Back in 2005 I purchased my first DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera and was quickly appalled at how flat and drab looking the photographs looked onscreen despite being shot with a “dead-on” exposure value. What I learned quickly was that DSLR images must be post-processed to draw out the essence of the image.
Often fine tuning included adjustments to:
- Highlights and Shadows
- Contrast
- Saturation of color
- Brightness
- Clarity
This had to be done using post-processing software and it had to be purchased separately from the camera. At first I used Nikon’s NX, but their support and the functioning of the product became very sketchy, which was a shame as it worked quite well. Then I transferred to Apple’s Aperture which was outstanding, easy to use, effective and, over the course of time, I happily went through several upgraded versions of it and it only got better.
While I was plugging along with Apple’s software, there was an ongoing debate among the photographic cognoscenti about Aperture vs Adobe’s Lightroom and which one was best. Lightroom would eventually dominate the landscape as it worked on multiple computer platforms. Even so, I was very pleased with Aperture and saw no reason to switch to what appeared to be a more clunky Lightroom until Apple, as they do, pulled the rug out from under me and killed support for Aperture, which meant that as Apple’s operating system was upgraded, Aperture would no longer work in the near future.
So… reluctantly I switched to using Adobe’s Lightroom for post processing. Fortunately, my university supplied the Adobe suite to professor’s as a perk and I had copies on my office desk and personal MacBook. Lightroom worked just fine and also recognized plugins that I had been using with Aperture, namely the Nik plugins that are so useful for somewhat fancier post processing, such as local spot changes to an image or state-of-the-art black and white conversions.
Then I retired from the university. Silly me… I thought that as an Emeritus Professor I would still have access to Adobe software… wrong… literally the day after my last day, I got thrown under the bus… I was cut off and no more Adobe Lightroom… I was loath to use Adobe on my own because of the egregious monthly charges they insist upon and it was just not that good… Constantly being upgraded, it never seemed to improve and always remained, in my judgment, a bit clunky.
So I shopped around for a replacement and frankly there are not many. Only one stands out as a legitimate contender. As with the Adobe products you can buy a monthly subscription to Capture One, but Instead I purchased a stand alone copy. My wife subsidized the cost as part of a birthday gift.
So far, I am very pleased with Capture One. It does everything that post processing software should do both precisely and quickly and works well with my Nik Plugins. Since photography is one of my important retirement endeavors I am delighted to have a decent, beyond Adobe, post-processing platform!
