Affinity Photo - Capture One

[Jill Morgan]

I am getting tired of my monthly PS fee.  With exchange it is costing over $15 CDN per month or $180 per year.  Just getting too pricey.  Anyone using Affinity Photo/Capture One?  I use Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher but awhile ago I tried Affinity Photo and decided to stick with PS.  But I'm reconsidering.

 

I don't think I can do another free trial, so opinions gladly taken.  When I checked it out before, it did not have a adjustment brush tool like ACR, so that kind of disqualified it for me.  Does it have one know?

 

Jill

[NYCat]

2 hours ago, Colin Woods said:

I am a DxO user and love it. I tested Lightroom a while back and never got on with it. DxO's automated lens corrections are spot on and, as John said, the noise reduction is excellent. They also now own the Nik collection of plug-ins which are also very good. Its well worth giving DxO a test drive.

 

I've been using the Nik filters since they were Nik. I was so sorry when they disappeared because they were so supportive. It is a challenge for me to learn new things on the computer and they had wonderful tutorials. I was happy when DXO got them. I still use my original ones. Have they added new capabilities? I have too much going on right now to add DXO but it will happen, I think. 

[Colin Woods]

14 hours ago, NYCat said:

It looks like DXO has made it as easy as possible to use their develop capabilities with Lightroom

I am a DxO user and love it. I tested Lightroom a while back and never got on with it. DxO's automated lens corrections are spot on and, as John said, the noise reduction is excellent. They also now own the Nik collection of plug-ins which are also very good. Its well worth giving DxO a test drive.

[M.Chapman]

22 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Jill and Paulette why don't you both look at Adobe's "Photoshop Elements 2019" selling in the UK for £86.56. It comes with a cut down version of the RAW processor but is most useful in other ways.

 

Allan

 

 

Unless it's changed, a key omission in PSE is the excellent automated CA removal which LR and PS CC both have. Whether this matters to you will depend on the quality of your lenses. But in my case my lenses do sometimes show CA and  I couldn't face going back to using those manual CA removal sliders, so that ruled out PSE fo me.

 

Mark

[Allan Bell]

 

Jill and Paulette why don't you both look at Adobe's "Photoshop Elements 2019" selling in the UK for £86.56. It comes with a cut down version of the RAW processor but is most useful in other ways.

 

I have PSE 2014 and still use it for final touching up of images. I prefer the spot removal tool in PSE to the one in LR classic for some jobs.

 

I still get updates for the RAW processor.

 

Allan

 

[MDM]

On 25/09/2019 at 22:52, Harry Harrison said:

My point about the Process Version was just that after a new Process Version is introduced, as I believe "Version 4" was in 2017, then the parameters recorded in the xmp file will move even further away from those that would have been recorded from 6.14, before that I would surmise that if you didn't use, say, the Haze filter then 6.14 might have interpreted the xmp file correctly. I can't test it so I don't know. The xmp file is just a text file that basically records parameters and values as you know.

 

In fact I would suggest that in certain circumstances the exported xmp file can only be interpreted correctly by your own personal copy of Lightroom. For example, I have a custom curve that I have created for inverting and adding contrast to scans of B&W negatives, the curve, clearly personal to me and called "Inverted + contrast curve", is recorded in the xmp file as follows:

 

crs:ToneCurveName2012="Inverted + contrast curve"

 

So if I was importing that RAW file with its xmp sidecar file into another fresh copy of Lightroom then the image would not be inverted and would have no contrast added. I would have to import that curve into the new version of Lightroom for things to work correctly. I haven't tried it, perhaps I should.

 

Simlilarly I have a custom camera profile which is recorded as:

 

crs:CameraProfile="7D cropped target"

 

I've never really thought about this before so it's probably obvious to you anyway but it does mean that writing to xmp has its limitations with respect to archiving.

 

 

 

 

Very interesting  point. I had to find time to check it out by using a preset curve in LR on one computer and transferring the raw file with xmp to another computer with the same version of Lightroom but without the preset curve. The xmp is correctly interpreted on the second computer and checking the xmp shows the curve info is all in there. I haven't checked with camera profiles but I am pretty certain it will be the same. You can't use the profile on the other computer unless you actually copy it to the appropriate location on the second machine but the raw file is correctly rendered as far as I know. Too late to check it out now. 

 

EDIT - just checked this for camera profiles and it doesn't work - you need the profile on the second machine. It will show missing profile and the rendering is incorrect.

 

 

[MDM]

14 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Moot point as I cannot go back to it anyway.

 

Allan

 

 

Not so moot at all. Unlike the real world Allan, you can actually go back (to the perpetual LR version if you want to do so). I don't think you can run the two simultaneously on the same installation but it is certainly possible to go back. But again I am not sure why anyone would want to unless the new version was not running properly on existing hardware. 

[NYCat]

6 hours ago, Colin Woods said:

No they haven't. If your originals still work they no need to pay for DxO's versions.

 

Thank you, Colin. That's good to know,

 

Paulette

[Harry Harrison]

8 hours ago, MDM said:

The xmp is correctly interpreted on the second computer and checking the xmp shows the curve info is all in there.

Thanks, that is interesting indeed, I'll have a go myself.

[Harry Harrison]

10 hours ago, MDM said:

The xmp is correctly interpreted on the second computer and checking the xmp shows the curve info is all in there.

Thanks for taking the time to test this, I did say that perhaps I should have done!  Yes, the curve information is indeed contained within the xmp, if I'd looked at this slightly tetchy thread on Lightroom Queen I would have known:

 

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/curve-and-xmp.21649/

 

I gather the curve dropdown has now disappeared on Lightroom Classic and they are now presets but on 6.14 my image is indeed correctly rendered, i.e. inverted and contrast added, and the curve is shown correctly on the graph but labelled as 'Custom'. In fact if I select a different curve then that one disappears but can be restored by getting the data from xmp again, or better still, save it with a new name before selecting a different one. 

 

The fact that the colour profile doesn't come across is understandable I think and no great loss.

 

So, yes, it's definitely a good idea to have Lightroom set to automatically write changes into xmp as an extra safeguard against I suppose a possible irreversible catalogue corruption. I'm not sure how many other programs pick it up. I could try with Affinity Photo.

 

...that's a 'No' for Affinity Photo. From what I've read (not much) cross platform support for xmp is pretty tricky.

 

 

[MDM]

10 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

 

 

So, yes, it's definitely a good idea to have Lightroom set to automatically write changes into xmp as an extra safeguard against I suppose a possible irreversible catalogue corruption. I'm not sure how many other programs pick it up.

 

 

It is a very very good idea and the first thing I do when I create a new catalog. I accidentally deleted a a nearly new catalog some time ago and stupidly had forgotten to set automatically write changes to xmp so had to redo all the images (about 100). Fortunately the raw images are not held in the catalog of course but it gave me an unwanted day's extra work. I had low res jpegs from a previous export so had to guess the settings I had used. The jpegs had even been exported without the metadata. Pain in the a but I learnt my lesson.

 

[Bill Brooks]

Before subscription I used to update Photoshop on a yearly basis. The cost of subscription is roughly the same as the cost of the yearly update. The subscription model has no initial first time purchase cost, that was $1000 in my case.

 

So the subscription model is cheaper if you want to keep Adobe software up to date.

 

However the subscription model has resulted in much better Adobe product because the subscription model has converted the software thieves into subscribers.

Because the subscription model has cut back on piracy of its products, Adobe is in a much better financial position with the subscription model. It has invested the extra money in improving the product.

 

So the subscription model is a win for me, better product at no extra cost.

 

If you do not want to subscribe, then your old Adobe products will still work for the foreseeable future. However there will come a time when, because of changes to the OS, Adobe will stop supporting the old product.

 

My old copy of photoshop is still on my hard drive and works the way it did many years ago. However that is the point. The subscription, always new photoshop makes more use of artificial intelligence, and is vastly superior.

[Colin Woods]

3 hours ago, NYCat said:

Have they added new capabilities?

No they haven't. If your originals still work they no need to pay for DxO's versions.

[Allan Bell]

17 hours ago, MDM said:

Why would you.want the older version though?

 

Moot point as I cannot go back to it anyway.

 

Allan

 

[Harry Harrison]

11 hours ago, NYCat said:

It looks like DXO has made it as easy as possible to use their develop capabilities with Lightroom

That loooks potentially like a very good solution for you, useful to know.

[NYCat]

It looks like DXO has made it as easy as possible to use their develop capabilities with Lightroom.... https://www.dxo.com/project/optimizing-your-dxo-opticspro-10-and-lightroom-workflow/   I see John has just replied so I'll end this and take a look at what he has to say. ......OK. I've now read John's post. So the information from DXO looks like my best bet might be to get their program as a plug-in to Lightroom. Could be the best of all possible worlds for me.

 

Paulette

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, NYCat said:

 

Does it also have a catalog function similar to Lightroom?

 

Paulette

 

No, it's strictly RAW processing software.

[Harry Harrison]

34 minutes ago, MDM said:

it is not going to introduce new features that don't exist in one's existing version.bNot sure what you mean in your last sentence.

My point about the Process Version was just that after a new Process Version is introduced, as I believe "Version 4" was in 2017, then the parameters recorded in the xmp file will move even further away from those that would have been recorded from 6.14, before that I would surmise that if you didn't use, say, the Haze filter then 6.14 might have interpreted the xmp file correctly. I can't test it so I don't know. The xmp file is just a text file that basically records parameters and values as you know.

 

In fact I would suggest that in certain circumstances the exported xmp file can only be interpreted correctly by your own personal copy of Lightroom. For example, I have a custom curve that I have created for inverting and adding contrast to scans of B&W negatives, the curve, clearly personal to me and called "Inverted + contrast curve", is recorded in the xmp file as follows:

 

crs:ToneCurveName2012="Inverted + contrast curve"

 

So if I was importing that RAW file with its xmp sidecar file into another fresh copy of Lightroom then the image would not be inverted and would have no contrast added. I would have to import that curve into the new version of Lightroom for things to work correctly. I haven't tried it, perhaps I should.

 

Simlilarly I have a custom camera profile which is recorded as:

 

crs:CameraProfile="7D cropped target"

 

I've never really thought about this before so it's probably obvious to you anyway but it does mean that writing to xmp has its limitations with respect to archiving.

 

 

 

[MDM]

3 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Thank you, you're absolutely right of course, I will correct my post. I can't test how backwards compatible it is but I'll take your word for the fact that it will simply ignore any new LR features in the xmp. I'm slightly concerned as to how it would deal with a new Process Version that changed the name and function of certain features though.

 

It is simple common sense that an older version cannot interpret new features that didn't exist when it was created. That has been the case with ACR and Lightroom all along. Similarly If using the DNG converter as a workaround for not upgrading because a new camera is not supported in old software, it is not going to introduce new features that don't exist in one's existing version.bNot sure what you mean in your last sentence.

 

1 hour ago, NYCat said:

Just a note about why I want to preserve the possibility of going back to my standalone Lightroom. The retirement income I have that will last my entire life will only cover basic expenses with nothing left for food and clothing. I have a good nest egg and am doing pleasant part-time work now. But I may not be able to do the work forever and if I were to find I was going too quickly through my nest egg I would want to cut expenses. That could include the subscription. My post processing is usually not elaborate. 

 

Paulette

 

Given what you say, I think you should probably stick with what you've got if you don't need to upgrade. I don't think DxO has a database. That is one of the main features of the CC package: it has a database (catalog), an advanced raw converter and the best pixel editing program in existence by far (Photoshop).

 

 

[NYCat]

14 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

DxO's "prime" noise reduction is really impressive and all automatic, no fiddling around with weird sliders, etc. Love it.

 

Does it also have a catalog function similar to Lightroom?

 

Paulette

[John Mitchell]

8 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

I have Capture One Express for Sony which does most of what i need if I use it, but it isn't as easy for me as Lightroom, which I've been using for years.   Nikon and Canon both have proprietary programs for processing their raw files, but I have no experience with them.  DXO PhotoLab also has some tricks that the other programs don't appear to have, including very good noise reduction.

 

 

DxO's "prime" noise reduction is really impressive and all automatic, no fiddling around with weird sliders, etc. Love it.

[MizBrown]

45 minutes ago, NYCat said:

Just a note about why I want to preserve the possibility of going back to my standalone Lightroom. The retirement income I have that will last my entire life will only cover basic expenses with nothing left for food and clothing. I have a good nest egg and am doing pleasant part-time work now. But I may not be able to do the work forever and if I were to find I was going too quickly through my nest egg I would want to cut expenses. That could include the subscription. My post processing is usually not elaborate. 

 

Paulette

 

I have Capture One Express for Sony which does most of what i need if I use it, but it isn't as easy for me as Lightroom, which I've been using for years.   Nikon and Canon both have proprietary programs for processing their raw files, but I have no experience with them.  DXO PhotoLab also has some tricks that the other programs don't appear to have, including very good noise reduction.

 

[NYCat]

Just a note about why I want to preserve the possibility of going back to my standalone Lightroom. The retirement income I have that will last my entire life will only cover basic expenses with nothing left for food and clothing. I have a good nest egg and am doing pleasant part-time work now. But I may not be able to do the work forever and if I were to find I was going too quickly through my nest egg I would want to cut expenses. That could include the subscription. My post processing is usually not elaborate. 

 

Paulette

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

I think Harry is partly right

Thanks, I shall take some comfort in the 'partly'!

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, MDM said:

Not true Harry. The development information travels with the sidecar files

Thank you, you're absolutely right of course, I will correct my post. I can't test how backwards compatible it is but I'll take your word for the fact that it will simply ignore any new LR features in the xmp. I'm slightly concerned as to how it would deal with a new Process Version that changed the name and function of certain features though.

[John Mitchell]

I agree, the exchange rate can be a killer, and Adobe is rich enough already. I've been using a free version of DxO OpticsPro that DxO gave away a couple of years ago plus Photoshop Elements. I don't do anything fancy, so this combo has been working fine for me. Capture One makes a free "Express" version for Sony that looks pretty good. I'm going to give it a try when I upgrade my PC next year.