Capture One Business Plan
One of the main reasons I stopped using Adobe Lightroom was that they moved to a subscription model.
They added enticing features and asked me to subscribe to "Creative Cloud"
So, I did some research and bought Capture One.
Great programme.
But
When I see it's £199 for the upgrade and £149 for the annual subscription I ask myself if I'm being played for a fool.
With updates coming on an almost yearly basis it seems no sense to continue to purchase the update.
£199 for an update strikes me as really expensive too.
Perhaps I'll go back to LR after all. Great programme too and do I really need all the gizmos and complexity that C1 brings.
I'm almost at the end of my professional career - perhaps it's time to ask myself some searching questions.
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Yes they are pricing it to give no advantage and to force us on to subscription model. - Allsoftware companies are doing this now. I hate this too.
I typically don't upgrade every new version, only when I see good discount. But recently 'had' to as they didn't support the Canon R5 in C12.
Most pros don't upgrade straight away unless they have to , if you system is running well , don't touch it!
Plus as you mention, companies that offer the Subscription model think they have to justify new versions every year.
Adobe are as bad, last 3 years every version of PS has something major broken, and is more buggy, more memory intense than the last version. - However Adobe Photography suite is very fairly priced £12 for Photoshop and LR . Considering how useful PS is..
And Apple OS are getting more and more buggy too, and release major coding requirements , which make the Software companies have to do quick (buggy) updates to make it run on the latests OS .
The whole software industry , is crushing itself with the perpetual need / greed for people paying every month , and the vanity / PR of we've released a new better version with more features .. (that doesn't work as well as the previous one, but is something to market and perpetuate)
Give me OS X Snow leopard, PS CS2 and Cap Pro 5 , and you will have the most solid system out there with very seldom crashes bugs . Ever since that combo , everything went downhill and cost a lot more.
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Subscription alas is the only viable option for software companies, when software matures the revenue drys up, but updates are still required, as such the C1 business model, while far from perfect does make business sense, I recently moved from a Pro subscription license to a Nikon only one with a 10% discount, this works out at around 10 pounds per month which I think is reasonable. You can buy an outright license if you have no plans to change your camera or require any new features. I do think this provides a better set of options for the end user.
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David,
If you suspect that your future needs may well be satisfied by the equipment you have now and the software installed on it - in effect you may well be able to "freeze" the systems you have for the foreseeable future - then a perpetual license is probably the best way to go. Get to a level of functionality that you feel is acceptable and stick with it.
At least that, theoretically, allows you to stop leaking cash every year. And the application will continue to work, unlike a subscription.
There is a downside. In fact 2 downsides depending on how you look at it.
Firstly you may be unable to update to future hardware releases or to use future Operating System updates. Eventually it may become more difficult to use an older system with older cameras and processing software.
For example, I have quite an old printer for which it is not getting more difficult to obtain inks. And spare parts should they be needed. Also it is not supported under Windows 10. So I have to retain a Win 7 machine to be able to use it. But Win 7 is not supported after C1 V12. I have V20 on a Win 10 machine so I can cover my needs at the moment but it is messy.
If I decide a subscription might work for me and save a few pennies my current perpetual license would be eliminated. So, in theory, there would be no going back after a subscription, although one could move forward and buy a NEW perpetual license assuming they are not eliminated as others have done.
Most organisations would like the perpetual cash flow (that people often do not take advantage of by being able to use what is "offered" (mobile phone contracts being an example). It's a way of getting income for nothing (in part) and sharing the cost load for development and support across many users if possible, rather than making the product more expensive for fewer users.
The entire economic model of the world relies on a balancing act that tries to recover "imbalance" by re-sharing "wealth" in some form or another to make things affordable. Subscriptions, along with borrowing and leasing, are simply ways of trying to ensure that companies can demonstrate the ability to at least survive outside of the more traditional peaks and troughs of new product costs in advance of product release and the new product proving it has a market.
And of course, so long as a perpetual license is still on offer, one can simply forget about the consideration of whether an update is worth paying for and just buy again, if one feels a need to, every few years.
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David, I share your feelings.
I do hate the tendence to force or push us towards the subscription model because even though when we talk of software applications we aren't involved with property of the software, still we can own a perpetual license. Even though I'm not a pro (I don't make money with my photos) I stick with the principle that I use for software that my profession relies on: one must be free to choose the ownership of the means of production. When I own a perpetual license I know that I've paid what I had to pay and nobody can stop me from using the software - of course, except the fact that in the long term a number of updates to the operating system might disrupt it. But this is something similar to the worn out of a physical tool.
So there are two aspects to take into account: the costs and the ownership of the license. Even though the perpetual license of Capture One might not be convenient because of the cost of the upgrades, the fact that I can own a perpetual license is very different than the "subscription only" model of Adobe. Furthermore I'm not forced to upgrade at every major release, and this is a cost saver.
What I really fear is that Capture One could one day move to the "subscription only" model. Well, I'm letting them know that, should it happen, I will move to another solution. I abandoned Lightroom after being a long time Adobe customer, since the very first version of Lightroom.
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Would I buy a house in which the windows and the roof have to be replaced every month? And if I'm not willing/able to pay the service company I'd have to sleep in the rain after a while? And each month the "new" roof is missing more and more tiles and the "updated" windows have more and more cracks through which the wind blows?
I do understand that programmers have to have an income. I don't understand how they managed so brilliantly to stay out of any form of product liability. The only possible "punishment for weak software" is to not buy it any longer. And sleep in the rain. And start weaving the fabrics for a tent... Not very attractive.
I still can run Aperture on a 10.6 iMac. C1 also is installed on it but killed the license for version 9 or 10 for some reason and I don't see the point of running different C1 versions: to see how many cameras are unsupported or how often I'd need layers to work with? Funny thing: my 30+ year old negatives never needed FW-upgrade. I knew it was a good idea not to sell all film cameras... and keep the development tools.
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Farbrizio,
Well, I'm letting them know that, should it happen, I will move to another solution.
We're running out of "another" solutions. DxO is by far worse as DAM (if I consider DAM as something able to link images into albums, projects etc.). More other solutions are just pimped image viewers, sort of RAW converters or filter platforms. I might be wrong but I simply can't see other solutions which have sort of DAM and RAW converter in a one source bundle. I don't like patchwork software, even less when coming from different suppliers.
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I understand your point. But for me C1 isn't a viable solution as a DAM - it doesn't support my workflow for tagging. Actually I use PhotoSupreme as a DAM, in tandem with C1. Yes, I hate too patchwork software, but at the moment I don't see other solutions.
Back to the "I will move" point, I think that people can make a difference if they react. Lots of people accepting anything -> nothing happens. Lots of people dropping a software provider -> market opportunities for other providers.
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A lot of people seem to have the same feeling about subscription and software development.
There are some clever guys and gals working on the development but do I need it.I have been a pro for over 50 years - I'm in the twilight of my career.
When I quit LR a few years back I was mighty impressed with C1, especially the Tethered shooting which work so much better than the flakey LR (it may have got a lot better now.)
C1 seems to have become a very feature rich and confusing bit of software.
I'm pretty much retired but I have a few loyal customers who appreciate that I know what they want and need; and they tend to turn up around this time of year (end of summer) to get their catalogue shoots sorted.
So I tidy the studio and get everything in place ... then I turn on C1.
I have forgotten how to use it !!
Need to spend a week getting myself back up to speed.Enough is enough.
Photography is a complicated business why do I need to add more complications to my life ?
They can stick their upgrades where the sun don't shine
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Fabrizio, I'm sorry, but PhotoSupreme (after watching their slightly simple-minded videos about it's features, downloading a trial and trying) is as far away from my idea of DAM as it can get. I want to find photos at least as fast as I still can find the old ones in Aperture.
Okay, C1 is equally bad in this aspect. I had some hopes Affinity would come up with a proper successor of what Aperture was, but....
C1 as Affinity need to serve two OSs which are in terms of organisation facilities also far away from each other. Looking at Aperture's successor "Photos", Apple is catching up with becoming low end iPhone photos trash bin.
David, you're right. Looking at software companies, there's no limit of becoming more complicated, more expensive, more unreliable and best of all: completely free of liability.
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Eh, not an easy job. Actually I'm using PhotoSupreme to tag, then I wrote a couple of scripts that automatically generate smart albums in Capture One for each tag in the PhotoSupreme catalog. So when I have to search photos I use Capture One and it's reasonably fast.
Of course this is cumbersome... But at the moment I don't see other solutions.
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I'd be happy if I could write scripts for C1 – but then I think "scripting? are we here in Linux core compiling workshop?" No, I don't wanna do lazy C1 programmer's job! In C1 it's not even possible to search (not to talk about find) albums. I hate tagging. When I see a picture in C1, it's impossible to right click and choose "show in project/album". The groups are hiding their content.
The only credit I give C1 is to be a pretty good RAW converter, but their DAM is a massive disaster.
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C1 has lost its relevance, looking at the tethered shooting tools only ( the only reason for me to keep it ) nothing has improved for more than 10 years, worse they did not even care to implement features of newer cameras but because of the many unsolved bugs it had become less stable. congratulations ! for me this is a clear massage how much the care about professionals. speaking for sony their remote software is not only equal it is in many points superior and I have no doubt this is true for nikon and canon too.so without surprise their marketings is focused and desperate to attract young cool „creatives“ not professionals, most of their ambassadors do not have a great or professional portfolio or have accomplished anything noteworthy but all have in common that they think they can educate others, sell presets or other useless junk. when you are young and successful in this business you have no time for such nonsense not in the past and not today. but I think there is another reason for this, the advertising photography market has changed much in the last 30 years, a lot of studios have closed and the market is now much smaller than years before and also their amateur customer from their long gone great hardware days are probably giving up their hobby faster than they can attract new user. so the situation is difficult and years of ultra slow development, ignored bugs takes its toll too. it is very likely that the new owner was kind of misinformed and payed far to much and now they want some of their investment back and we know how…...
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speaking about becoming more and more irrelevant.... https://petapixel.com/2021/09/28/adobe-has-completely-redesigned-masking-in-lightroom-and-acr/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lRHHRC0Bgg&t=84s
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I stopped at C1P 20 due to the crazy, greedy price increases and shady sales tactics in the last two years.
I guess I'm lucky in some ways as I've moved my, primarily studio work, to Hasselblad medium format, after having been mostly Nikon for many years, having moved from Lightroom to Capture Pro 7 due to LR's dismal tethered reliability and performance (LR 3&4 at the time). Now Phocus has excellent tethered reliability and performance.
Capture One is definitely trying to coerce customers to subscriptions. But what's most alarming about Capture One doing it, opposed to other companies, is when it's coupled with Capture One's runaway greed. When they start doubling the subscription price, this time, as they have been doing with their irrational continual price gouging for perpetual licenses, the customer will *really* have no choice but to pay or leave. No staying on current version like I did. C1P software will be a doorstop.
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I wonder if C1 admin are reading this thread 🤔
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very likely but will this change anything ?
a company which now has "color sundays" on instagram instead of convincing user by substantially improving this app or at least fix the many bugs so it is worth the price again ?
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