Capture One updates. Are they now too expensive?

[Olaf_ZG]

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My self imposed trial of one year for LR after 15years of C1 is ending. I will not prolong C1 though. LR covered my needs. Not perfectly, but neither was C1.

Good thing is that, though sometimes tempted by a phase one camera, I could not afford this, so letting go makes this a bit easier…

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[Anbaric]

Thread on killing off the C1 Express versions below. As with the earlier changes to the 'perpetual' C1 Pro licence terms, users are very unhappy:

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/15419149985309-Capture-One-Express-is-coming-to-an-end

The new owners seem careless about trashing community trust and goodwill in pursuit of a few extra subscriptions. I suspect this may come back to bite them. They have neither Adobe's clout at the high end, nor a relatively cheap monthly subscription for the masses that also includes the industry standard image editor. Retaining 'perpetual' licences as an option had set them apart, but eroding their value and, with this latest move, raising doubts about whether these licences could be unilaterally terminated at any time must now make them a highly dubious proposition.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Anbaric

[hansvons]

On 12/13/2023 at 1:11 AM, Anbaric said:

They have neither Adobe's clout at the high end, nor a relatively cheap monthly subscription for the masses that also includes the industry standard image editor.

I heartily disagree. C1 is in another league regarding colour handling, tools, raw development, and speed than Adobe's LR. This is especially obvious when you want to convert and edit colour negatives.

Their target group are professionals, photographers, retouchers, editors, and archives that digitise their assets. They cater to agency work (tethered shoots), fashion, event, and wedding photographers, where time is of the essence, and large chunks of images must be managed, colour-timed and edited.

From a filmmaking perspective, the usual suspects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Resolve, are low-cost and comparable with LR. But the higher and high-end similar tools easily cost 5K per year as a subscription. Why do they exist, even thrive? Because they allow for a faster pace and have better tools (often only marginally), which can be for demanding pros the whole world. 

C1 must define their market to compete successfully with that ubiquitous behemoth Adobe and stay afloat. That cannot be the occasional photographer because this large crowd is super price-conscious and not in the time-is-money game. Most of them have already moved to LR, providing them with a relatively cheap haven. For many, even that is too much money, and they resort to open-source software regardless of their quirks. 

Ultimately, this is a matter of perspective, and there is no right or wrong.

[Anbaric]

31 minutes ago, hansvons said:

I heartily disagree. C1 is in another league regarding colour handling, tools, raw development, and speed than Adobe's LR. This is especially obvious when you want to convert and edit colour negatives.

I didn't mean that LR is technically better than C1 Pro, I meant that the most popular Adobe plan also bundles PS, and the subscription is cheaper than C1's (at least outside of Black Friday deals etc.). And by 'clout', I mean their position in the market - Adobe's revenue is about a thousand time bigger than C1's. C1 Pro, good as it is, is a niche product. And C1 is now run by people who seen intent on alienating their less profitable non-subscription users. Adobe can get away with this sort of thing because they have a captive market in professional image shops for PS, Illustrator and InDesign, and a couple of LR/PS plans that are just cheap enough to tempt even amateur users. They could afford to lose the segment of their user base that went elsewhere when most of the products became rental only, which was more than made up for by subscription revenues.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Anbaric

[wlaidlaw]

Being a good product aimed at professionals does not excuse the greed of disabling software where people had bought a perpetual licence. This is extremely shabby behaviour. 

Wilson

[Anbaric]

To be fair, they've only killed the 'free' Express versions (so far). But these were never touted as subscriptions that might expire, and some of them came bundled with supported cameras or were advertised by the camera companies C1 had presumably done a deal with. I can understand why they might want to stop new registrations or updates if they don't think they're getting enough benefit from upselling to the full version and whatever deals they have with the camera companies have run their course. But to activate a secret kill switch and deprive users of software they've obtained legally and in good faith, and deny them access to all their saved non-destructive edits at very short notice, is a very customer-hostile policy. People who have bought C1 Pro 'perpetual' licences are now wondering if this will at some point happen to them, especially now that these versions no longer come with meaningful updates because C1 wants to push subscriptions. It's hard to trust a company that behaves like this. I have a Leica (Biosystems) promotional coffee mug that didn't cost me anything, but I'd be rather upset if the company rep came round the office and took it back, especially if it had my coffee in it.

[marchyman]

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11 hours ago, hansvons said:

This is especially obvious when you want to convert and edit colour negatives.

I get better results using Negative Lab Pro with Lightroom Classic.   But I admit that may be more "me" and less the software I'm using.

I've not used anything newer than Capture One 22.  Perhaps things have changed.

[hansvons]

12 hours ago, marchyman said:

I get better results using Negative Lab Pro with Lightroom Classic.

The trick is the Levels tool and its superb automatic handling for a quick setup. You must set it to RGB in the Settings to make it work for colour-negative scans. Besides that, the RGB Curve wants to be inverted, of course. Another essential tool is the Normaliser tool to make neutral neutral. Images attached.

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

 

[Chris W]

On 12/14/2023 at 9:20 AM, hansvons said:

 

C1 must define their market to compete successfully with that ubiquitous behemoth Adobe and stay afloat. That cannot be the occasional photographer because this large crowd is super price-conscious and not in the time-is-money game. Most of them have already moved to LR, providing them with a relatively cheap haven.

Sure, in a very harsh sort of way you are probably correct. But I started with Capture One probably as far back as 2005. People like me supported the program financially while it was seen as a niche product, compared to Photoshop etc.

I had bought the programme outright, but paid my upgrade every year. Then the upgrade price started to go up and it felt more like an annual subscription. 

The last couple of annual fees I couldn't justify. I absolutely love CO. I feel like I've been abandoned by CO (Phase One) after years of supporting them. They don't support my latest camera (Hasselblad) so I can't use it any more. 

[hansvons]

2 minutes ago, Chris W said:

The last couple of annual fees I couldn't justify. I absolutely love CO. I feel like I've been abandoned by CO (Phase One) after years of supporting them. They don't support my latest camera (Hasselblad) so I can't use it any more. 

I absolutely understand your sentiment. I‘ve worked with ASDK Flame professionally over 25 years. It’s a highly specialised VFX and finishing programme for filmmaking. It‘s annual subscription is 4K. You can’t buy it anymore and if you could it would be costing a car. However, the high price and the subscription model made its development sustainable because its clientele is happy to pay the high fee, as I learned from the dev team (only 5 people). 
 

If anyone is to blame for these unfortunate developments, it’s Adobe. Their sheer market power, their aggressive price policy and marketing machine, and their price-optimised products, which always leave something left to be desired, put considerable strain on the markets and force contenders like C1 to frustrate their customer base by focusing on clients that don't understand LR to be a viable alternative and are happy to pay the extra dollar. 

I fit in that category because C1 saves me a few days of editing work per year, easily paying for the higher price. Plus, it’s the better tool for film negative digitisation.

[Chris W]

As a musician, I mostly record, using software. I also have to make videos a few times a year (thank you Davinci Resolve), I also take stills.

It's all part of being a modern musician. I'm not shooting 100 stills on any one day, needing to batch process quickly. I'm not even shooting pics every month.

I get it, CO are focussing on busy professionals, but you can sort of shoot 'professionally' without it being your main job.

My gripe with CO is that they were happy to take my money for 15 years while they built their reputation, then they started hitting me with costs that only make sense if you are using the programme every week, and being paid to use it.

 

[Anbaric]

9 hours ago, Chris W said:

The last couple of annual fees I couldn't justify. I absolutely love CO. I feel like I've been abandoned by CO (Phase One) after years of supporting them.

Capture One was spun off from Phase One some time ago, though both companies have now been acquired by the same private equity investors, Axcel, who seem intent on squeezing as much as they can out of their investment. C1's dubious decisions began under this new ownership.

[costa43]

I was a c1 user for a long time but have moved over to Adobe. Primarily because of their much better iPad experience and cloud implementation, something which is very useful for me. I do hope that c1 improve their app as I still prefer the initial dng conversion from c1 as a starting point.

[wlaidlaw]

I have just discovered that in spite of having bought a perpetual licence for Capture One Pro, as recently as September 2023, I am already blocked from further updates even within V16. Apparently the huge fee I paid entitles me to nothing after 16.2.1 and they are now up to 16.3.x. More sheer greed by Phase One. I think after more than 20 years as a C1 user I am done. I can also no longer use desktop version as well as the laptop, which makes me spitting mad, as they have disabled my desktop version remotely with something like 10,000++ photos on file. They will learn the hard way and I suspect quickly that loyalty is hard won and easily lost. To say I am p***ed off is putting it mildly. 

I am wondering if I can raise any interest in a class action suit. Remotely disabling software on my computer, which I have paid for is disgraceful and I suspect illegal. It is an invasion of my privacy. Remote access of a computer without permission is the equivalent of hacking. 

Wilson

[kkm]

@wlaidlaw Did you make any Hardware changes? Did you check your licenses page at C1? Are there licenses in use by other Computers or are there more than one license in use by your computer? Is the Computer able to connect to the license server? The last question 😗 already opened a Support ticket?

[wlaidlaw]

This is an old (2011) Mac Mini which was running C1 V.20. I have looked on my licence page and it appears I have no activations left. 

Wilson

[kkm]

Are the licenses in use by other computers? If not or if there are multiple activations from the Mac you can delete them and try a reactivation on the Mac.

Klaus

[Anbaric]

Supposedly C1 Pro allows 3 activations on a single user licence, so you should be able to install it on the desktop, laptop and one other machine, provided only one of them is in use at one time:

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002734558-How-many-computers-can-I-install-Capture-One-on-

If you can't fix this by deactivating any zombie installations from your account page, I would contact Support:

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Edited January 16, 2024 by Anbaric

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[Derbyshire Man]

On 12/31/2023 at 7:29 PM, Anbaric said:

Capture One was spun off from Phase One some time ago, though both companies have now been acquired by the same private equity investors, Axcel, who seem intent on squeezing as much as they can out of their investment. C1's dubious decisions began under this new ownership.

You describe exactly how private equity works; typically; buy company, screw staff & customers, temporarily drive up margins, cash in and exit, view now sold on company in flames from the comfort of the Cayman Islands or similar. Rinse and repeat.

Edited January 20, 2024 by Derbyshire Man

[Smudgerer]

A very interesting and informative thread, thank you all for the interesting contributions. I came to it because although I am a long time user of Adobe Lightroom I am increasingly annoyed at the subscription model. My Post Production needs are relatively simple, I don't do effects just the digital equivalent of darkroom printing with simple cleaning-up/retouching and about 85% of what I do is in B&W with inkjet, ( Epson SC-P6000 / P3800Pro / SC-P700 outputs )............I'm looking, have been for this past year I guess, for a way of leaving the subscription model but it does seem to be unavoidable.

If Adobe just offered LR / LR Classic as a stand-alone without PS etc etc, I that would be ok for me, but they don't which is a pity and a pain all but forcing you to pay for more than you need.

I do regret the abandonment of Aperture, that programme used to do pretty much everything I needed, I still have it on an older Mac but now my catalogue is with LR it's not easy to be able to use Aperture well and printing to the newer printers isn't supported very well either.

I good friend here who does landscape photography with images that do contain more effects than I would use does his PP with Adobe Elements and swears by it, a non-subscription model, his Mac version is at least 9-10 years old, could that be an answer of sorts? Does anyone here use Elements?

A accessable catalogue though would be a requirement and I don't know if one can do that with Elements or if it, or any other PP programme, would be able to import the LR catalogue.

It seems that once you are in a PP programme that has been working for what you what to do with your PP imaging, and are used to it's way of working you are sort of stuck with it, hard to make a change. PITA..........

Edited January 30, 2024 by Smudgerer