Capture One express for editing, and LR for cataloguing?

I just switched from Nikon to Sony so I have many thousands of Nikon raw images. I shoot a lot and only edit a very small portion of my images. From what I've read C1 seems to be "better" for editing raw files (or at least, the initial settings

). Since I have so many Nikon images, I'd have to buy the pro all camera version ($299 license, or $180/year), to keep everything in the same catalog. Since I have a Sony, I get C1 express for free.

 

Would it make sense to have the LR+PS subscription, for cataloguing purposes, and use C1 express for editing? I'm not sure how significant if the differences between C1 pro and C1 express would justify buying that. C1 is more expensive, no matter how you look at it, and given that I edit very little, not sure it makes sense to go with C1. I do care a lot about the quality of the images, but I don't need the tethering/annotation functions in C1.

This should bring you up to speed on the C1 options.

 

This should bring you up to speed on the C1 options.

 

Thanks Mike. I'll watch the video although it's not really so much whether C1 pro can do the job- from what I've found, it can. Just not sure it's worth paying a lot more (for C1) vs the LR option (or LR+C1 express)..

I just switched from Nikon to Sony so I have many thousands of Nikon raw images. I shoot a lot and only edit a very small portion of my images. From what I've read C1 seems to be "better" for editing raw files (or at least, the initial settings

). Since I have so many Nikon images, I'd have to buy the pro all camera version ($299 license, or $180/year), to keep everything in the same catalog. Since I have a Sony, I get C1 express for free.

 

Would it make sense to have the LR+PS subscription, for cataloguing purposes, and use C1 express for editing? I'm not sure how significant if the differences between C1 pro and C1 express would justify buying that. C1 is more expensive, no matter how you look at it, and given that I edit very little, not sure it makes sense to go with C1. I do care a lot about the quality of the images, but I don't need the tethering/annotation functions in C1.

I used to use C1 a while back and felt it seemed to have a slight edge in Image Quality. But I never liked the work flow with it, and I think LR-PS are pretty good. Even if you have C1, there are still things you can only do in PS. It seems duplicate and unnecessary to use both. For me, I would just use the Adobe package.

The differences between C1 and C1 Express are quite big, but it really depends whether it matters for your needs/wants. Express misses several tools, like the advanced colour editor and a number of the layer options (the key ones are listed on this page Capture One Sony - Free Image Editing Software for Sony Cameras). Especially the healing tools and layer-based editing are awfully nice.

As a starting point, I prefer how C1 interpretes a raw file, but for sure Adobe's raw tool can achieve pretty much the same thing.

 

I do agree with the above post that it makes sense to focus on one package; not only does it make workflow easier, but also improves the odds of learning a piece of software really well, rather than spreading the attention.

My personal choice is C1 with Affinity Photo - I've got C1 on a perpetual license, and the upgrade costs are still slightly below the annual subscription costs (though they went up for v12, so the gap is small). Since Affinity is a perpetual (and low cost) license too, this combination is actually about the same cost as the Adobe subscription (in Europe), and can be cheaper if you skip an upgrade.

I don't think either choice is inherently better or worse, it comes down to preference and I just prefer the User Interface (and the level of customisation it allows) of CaptureOne by a lot, and the results I can get out of my Nikon files leaves me very pleased.

If you like C1, you can keep C1, whether you subscribe to Adobe LR/PS or not. You can right-click on a thumbnail in LR to open a menu, in which you can choose to edit with any program registered in that computer. If you edit outside of LR, you must save the results, making any changes permanent, but have the option of retaining the original. RAW files are always untouched. That said, LR processing is continually improving, and any changes are non-destructive. I haven't used C1, but it's devotees say nice things about it. I've been using Photoshop for over 20 years, and I still discover new things about it. However I use it only for exceptions, like precision cropping and resampling. I use other programs for special operations, like HDR and stitched panorama processing. LR alone handles 80% of what I need to do.

Have you considered converting all of your raw files to .dng? You should then be able to edit them in whatever unless C1 Express doesn't recognize .dng. LR will do the conversion for you or you can download an app to do it. I don't see .nef or .arw anymore, just .dng