Lightroom 5 & Capture One Pro 7 & Media Pro - comparing usability as a catalog-photo processor
Inside is a summary table in which I compare the capabilities of the programs in terms of ease of storage, organizing the archive of photos and processing these photos.
There is a large catalog of photographs - 15 thousand pieces. These are old scanned photos, photographs from the first soap dishes, RAW from a SLR, a few videos from cameras.
Objective: to store all this in a convenient form so that you can quickly find the right photos at any time.
Convenient filtering tools (to finally remove the extra 99 frames out of 100 taken in serial shooting, etc.).
A convenient editor for processing photos (without collages, editing, etc. - just processing to increase its beauty) is closer to professional (Picasa is definitely rather weak).
Mandatory cross-platform at least MacOS-Windows. Linux is desirable, but not found.
I used Lightroom 4 for several years, then switched to Lightroom 5.
Reasons for finding an alternative:
1. There are no hotkeys for some commonly used tools and there is no way to configure them. Even the special MacOS functionality is not suitable for setting a hotkey for any menu item - because these commands are not in the menu, only the buttons in the interface window.
2. The transition of Adobe to a subscription model. Lightroom is still available for a traditional one-time purchase, but this policy can also change at any time for Photoshop. I understand that this is a convenient business model, but I do not want to pay a subscription. fee - in the long run it is not profitable.
3. Lightroom requires communication with the Adobe licensing server. This is not very critical, but I would like the possibility of absolutely autonomous work.
4. I would like the possibility of local recognition of faces in photographs as in Picasa and iPhoto (but in amateur and professional solutions I did not see this for some reason)
5. No cloud solutions
There are two ways to pay for it: by subscribing as part of Creative Cloud and by purchasing a permanent license. Adobe clearly imposes a subscription and the button How to buy offers only this method. You need to look for the usual purchase button, it is almost hidden.
No work with layers. There are brushes with which you can improve individual areas, but you cannot apply several tools in the same area - you need to select an area for each tool manually, there is no way to simply select such a half-layer - you need to guess where the change was made and which tools, instead of choosing from the named list.
In case of shooting with GPS, there is their support and display on the map, there is a definition of cities by GPS from the image. You can also set it manually if you select IPTC or Location in the Metadata section.
It is possible to edit the color parameters at a given point (brightness, saturation, etc.) while it seems that the parameters change in nearby colors, too. Editing is done quickly and conveniently, but for example it is impossible to adjust the "proximity" of colors to which the effect will apply.
There is full support for layers. The ability to complex filters (an arbitrary set of fields with arbitrary conditions) - only by creating a smart collection. In Lightroom, you can do this simply by viewing photos, conveniently gradually refining your search criteria.
A very cool thing about editing color ranges is that
you can customize the range itself, and then apply changes to it. The tool works including and on the layers is a very convenient combination. First, approximately select the area for editing, without the need to verify it pixel by pixel, and then apply the changes to the color range of this area.
For mass processing of images, I did not find the settings auto-synchronization function as in Lightroom. Those. you can copy the settings and apply them on several photos, but synchronize them so that changes directly in the process of setting are not applied to several photos. The function is interesting, but its practical use seems dubious to me.
Unfortunately tag hierarchies are not supported - just a flat list of keywords.
The application of changes slows down in comparison with Lightroom, where everything is applied immediately and without brakes.
The catalog from phaseone (capture pro developer) is offered as a professional solution for cataloging photographs. In particular, as a tool for collaboration with CaptureOne.
The program has almost no ability to process photos - the settings are minimal, uncomfortable. There is no automation, not even white balance - instead, adjusting each color channel separately for the entire photo at once without selecting an area. There are no smart collections and no tools for sophisticated filters at all. Those. the maximum that can be done is to select photos by date / tags where at the same time all conditions are fulfilled or any of them is fulfilled. Those. for example, you can’t simply select all the photos in Moscow that don’t have a Kremlin in a simple way. Even if all the tags are affixed. In Lightroom it is possible, in Capture One it is also possible through smart collections.
There are functions for marking people / places in the photo. They work on the principle of tags, only in separate windows, there is no automatic recognition of people (as in Picasa or iPhoto). No auto-completion when typing keywords. Generally speaking, relatively lightroom looks kutse.
At the moment, Lightroom is the best in terms of impressions; Capture One loses to it only in the capabilities of the catalog - as an editor, it is much stronger. If you begin to support hierarchical tags - you can go to it. If complex filtering without creating smart collections is added to this, you can proceed right away.
MediaPro, as just a directory, may be nothing, but still weak - no arbitrary filtering, no smart collections. Only needed as an addition to CaptureOne for the tag hierarchy, no more. The developer suggests combining MediaPro and CaptureOne, but working in two programs is already inconvenient - for example, there will be a problem with virtual copies of photos from Capture one - they will not be displayed in MediaPro. When editing a picture in capture one, the thumbnail in mediapro is not updated and a bunch of little things are sure.
The transfer of directory metadata from LightRoom to CaptureOne is relatively painless keywords and directories (non-smart) are saved. The hierarchy of keywords, color categories, rating is lost. Color categories and ratings can be carried through the appointment of additional. keywords - there are not many of them and this should not be a problem.
The problem will be with virtual copies of photos and processed images. Processing is not transferred between programs even when storing changes in xmp, so when moving globally, you will first need to render all RAW photos in which you need to save the changes and move already with RAW + JPEG.
initial situation
There is a large catalog of photographs - 15 thousand pieces. These are old scanned photos, photographs from the first soap dishes, RAW from a SLR, a few videos from cameras.
Objective: to store all this in a convenient form so that you can quickly find the right photos at any time.
Convenient filtering tools (to finally remove the extra 99 frames out of 100 taken in serial shooting, etc.).
A convenient editor for processing photos (without collages, editing, etc. - just processing to increase its beauty) is closer to professional (Picasa is definitely rather weak).
Mandatory cross-platform at least MacOS-Windows. Linux is desirable, but not found.
I used Lightroom 4 for several years, then switched to Lightroom 5.
Reasons for finding an alternative:
1. There are no hotkeys for some commonly used tools and there is no way to configure them. Even the special MacOS functionality is not suitable for setting a hotkey for any menu item - because these commands are not in the menu, only the buttons in the interface window.
2. The transition of Adobe to a subscription model. Lightroom is still available for a traditional one-time purchase, but this policy can also change at any time for Photoshop. I understand that this is a convenient business model, but I do not want to pay a subscription. fee - in the long run it is not profitable.
3. Lightroom requires communication with the Adobe licensing server. This is not very critical, but I would like the possibility of absolutely autonomous work.
4. I would like the possibility of local recognition of faces in photographs as in Picasa and iPhoto (but in amateur and professional solutions I did not see this for some reason)
5. No cloud solutions
Lightroom
There are two ways to pay for it: by subscribing as part of Creative Cloud and by purchasing a permanent license. Adobe clearly imposes a subscription and the button How to buy offers only this method. You need to look for the usual purchase button, it is almost hidden.
No work with layers. There are brushes with which you can improve individual areas, but you cannot apply several tools in the same area - you need to select an area for each tool manually, there is no way to simply select such a half-layer - you need to guess where the change was made and which tools, instead of choosing from the named list.
In case of shooting with GPS, there is their support and display on the map, there is a definition of cities by GPS from the image. You can also set it manually if you select IPTC or Location in the Metadata section.
It is possible to edit the color parameters at a given point (brightness, saturation, etc.) while it seems that the parameters change in nearby colors, too. Editing is done quickly and conveniently, but for example it is impossible to adjust the "proximity" of colors to which the effect will apply.
CaptureOne 7 PRO
There is full support for layers. The ability to complex filters (an arbitrary set of fields with arbitrary conditions) - only by creating a smart collection. In Lightroom, you can do this simply by viewing photos, conveniently gradually refining your search criteria.
A very cool thing about editing color ranges is that
you can customize the range itself, and then apply changes to it. The tool works including and on the layers is a very convenient combination. First, approximately select the area for editing, without the need to verify it pixel by pixel, and then apply the changes to the color range of this area.
For mass processing of images, I did not find the settings auto-synchronization function as in Lightroom. Those. you can copy the settings and apply them on several photos, but synchronize them so that changes directly in the process of setting are not applied to several photos. The function is interesting, but its practical use seems dubious to me.
Unfortunately tag hierarchies are not supported - just a flat list of keywords.
The application of changes slows down in comparison with Lightroom, where everything is applied immediately and without brakes.
Media pro
The catalog from phaseone (capture pro developer) is offered as a professional solution for cataloging photographs. In particular, as a tool for collaboration with CaptureOne.
The program has almost no ability to process photos - the settings are minimal, uncomfortable. There is no automation, not even white balance - instead, adjusting each color channel separately for the entire photo at once without selecting an area. There are no smart collections and no tools for sophisticated filters at all. Those. the maximum that can be done is to select photos by date / tags where at the same time all conditions are fulfilled or any of them is fulfilled. Those. for example, you can’t simply select all the photos in Moscow that don’t have a Kremlin in a simple way. Even if all the tags are affixed. In Lightroom it is possible, in Capture One it is also possible through smart collections.
There are functions for marking people / places in the photo. They work on the principle of tags, only in separate windows, there is no automatic recognition of people (as in Picasa or iPhoto). No auto-completion when typing keywords. Generally speaking, relatively lightroom looks kutse.
Comparison table
| Criterion | Lightroom 5 | CaptureOne 7 PRO | Media pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $ 9.99 / month or $ 149 | € 229.00 | € 139.00 |
| Cataloging and processing in one program | + | + | - |
| Quick photo import | ± | - | + |
| Possibility of hierarchical organization of tags | + | - | + |
| Do not import duplicates | + | - | - |
| Complex filtering by arbitrary parameters | + | ± | - |
| Smart Collections | + | + | - |
| Installing on a poppy-style poppy (just drag and drop into the program folder) | - | + | + |
| Work with layers | - / + | + | - |
| Edit color spacing | - | + | - |
| Mark people / cities in the photo | ± | + | + |
| Quality management of generated previews on import | + | - | - |
| Fine processing of individual frames | + | ++ | - |
| Fast template processing of multiple (many) images at once | + | ± | + |
| Customizing the interface for yourself | - | + | didn't understand maybe yes |
Total:
At the moment, Lightroom is the best in terms of impressions; Capture One loses to it only in the capabilities of the catalog - as an editor, it is much stronger. If you begin to support hierarchical tags - you can go to it. If complex filtering without creating smart collections is added to this, you can proceed right away.
MediaPro, as just a directory, may be nothing, but still weak - no arbitrary filtering, no smart collections. Only needed as an addition to CaptureOne for the tag hierarchy, no more. The developer suggests combining MediaPro and CaptureOne, but working in two programs is already inconvenient - for example, there will be a problem with virtual copies of photos from Capture one - they will not be displayed in MediaPro. When editing a picture in capture one, the thumbnail in mediapro is not updated and a bunch of little things are sure.
The transfer of directory metadata from LightRoom to CaptureOne is relatively painless keywords and directories (non-smart) are saved. The hierarchy of keywords, color categories, rating is lost. Color categories and ratings can be carried through the appointment of additional. keywords - there are not many of them and this should not be a problem.
The problem will be with virtual copies of photos and processed images. Processing is not transferred between programs even when storing changes in xmp, so when moving globally, you will first need to render all RAW photos in which you need to save the changes and move already with RAW + JPEG.