fine.

Photo can't edit a bunch of files at a time, but it's not designed to do that, this is what LR or C1 are supposed to do, isn't it ? About editing events, with hundreds of pics, my experience with C1 is better compared to LR: I spend less time editing and my results are more pleasing to me. I don't miss the LR auto-sync feature, C1 have similar tools to edit several pics at a time and sync settings.

I tried LR5 when it came out, I planed to get it just to have a better clone brush (and avoid using a external program just for cloning), but it was too slow on my PC, found no other advantages so I discarded it. Some time later I bought LR6. Yes LR6 have panorama stitching capabilities and HDR tools but still the same problems for me: slower than LR4, no good profiles for my cameras, slow cloning brush (on my PC). I returned LR after 30 days, and they accepted my claims about the slowness of the new version. I didn't want to buy a new PC just to make LR6 work.

Affinity Photo is a recent software so we can't expect to have all the features of PS, but it has all the features I need and more. I think that Affinity team is doing a great effort upgrading the software and improving performance. I started in version 1.4 and they have released 1.5, 1.6 & 1.7 releases, that are 'minor' releases but that added a lot of new features and improvements. I have seen other software companies releasing 'major' versions with way less new features, and asking for more money for the new version. Let's wait for version 2, to make a new comparison against PS.



I have been just a casual PS user. When I needed to edit outside LR, I mostly used some freeware editors like GIMP, or software like On1 Effects. Then I discovered Photo. But I think that when I was using LR I did what most users did, do cataloging and most of the editing in LR, and then switch to a external editor to make more sophisticated editing. I do the same after I switched to C1, but maybe I'm missing something related to LR-PS integration.



To look for specific features can be of course a factor to decide what software is more suitable for you. LR have HDR and panorama stitching, which can be very convenient. But a user that makes just casual HDR or panorama stitching can live using other solutions. Affinity Photo have HDR and panorama sititching too, but I don't know if it's better or worse than LR or Photomerge options. C1 2020 have a really great HDR module, but again, can or can't be good enough for other users. It seems very good to me.

I mostly make portraits, and the main reason to stop using LR and use C1 instead was the rendering. I found C1 skin tone rendering more pleasant to my eyes. I was comparing a lot of pictures that I edited in LR against C1, and I found that I liked C1 version most of the time. Also I needed less work to get a finished picture. C1 work better with the cameras I use, or maybe with my photographing style, or the marketing is better, or maybe I just like it without having any logical reason .

I have nothing against LR, in fact, after C1 I consider LR the best non-destructive photo editor. EDIT: RAW photo editor.

At the end of the day, you use the software that best fits your needs and with which you feel comfortable.

Regards.

Good feedback. Interesting to hear you feel C1 works better with the cameras you use, that include Pentax? I was under the impression LR supported Pentax better in this regard, but for profiles, lens profiles and generally handling DNGs well.

[PDL]

That is interesting, so then... when LR does do panorama or HDR merges within LR itself, and leave you with a merged DNG file, is then still non destructive? Is this the only example of LR behaving in a destructive manner? I can assure you its actually very good (the results) and the fact its a DNG file still is so much better than visiting MS ICE or Hugins for similar treatment.

Lack of pixelshift support is sad, fwiw I use RawTherapee for that side of things and its quite a bit better than DCU (both my own findings support this as well as a few articles on the subject that you can find if you google it more).

The panorama function of LR 6.14 is why I keep it around and that is what I use it for. I do have it loaded on a old 2008 laptop that I take with me on vacation for quick and dirty editing. Using LR on a laptop that even the most stupid thief would not take (do the math - its 12 years old) because it is not worth $5 and I do have a reasonable amount of time for letting it get on with things. However, there are times when LR pukes on panoramas, that is where Affinity Photo comes in. You have much more flexibility in matching overlapping images that LR just can not cope with.

The panorama creating process is non destructive in the sense that the original images are not "changed". However, with LR, the program has been known to write information back into DNG's - just look for those discussions on this site - been there - done that. I have only taken one HDR image and I used the internal HDR function of my K-3II and the results were horrible. If there is a dictionary explanation of why not to use HDR, then the picture I took using the technique would be the illustration.

I have requested that Phase One look into pixel shift. I got a nice calm response that basically boils down to --- No, not even for Sony.

Color fidelity in Capture One is its strength. My workflow is pretty well down pat and I am not paying for the Adobe Ransomware cabal.

[BruceBanner]

The panorama function of LR 6.14 is why I keep it around and that is what I use it for. I do have it loaded on a old 2008 laptop that I take with me on vacation for quick and dirty editing. Using LR on a laptop that even the most stupid thief would not take (do the math - its 12 years old) because it is not worth $5 and I do have a reasonable amount of time for letting it get on with things. However, there are times when LR pukes on panoramas, that is where Affinity Photo comes in. You have much more flexibility in matching overlapping images that LR just can not cope with.

The panorama creating process is non destructive in the sense that the original images are not "changed". However, with LR, the program has been known to write information back into DNG's - just look for those discussions on this site - been there - done that. I have only taken one HDR image and I used the internal HDR function of my K-3II and the results were horrible. If there is a dictionary explanation of why not to use HDR, then the picture I took using the technique would be the illustration.

I have requested that Phase One look into pixel shift. I got a nice calm response that basically boils down to --- No, not even for Sony.

Color fidelity in Capture One is its strength. My workflow is pretty well down pat and I am not paying for the Adobe Ransomware cabal.

I think much of this comes down to features vs cost. I have absolutely no problem paying for software that costs me $170AUD/yr when I absolutely exploit all that the package offers.

1) LR for it's = Syncing, HDR Merge, Panorama, Preset support, 3DLUTS support, Plugin support, Cataloguing, Backups, Basic Nondestructive editor
2) PS for it's = Advanced editor, superior brush/cloning work, support of plugins etc.
3) Adobe Portfolio, essentially acting like a website thus negative the cost of using Wix/Squarespace (which are not cheap at all!).
4) Cloud Storage

I can completely understand how some people feel ripped off if they use only a certain amount of features of LR (and not exploit many), have not bought into presets, plugins or 3DLUTS, never use PS and never use Portfolio.

Otherwise it's actually fantastic value.

[morenjavi]

Good feedback. Interesting to hear you feel C1 works better with the cameras you use, that include Pentax? I was under the impression LR supported Pentax better in this regard, but for profiles, lens profiles and generally handling DNGs well.

I'm a loyal Pentax user . I have a K5 and K3-II (I still keep my dear K10D and my faulty *ist Ds).
K3-II is my most used camera. I don't see a great difference with K5 pictures, but I saw a noticeable diffence regarding the K3-II. An added problem is that my LR4.4 doesn't support K3-II PEF files, so I have to convert to DNG and use the embedded camera profile. I bought Huelight profiles for K3-II and things improved, but still I prefer to develop RAW files with C1. I can't explain exactly why I like more images developed in C1, I can say that they look more 'film like' or 'more natural' or just 'more pleasing', but maybe the it's more correct to say that they seem 'less digital' to me.

Regarding DNG files, C1 handles it correctly and I found no differences when I've been comparing a PEF file against the same file converted to DNG. Just the WB scale is different (maybe a bug?). CO 2020 has improved DNG support, but I don't know exactly what has been improved.

LR has a better support by far regarding lenses, you have profiles to fix distorsion & vigneting with one click. In C1 you have just a small bunch of Pentax lenses supported, but you can fix chromatic aberration and fringing with good results for any lens. Of course you can correct vigneting or distorsion manually or using the profile of a similar lens. In my case, I use lenses with marginal distorsion and I really don't worry about correcting it. I understand that it's important when you use maybe wide lenses but this point is less important for me now than three/four years ago.

C1 doens't support LUTs, but you have really great styles coming from Lutify.me or 1styles. After applied, you have plenty of freedom to adjust tone, apply in layers or event add more color grading. I have started to use/play with styles and LUTs this year, and I'm loving it.

What is more valuable in C1 for me, is that I get pleasing results with less work, I just browse or import a RAW picture and it just looks good to me, before starting to touch anything. For some reason, In LR I need to make more adjustments to get a picture to my taste. This means I need less time to develop in C1 compared to LR. Multiply this time x 100, that is the average of pics that I finally edit in my events (well, it's less than that, as you can edit similar pics at the same time). Also I find exporting faster and easier in C1; this is a part that tooks me hours in LR. If I have several Albums in LR, and I want to export every Album in a different folder, in LR I need to export Album by Album and select a destination folder (maybe this have improved in modern verions). In C1, I can make such export task with just one action, and go to sleep. Again, C1 saves me time.

Other feature that I love, are the live histograms (main, levels and curves). When the cursor is above any part of the image, you can see a vertical bar that shows the luminosity value on the histogram (all the histograms at the same time), so you can evaluate quickly if the tone in an area is too high, too low or correct. LR have a tone tool that can show you luminosity values (HSL) but it's not as good as C1.

Also C1 can show such exacts values in LAB, not just RGB values, so I know the exact luminosity value of any area in an image. For me this is really valuable, because it helps me to check that my skin tones are 'safe', that I don't have important areas in shadow with too dark values, or that white areas have a good white value. This is important because I print my images for selling, and I know if important areas have correct values when I need to send a picture to my lab. For example, L=65 is a correct general value for a 'white' skin on the light side of the face, but I can raise the value to L=75 if I want the skin to be brighter, and still get a good print, L>80 is maybe too bright. L<5 means that this area will be black in print, without detail. L>96 means near pure white without detail. L=92 for a white dress means that it will look a bit grayish, etc. Yes I could look at my monitor but you can set incorrect tones just depending on the monitor bright level, if you edit during the day or with artifical light, etc. C1 helps me to check quickly the real luminosity values and be confident that they are correct, regarless if they look bright or dark on my monitor, is day or night, or my eyes are tired or not.

Finally, the 'normalize' feature is really useful. It's a kind of advanced white balance: you take a measure on an area of a person's skin on a picture, then you select a destination picture, click on the same skin area and 'voilà', the destination picture changes it's WB, so the skin have the same colour and tone than the origin. It does not work in 100% of the situations, but most of the time it can help me to get a correct WB in difficult pictures, and also I get a uniform look along a set of pictures that they were taken in different lighting conditions (indoors, outdoors, etc).

[ehrwien]

I hate that it won't open an image unless it recognizes the lens. I shoot a lot of astroimages through various telescopes and would love to use it for processing tbem. But alas it won't open the images. Grrrrrrr.......

That's weird, I have not have that happen to me. What does happen with manual lenses though is it that it will show a little warning triangle on pictures it does not have lens profiles for. But I can open and edit them like all the others where it does have a lens profile

[pudser]

I am currently in the middle of the transition having decided to move away from Lightroom to a combination of CaptureOne and DxO Photolab 3. This week I took the plunge and archived my LR content and dropped my Adobe subscription. I needed to force myself to use the new products 100% of the time without the safety net of the more familiar environment of LR. This post is at a point in time, I am going through this transition process as we speak and found the other posts in this thread helpful and timely. I hope that my experience is useful to others.

Reason for the move

* Cost model - I am not averse to using subscription services. I use numerous cloud storage solutions and Office365 so I will use them when I need to but I wanted to trim my ongoing monthly costs and I had the money on hand to buy the perpetual licenses

* Experience with Lightroom - I have used LR for a few years and I appreciate its capability but I never really learned to love the product. Perhaps it is because I was an enthusiastic user of Apple Aperture before they pulled the plug on it. I found the forced move to LR to be jarring and perhaps I was subconsciously holding a grudge. Humans are funny things.

* Why Capture One? - As well as being a long term Pentax user, I invested in the Sony ecosystem a couple of years ago with the a7iii and a bunch of lenses. At the time of purchase, there were a good number of offers to purchase the Sony-only version of the product. This seemed an easy entry into the platform and it consistently got excellent reviews from a good base of professionals due to its tethering support and its exclusive use for PhaseOne medium format cameras.

* Why Photolabs? - I have used numerous Pentax DLSRs over the years but I took the jump to medium format. I sold all my full frame kit and bought the 645Z and started collecting lens over time. It is now, without a doubt, my favorite camera of all time, I adore it. Unfortunately Capture One does not support a medium format system that competes(sic) with their PhaseOne camera. I think that this is short-sighted. I don't believe that the two systems are going after the same market but, hey, that's their prerogative. I knew DxO from the tests that they published so I did my research and liked what I read about the raw conversion and lens correction capabilities. I also loved that they bought the NIK collection and incorporated that into their flagship product I was an early user of NIK and I loved it so I was sad to see it stagnate at Google. I looked around for a deal and picked it up along with ViewPoint for architecture shoots.

Verdict
ONGOING ASSESSMENT - current status

CaptureOne
* It is true that is highly functional with a steep learning curve. I do find it somewhat familiar because it "feels" more like Aperture than LR. This is certainly an ongoing process and I invested in a great course form CreativeLive to help with my learning.

Photolabs
* I qualify the next statement as I need to know CaptureOne better but...at the moment I find that this product is a revelation. I found this software very usable and the way that it performs complex operations very intuitive. Generally, I like the interface. I don't know if it is because I have prior experience with NIK but I find the application of local adjustments functional and it handles the layers in a very smart way. I have found the treatment of the raw file pleasing to the eye and the lens corrections are excellent and comprehensive (all my gear was covered). I find that with the combination of the quality of the 645Z files and PhotoLabs I can pull an amazing amount of detail from the photos and manipulate the image without it appearing overdone or artificial. It can utilize the mass of data in a medium format file extremely well to get an artistic result. I recently used the ViewPoint functionality when I did a shoot at the Palace of Fine Arts. I haven't used it with my Sony images yet but I am tempted. btw Photolabs 3 has an additional capability for categorizing your content but it can't compete with the fully formed catalog system found in LR but I am fine with using keywords/tags and the OS file system as my repository.

I hope this is helpful, excuse the Photolabs bias. As I say, I am sure that as I get my head fully around CaptureOne I will find advantages of that product, it really is so functional!

I attach a test image I did with my 645z and Photolabs

[BruceBanner]

I would have canned my office 365 subscription before Adobe. $99/yr for Word and Excel? :/

[Craigbob]

That's weird, I have not have that happen to me. What does happen with manual lenses though is it that it will show a little warning triangle on pictures it does not have lens profiles for. But I can open and edit them like all the others where it does have a lens profile

Here's an example of what I am talking about. this is with my Pentax Q7, But I've seen it happend with other cameras.

[ThorSanchez]

I would have canned my office 365 subscription before Adobe. $99/yr for Word and Excel? :/

I get a full office suite, operating system, two RAW editors, lens correction database, a pixel-level editor, panorama stitching application, video editor, and photo downloading utility for $0/month. All free, all open source. I even build my favorite RAW editor from source code so it's specifically tailored and optimized for my particular hardware. I can't imagine a situation where I'd return to the Microsoft/Adobe/etc. model.