Capture One updates. Are they now too expensive?

[roydonian]

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7 hours ago, dpitt said:

If you buy a new Mac, it can not run earlier systems so then you can not run that version of LR anymore, even with updates.

That seems to be a common problem for the 'Mac' community. My experience over more than 20 years as a Windows user is that the latter OS is fairly tolerant of older software. The only stuff that absolutely won't run in a modern OS version is old 16 bit software,  but this can be run in a virtual machine, as can MSDOS software.

I still use almost daily a utility program that is about 25 years old, and until recently relied on a simulation/modelling program of similar vintage that had been written by an academic to meet a specific need, so has never been updated.

[Olaf_ZG]

6 hours ago, hansvons said:

How are you going along with LR? For my part, I stay with C1 as it's the fastest of all photo editors, especially if you want to take advanced of its layer ability. The premium I pay will be returned by many hours I don't have to spend jumping over to PS to fix stuff. And C1's colour handling and tools are more advanced, IMO.

This Leica forum is as elite as it possibly gets in photography land (not necessarily a bad thing!). Why do people complain about 100 euros annually (roughly the difference between C1 and LR)?

I am still learning and still in doubt. I like the amount of updates LR in this 4 months, they are really evolving. I also like how masking can be done, it’s really quick. 

I do miss luminance curves (especially on masks), and am still not happy with my b/w conversion.

I still didn’t install c1 on my new computer, on purpose to force me to play only with LR.

So, still no conclusion, sorry.

[Anbaric]

12 hours ago, roydonian said:

That seems to be a common problem for the 'Mac' community. My experience over more than 20 years as a Windows user is that the latter OS is fairly tolerant of older software. The only stuff that absolutely won't run in a modern OS version is old 16 bit software,  but this can be run in a virtual machine, as can MSDOS software.

I still use almost daily a utility program that is about 25 years old, and until recently relied on a simulation/modelling program of similar vintage that had been written by an academic to meet a specific need, so has never been updated.

Photoshop 7.0, now 21 years old, will run on current Windows machines provided you have a 1TB or smaller partition. And because it predates online activation, there are no problems with fresh installs (which are no longer supported for CS-CS4, unless you have the special activation-free CS2 and CS3 installers that Adobe no longer provides). Eventually, Adobe will kill online activation of CS5, CS6 and LR6. Older versions of LR are worth keeping if they support your camera or you use DNGs - I don't think online activation was required for LR5 and earlier.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Anbaric

[Photoworks]

On 5/10/2023 at 7:24 PM, Anbaric said:

Photoshop 7.0, now 21 years old, will run on current Windows machines provided you have a 1TB or smaller partition. And because it predates online activation, there are no problems with fresh installs (which are no longer supported for CS-CS4, unless you have the special activation-free CS2 and CS3 installers that Adobe no longer provides). Eventually, Adobe will kill online activation of CS5, CS6 and LR6. Older versions of LR are worth keeping if they support your camera or you use DNGs - I don't think online activation was required for LR5 and earlier.

People still Ps 7? wow

I suppose you don't care about color and light so much.

[Anbaric]

2 hours ago, Photoworks said:

People still Ps 7? wow

I suppose you don't care about color and light so much.

Why would you suppose that?

[Photoworks]

5 hours ago, Anbaric said:

Why would you suppose that?

The tools have improved so much, that even by opening up an older raw file you get much better results from images in a current version.

[Anbaric]

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37 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

The tools have improved so much, that even by opening up an older raw file you get much better results from images in a current version.

PS7 has no raw converter out of the box (ACR 1.0 was at the time sold as a separate product, supporting dSLRs up to the early 6MP era, and I didn't buy it). Later, in the CS era, I was never terribly impressed by Adobe's raw conversions compared to the output of (say) Capture One or Nikon's in-house converters. PS for me is just an editor, mostly for cropping and minor global tweaking of brightness, contrast and colour, and although I mainly use CS6 at the moment, I don't miss much when I use CS3. PS7 is pushing it, mainly because some tools don't have 16-bit support and it doesn't know what to do with >1TB partitions, but feed it a tiff from a modern raw converter and nobody will know which version of PS you used for the final tweaks.

[Photoworks]

9 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

PS7 has no raw converter out of the box (ACR 1.0 was at the time sold as a separate product, supporting dSLRs up to the early 6MP era, and I didn't buy it). Later, in the CS era, I was never terribly impressed by Adobe's raw conversions compared to the output of (say) Capture One or Nikon's in-house converters. PS for me is just an editor, mostly for cropping and minor global tweaking of brightness, contrast and colour, and although I mainly use CS6 at the moment, I don't miss much when I use CS3. PS7 is pushing it, mainly because some tools don't have 16-bit support and it doesn't know what to do with >1TB partitions, but feed it a tiff from a modern raw converter and nobody will know which version of PS you used for the final tweaks.

I suppose I do more advanced edits that you are not interested in. and they can't be done in C1P.

 

 

[Anbaric]

18 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

I suppose I do more advanced edits that you are not interested in. and they can't be done in C1P.

Yes, for most purposes I would rarely do more than (e.g.) this level of editing (I don't do this for a living or enter Serious Competitions, it's just a personal preference). That makes most of the advanced tools redundant (as they also are when I occasionally use PS for my day job, where significant manipulation would definitely not be appropriate). But if I were a digital artist using photographs as raw material, I'm sure I'd be more than happy to use anything that made life easier!

Edited May 24, 2023 by Anbaric

[dpitt]

On 5/2/2023 at 7:24 PM, dpitt said:

I happened to buy C1P 23 for 200€ only 2 weeks ago. Updates are included until end of '23. It was a discount  from a shop clearing 'stock' probably because at the time nothing was in promotion at the Capture one site.
To me this is still cheaper than the smallest annual subscription Adobe has to offer, and I like C1P the approach better than LR.  This sum would only buy me 1,5 years of LR subscription and I think I would not really need an update for at least a few years, because I always buy used gear.

Important update.

As stated,  I was happy to purchase C1P  at a discount. I managed to install updates v23(16.1.2) and v23(16.1.3) and I thought to be safe for every update of v23 until 30th of September 2023.

Now I found out that I can not install v23(16.2.0) released in May! At least Capture One could have the decency to call it v24, but no it is still called v23!
So my 200 Euro bought a new, of the shelf product at 33% discount and one month later it is made obsolete by another version with the same name. Upgrading at the current price discount and with the 40% of for me as a customer buying within a year would still cost me 160 EUR to upgrade my v23 version to v23(16.2)

I will not upgrade and keep using my (incomplete) v23 for the foreseeable future, but it does not add to my customer satisfaction level,  I can tell you that... If they keep updating at that rate, making previous perpetual licenses obsolete...
 

Edited July 13, 2023 by dpitt

[marchyman]

23 hours ago, dpitt said:

So my 200 Euro bought a new, of the shelf product at 33% discount

Often a largish discount means "new software coming".  Not just new software, but something requiring a paid upgrade.   Another common reason for a large discount is "pay now and get the next version but we're not going to tell you what's new".  Capture One are not the only folks to do that.

I have mostly weaned myself from Capture One.  I still have a fully paid copy of Capture One 22 that I use once in a great while.

[jaapv]

It seems that C1 is promoting Adobe's subscription model now.

[hansvons]

46 minutes ago, jaapv said:

It seems that C1 is promoting Adobe's subscription model now.

 

There are many reasons why one would prefer one editor over the other. And money in the 100 EUR per year range shouldn’t be an issue for a Leica-using photographer. Yet it is. 

We should acknowledge C1's stamina to compete against the US behemoth; instead, we complain about their pricing, which very likely is necessary to make C1 stay afloat.

 

[jaapv]

The market is a bit more open than just C1 vs Adobe, there are dozens of competitors.

[wlaidlaw]

C1 is still RAW conversion orientated. Their efforts to make it into a complete photo editing suite have been less than wonderful. Their menu systems are a mess, which seems to have deteriorated and become more illogical as each new version comes out with additional features to cope with. For example they have now deleted the process function tool to convert to JPG or TIFF and incorporated it into the export menu system, which to my mind makes little sense. A one click command has now become a multi action process. Adobe's menu and tools systems seem to work pretty well and from my POV, I have used them almost equal amounts of time (PS 24 years C1 20 years). My only real beef with Adobe is the amount extra they charge for Acrobat and the removal of the camera shake tool, as apparently they could not make it work for M1 Macs. The latter is a real pain to me, suffering from arthritic tremor, that got a lot worse after Covid (one of the main reasons I bought the Q3). I use Topaz Labs Sharpen AI instead but again, it is more cumbersome, even as a plug in to PS. 

Wilson

[jaapv]

Wilson, I run Topaz Photo AI now as a first step in any PS process. The sharpening there appears to be less prone to artifacts than Sharpen AI. I don’t know how well it handles significant motion blur though. 

[hansvons]

12 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

C1 is still RAW conversion orientated. Their efforts to make it into a complete photo editing suite have been less than wonderful. Their menu systems are a mess, which seems to have deteriorated and become more illogical as each new version comes out with additional features to cope with.

Heartily disagree. I use C1 for everything stills photography-related and can only say good things, including the subscription scheme. But my focus is to get things done quickly. And I like to maintain a high level of quality. On both, C1 delivers. Thousands of customers think the same. And yes, there's no such thing as a perfect photo editor. YMMV.

[irenedp]

I use only the free version of C1 for a Phase One IQ4. I think it is a better developer than Lightroom -or Camera Raw-.  I keep using  Lightroom for the Leicas and the Nikons.  Usually, either in Lightroom or C1 I do a basic adjustment (exposure, shadows and highlights and lens corrections) and move on to Photoshop for any editing. For me, Photoshop is really critical  

If Lightroom weren’t so bad with Phase One files I would forget about C1, because LR has the (enormous) advantage of the Catalog. When I develop a Phase file, i have to go to Photoshop for editing and then import the tiff and the original IQ4 file in LR to have them on the catalog. It’s complex. 

If I did fashion or weddings or a lot of Corporate, I could live with organizing sessions in C1, but as a documentary and fine art photographer my image generation is limited. I feel more comfortable with my Adobe subscription -which includes InDesign and Premiere- and not having an additional one with C1. Their purchase plan is attractive, but eventually you end up buying “just another version” after two or three years. I’ve lived that with Topaz (and now really only use Sharpen AI). 

[hansvons]

25 minutes ago, irenedp said:

Usually, either in Lightroom or C1 I do a basic adjustment (exposure, shadows and highlights and lens corrections) and move on to Photoshop for any editing. For me, Photoshop is really critical  

If Lightroom weren’t so bad with Phase One files I would forget about C1, because LR has the (enormous) advantage of the Catalog.

Thanks for your insights.

C1’s catalogue is not as powerful as LR’s but improved a lot over the years. I use it to collect and catalog my all-time favourites. Thus, it only holds roughly a thousand+ images. I don't miss a thing.
 

I’m doing mostly reportage-like projects that consist of 50-500 shots depending on the project and on the medium (film or digital). All pictures end up in a dedicated project session folder after a generous culling process. I do all the editing inside the sessions. Rarely do I leave C1 because C1 provides all I need, including touch-ups etc.

The 5-starred images later find their final destination in my catalogue, the sessions get backed up. 
 

As a side note, I will say that both C1 and LR still have to catch up to proper video grading programmes in terms of primary and secondary colour grading tools. For a starter, I can't black-balance images in either editor, and there are many more issues like LUT integration/generation. Unclear to me why developers seemingly ignore the video grading world for inspiration. 

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[irenedp]

6 hours ago, hansvons said:

Thanks for your insights.

C1’s catalogue is not as powerful as LR’s but improved a lot over the years. I use it to collect and catalog my all-time favourites. Thus, it only holds roughly a thousand+ images. I don't miss a thing.
 

I’m doing mostly reportage-like projects that consist of 50-500 shots depending on the project and on the medium (film or digital). All pictures end up in a dedicated project session folder after a generous culling process. I do all the editing inside the sessions. Rarely do I leave C1 because C1 provides all I need, including touch-ups etc.

The 5-starred images later find their final destination in my catalogue, the sessions get backed up. 
 

As a side note, I will say that both C1 and LR still have to catch up to proper video grading programmes in terms of primary and secondary colour grading tools. For a starter, I can't black-balance images in either editor, and there are many more issues like LUT integration/generation. Unclear to me why developers seemingly ignore the video grading world for inspiration. 

There was a program called 3dLUT creator which had good reviews and may provide that.

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by irenedp
correction