The professional's Lightroom replacement: finer color control and the best tethered studio workflow, at a price close to Adobe's.
What it is
Capture One, from Copenhagen, is a RAW editor and catalog with layer-based adjustments, precise color grading and tethered capture for studio shoots. Desktop for Windows and macOS, plus iPad and iPhone apps. Plans (US): Pro $18 a month billed annually or $28 month to month, All in One (adds mobile, collaboration and cloud settings) $24.67 a month billed annually, Studio (multi-user sessions for high-volume production) $48.50 a month billed annually, or a one-time Pro License at $349 that covers the version you buy, without future feature updates. Prices rose 6% across all products in June 2026. Subscribers earn 20% off a perpetual license per year subscribed and a free perpetual license after five years. 30-day free trial. Its AI masking and denoise run on your computer, and it says it does not train AI models on customer photos. Checked November 2026.
Best for
- Studio and tethered shooting
- Color-critical portrait and product work
- Photographers who want to own a license
What we like
- Best-in-class tethered capture
- Precise color editing and layer-based adjustments
- Perpetual license option and a loyalty path to one
What to watch
- Costs about as much as Adobe's Photography plan, without Photoshop
- Lightroom edits and presets do not carry over
- Steeper learning curve than Lightroom
- Perpetual license gets no new features after purchase
Where Capture One ranks
Alternatives and head-to-heads
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