We Need An Adobe Lightroom True Competitor Locked

Bob Janes wrote:

Batdude wrote:

Also, one of the tools I use in LR a LOT is the Spot Removal and Copy and Paste tools and I would definitely need that and I'm not sure if C1 has that haha

The full-fat version of C1 (as opposed to the Sony/Nikon/Fuji 'Express' free versions) has one of the nicest spot removal features I've come across.

If you have shot a whole bunch of shots, you can pick out all the sensor dirt on one shot and then apply the same changes to all the other shots in that session.

In effect you can shoot a blank shot at a smalll aperture to pick out all the spots on your sensor, apply the spotting tool then apply that to all the shots in a batch (I seem to remember having to do two passes, one for portrait and one for landscape shots)

Over the past two years C1 has introduced a lot of very nice features.  They have introduced an "AI" feature to automatically fix keystoning.  They introduced the "magic mask" tool which allows one to select color, set parameters and it will mask all ares of that color.  It is great for say the sky.  You then can erase areas you don't want in the mask.  In C1 22 they have added good multi shot HDR merging to merge exposure bracket shots.  That works really well.  I've merged hand held shots and it really does a great job of aligning.  It also introduced stitching.  My wife stitched multiple shots she took of a herd of Pronghorns, all handheld and the print was gorgeous.  It really did a great job and no tripod was required.

Of course with features comes complexity.  One has to learn the UI so like any complex S/W package there is a learning curve.  However, one has the ability to refine the tools and look of the desk top to support their workflow.  One can save multiple desktops if one wants to support different applications.  I much prefer the C1 in the way it stores my images files.  If you want it to gobble up your files and become anal in managing them like say Photos, Lightroom or the old Aperture - then you can.  I, however, find that a poison pill.  If you want to work solely out of one file you use sessions.  You can drag and drop new images to the sessions folder and it's there in C1.  If you want a hybrid where you keep your own files where you want them on your disk, but want the features of a catalog to keep track, then C1 offers that.  The files are stored on your disk not in a library and C1 generates a file of pointers that point to your files and works off those pointers.  Drop in a new image, synchronize and it's there.

Another really nice technology for local editing is the "U-point" found in DXO Nik plugins.  It was developed originally by Nik before it was bought by Google.  It works really well in SilverEfex Pro.  I don't know if it has been fully implemented in PhotoLab.  But really works well to isolate say a face to lighten the shadows.  But I find PhotoLab lacking since to address geometric distortion  you have to buy a separate app.