Product test
On1 Photo Raw: better than expected
by David Lee
Capture One review: a strong Lightroom alternative without the subscription lock-in
The Capture One RAW editor will run you nearly 300 francs. But you get your money’s worth.
Capture One is widely seen as the strongest competitor to Adobe Lightroom. This is reflected in its pricing, with Capture One costing just a bit more than Lightroom at 15.75 francs or 19.33 euros (as of April 2026). Unlike with Adobe, you can get the Capture One RAW editor as a one-time purchase – a big pro for many people. At 299 francs or 369 euros, it, too, is expensive.
In my review, I want to examine if the high price is justified and how Capture One compares with Lightroom and cheaper alternatives.
Library management: fast and powerful
Importing 13,000 photos from my not-particularly-fast external SSD takes less than four minutes, which I think is fair. Generating thumbnails takes much longer, but this part is done in the background and only when needed. It doesn’t matter that not all thumbnails are ready from the get-go.
During import, you have the option of a preview that allows you to start sorting through the images. Capture One also provides a grouped view of similar images, which comes in handy if you use burst mode.
Capture One can even import Lightroom catalogues. Alongside star ratings and keywords, it also carries over basic editing settings. That sounds like a killer feature. But when processing images, Capture One only transfers the values for exposure correction, contrast and saturation. The image looks completely different from how it does in Lightroom. If you wanted to export it out of Capture One, you’d have to re-edit it. At least cropping and rotation are already done, which reduces the effort you need to put it.
When it comes to exporting images in general, no features are missing. Capture One has got everything you need – from renaming based on your own criteria to adding and removing metadata and sharpening the images. You can save your settings and export several versions of the images in one go (for example, in full resolution and scaled down).
In the search field, you can type whatever comes to mind: keywords, parts of folder names, EXIF values. There’s also an advanced search offering countless criteria that can be combined. Searching is fast even with large libraries, as is image management overall.
Overall, I’m impressed with the image management system. Compared with the RAW editors I’ve tested so far – Photomator, On1 Photo RAW and Luminar – Capture One is clearly superior and holds its own even against Lightroom. Lightroom offers more options in the before-and-after view, such as a horizontal split and a side-by-side view. In Capture One, you only get on/off and a vertically split comparison view. I miss Lightroom’s back and forward buttons for navigation, as well as the ability to undo each view setting. But those are minor issues.
User-friendly, fully customisable interface
Capture One is structured differently from Lightroom. Even so, I found my way around quickly and hardly ran into any usability issues. The software’s layout is clear and the structure makes sense.
The library isn’t a separate part of the program, but one of many tabs. The tabs open different palettes, that is collections of settings. Default tabs include shape, style, and adjustment. And Capture One can be tailored extensively to your own preferences and needs. You can change the palettes as you like, show tabs, or create your own. You can move the buttons on the toolbar or replace them with others. Keyboard shortcuts are fully customisable too. Best of all, you can save your custom interface as a workspace and reactivate it with a menu command.
Solid editing options
My positive impression extends to image editing. Both in terms of the quality and set of features, there’s a clear no-nonsense approach. You can tell that Capture One has been in development for a long time and is a mature product. It’s the first Lightroom alternative I’ve tested that I could realistically imagine using for serious work. I also enjoy experimenting with it; I like the results and can steer them in a specific direction.
As in my earlier tests, I run an auto-correction on a backlit shot with extreme contrast. I can choose which corrections to include and which to exclude. I went for exposure, tonal values, HDR and white balance.
The brightness correction is good. The white balance is far too cool for my taste. Sure, it makes the sky a nice blue, but I don’t like the colours of the railway tracks. I can change it either via white balance, or with the colour balance tool, which allows me to adjust the shadows, midtones, and highlights independently.
I generally don’t work with ready-made presets, but for many people they’re key. Capture One offers a wide range of presets that – unlike many of its cheaper competitors – are actually usable. You can also use any photo as a reference. Capture One generates a style from it that can be saved and applied to other images. You decide which parameters to apply and which to exclude.
Capture One’s perspective correction feature includes an automatic option, and it’s reasonably useful. The results aren’t always perfect, but that’s also the case in Lightroom – and in many competing products, it’s far worse.
In some areas, Capture One even has the edge over Lightroom. For example, it has layers. Film negatives can be converted into positives with a single click. For a long time, another plus point was the way it handled RAW files from the Fujifilm X series. The RGB filter in those cameras has a different subpixel arrangement than other camera sensors. This can lead to worm-like artefacts, especially when aggressive sharpening is applied. In the current version of Lightroom, however, this is no longer a major problem. I have to push sharpening to the maximum to make the effect visible.
Capture One has fixed one of its past shortcomings compared to Lightroom: it can now automatically merge exposure brackets and panoramic photos.
Slightly fewer AI features than Lightroom
Automatic AI-powered sky selection doesn’t work as well as in Lightroom. Capture One does include AI masking, but in a complicated case like this it can’t mask the entire sky at the press of a button. But with the Magic Brush tool, I can still get it done in a reasonable amount of time.
When it comes to AI landscape detection, Capture One lags slightly behind Lightroom. For portraits, on the other hand, Capture One offers features similar to Lightroom’s. There’s a drop-down menu where you can choose which body parts you want to have automatically masked and which not. I did a quick test, and it worked just as well as in Lightroom.
While there’s no AI for noise reduction, it delivers satisfactory results.
In a nutshell
Expensive, but worth it
Capture One is expensive. But if you’re looking for a serious alternative to Lightroom, you won’t regret your purchase. While RAW developers like Photomator, PhotoRAW or Luminar Neo all clearly fall short of Lightroom, Capture One holds its own. The image management system offers everything you need, and it’s fast. Editing generally produces very good results and comes equipped with all the important features.
When it comes to AI, Lightroom has a slight edge, especially for landscape photography. On the flip side, Capture One also offers features that Lightroom doesn’t have, such as layers and reference images. In addition, the user interface can be fully customised.
The big advantage over Lightroom is that you can buy Capture One not only as a subscription, but also as a one-time purchase – and switch between the two models.
Pro
- Subscription and one-time purchase options, with the ability to switch
- Logically structured, highly customisable interface
- Fast, powerful image management
- Comprehensive editing tools that deliver good results
- Layers and masks
- Automatic style generation from a reference photo
Contra
- Expensive
- No AI noise reduction
- AI landscape recognition weaker than Lightroom’s
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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