Capture One 21/22

£299/$299 or £24/$24/month A superb but expensive Lightroom alternative

By the time you read this Capture One 22 will be out, adding panorama stitching and HDR merge tools. This review applies to Capture One 21. Capture One comes in an ‘all cameras’ edition, plus a Nikon-only version at around half the price. All are available on subscription or for a one-off fee. Capture One is a direct alternative to Lightroom, offering the same combo of image cataloguing, non-destructive editing, local adjustments and preset effects. It does not offer cloud synchronization, but is strong on tethered shooting and studio workflow.

Capture One works in one browsing/ editing window using a customizable system of ’tool tabs’ and drag-off floating palettes. Lightroom now has Ai-powered sky and subject masking, but Capture One has an effective Magic Brush selection tool, and layer and mask-based local adjustments.

Apart from Capture One’s sophisticated masking and colour control, it has visibly superior Raw processing than Lightroom, with finer detail and less noise. Capture One and DXO Photolab are easily the two best Raw processors here.