C1 Black Friday – anyone moved to subscription yet?

[Paul Spinnler]

So C1 is doing a 50% off special. Still expensive. I am sitting on my perpetual license for C23, but before the new AI masking stuff – ie the version before they forced everyone in to their new scheme.

I am still reluctant to have a monthly payment go off from my CC, and buying another perpetual for just a minor in-between upgrade seems also ... meh.

How are people adopting this subscription stuff?

Curious.

 

[dj may]

So C1 is doing a 50% off special. Still expensive. I am sitting on my perpetual license for C23, but before the new AI masking stuff – ie the version before they forced everyone in to their new scheme.

I am still reluctant to have a monthly payment go off from my CC, and buying another perpetual for just a minor in-between upgrade seems also ... meh.

How are people adopting this subscription stuff?

Curious.

Subscriptions make sense in the software business. In a previous career I was the head of a global software business; we provided mission-critical software for emergency management. In those days we had software maintenance agreements with our customers, which entitled them to software support as well as incremental updates.

In the consumer world, subscriptions make sense for both buyer and seller, provided the seller lives up to the promise of continuous incremental updates that fix bugs and improve performance. In exchange the seller receives a predictable revenue stream, with which to plan future developments and the buyer has a continuously improved product, including important security aspects. Software security is important.

I expect that almost all mature software companies will eventually be subscription-based. Open source software providers function similarly, without direct fees.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

The question was whether people are moving over.

It has been clear since Adobe's transition that from a profitability perspective, ie LCV – lifetime customer value – subscription-based businesses are a lot more lucrative for the companies. Perpetual licenses in that sense are dead. Adobe's stock price increase over the last years has shown that. There's no debate around the beenfits for C1, P1's owners and from a cashflow perspective.

The question is whether people are moving over.

In the case of C1 part of the allure was they were holding onto Perp. Licenses so Axcel (their investor) forcing C1 as a whole into a subscription model with a harsh transition concept for the PL holdouts was a bit of surprise – now, when you buy, you just get this version and ZERO new incremental features, not even 0.1 upgrades, which is really uncool.

I am wondering if people are buying the incremental PLs or cave in and move onto monthly CC billings.

 

[Knorp]

Yep, I've got a yearly billed subscription ...

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Pondering it at 50% off. Maybe the key is to just update every black friday.

 

[Alan]

I love C1’s functionality as a raw converter with shift-lens-aware corrections.

However, I’m staying on a perpetual license. The removal of feature upgrades has little effect on me since I usually wait to apply new upgrades anyway to maintain stability on production machines. Recent major features have been unimpressive (buggy and incomplete) for my work, tasks already accomplished by separate mature tools (pano stitching & HDR). Anything I would use AI masking on is probably going to be run through Photoshop anyway.

Hasselblad support is something I would upgrade for.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Indeed good point around incomplete. Anyone noticed that C1 is not really that good at pano stitching? It doesnt do flat stitch and often has more artifacts than PS.

Flat stitch is what one does when stitching within the IC of a lens. C1 tries to stitch it into a spherical mapping which creates distortions. Surprised that they didn't fix that yet. Also the seams get a blur while PS is a lot better at making stitches seamless.

Finally, also surprised, there's no profile for the XT 40 HR – ie the metadata is not recognized because no one at C1 / P1 bothered to re-map the metadata to the already exsiting Rodenstock 40 HR profile. ...

 

[MGrayson]

I have dropped C1 entirely over both their particular choice of pricing model and their inconsistency in brand support (We will never support another MF brand. Oh, except now Fuji. And now Leica, too, because "crop" MF isn't a competitor. Except for Hasselblad's crop MF because... uh ... look over there!).

 

[Paul Spinnler]

I am not sure it is C1's choice to not include Hassy. Hassy files have a special interpretation layer accessible via treatment in Phocus – Hasselblad natural colour science – which reads the calibration file of the specific X camera and applies a kelvin adjusted interpolation of a filmic LUT onto the files. That's why people love the Hassy look through Phocus so much.

It unifieds certain hues in the skin, cyans, greens, yellows, reds with tiny pleasing adjustments to saturation in a way inspired by film which we find super pleasing. For C1 to accurately read these files in the same way Hassy would neec to hand them the keys to the transforms which I am not sure they want.

Torger on LuLa years ago analysed the Phocus code and files on the hard drive and pin pointed the respectivec HNCS luts.

I guess Hassy has an interest to keep Phocus a good advantage in its native file processing.

C1 has cut competition thinking from the old P1 days to maximize sales – if they could process Hassy, I am sure they would want that. Need to ask DJI ...

 

[guphotography]

I run two versions of C1 on mac, phase one edition and 22, free and perpetual license.

As long as I produce majority of my work with p1 back, software is always updated and free. Pro 22 does everything I need for non p1 images, therefore I quickly dismissed the temptation to upgrade to 23 after seeing CI's email.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Oh is that still a thing? The P1 edition is still free as always?? How do you activate it again?

 

[guphotography]

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004199697-Get-the-license-key-for-Capture-One-for-Phase-One-Phase-One-Mamiya-Leaf-Digital-Back-support-only-

Still free, with all the bells and whistles of the latest offerings

 

[Paul Spinnler]

I have two C1 instances then.

1. Latest bells and whistles for IQ4
2. 23 pre-subscription bombshell for Leica et al

Thanks C1 for this mess!

 

[f6cvalkyrie]

Interesting info !

Nowadays, I'm running C1 from my "perpetual" version 22 for photos from both my Olympus and PhaseOne cameras. In principle, I have most of the features I need in this version.
Now, I will be able to get a free latest version for editing my P1 files ! Great, though I don't see much use in some of the new features (except the AI masking, that I will have to learn to use ...)

If they could just add focus stacking to a future upgrade ...

Stay safe,
Rafael

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Anyone else realized that C1 cannot flat stitch properly? Its seam masking algorithm is also sub-par vs. PS ... creating visual artifacts.

 

[guphotography]

Anyone else realized that C1 cannot flat stitch properly? Its seam masking algorithm is also sub-par vs. PS ... creating visual artifacts.

Some times yes, though not a common occurrance, still less problematic than HDR when I need to merge a few exposure for interior shots.

Mine tends to be c1's inability to stitch, rather than any artifacts, have you any examples?

 

[guphotography]

Interesting info !

Nowadays, I'm running C1 from my "perpetual" version 22 for photos from both my Olympus and PhaseOne cameras. In principle, I have most of the features I need in this version.
Now, I will be able to get a free latest version for editing my P1 files ! Great, though I don't see much use in some of the new features (except the AI masking, that I will have to learn to use ...)

If they could just add focus stacking to a future upgrade ...

Stay safe,
Rafael

AI masking and magic brush, I'm constantly amazed by how far tech has come since version 3 days.

 

[cunim]

Moved from the P1 perpetual to the subscription when I got the GFX. Otherwise, I would not have moved. I like C1 for tethering and basic raw conversion, and dislike it for everything else - so the "advanced" features are useless to me. However, it is just so convenient to use the one package for all my tethering and raw conversion (P1, Fuji, Sony).

 

[tenmangu81]

I am not sure it is C1's choice to not include Hassy. Hassy files have a special interpretation layer accessible via treatment in Phocus – Hasselblad natural colour science – which reads the calibration file of the specific X camera and applies a kelvin adjusted interpolation of a filmic LUT onto the files. That's why people love the Hassy look through Phocus so much.

It unifieds certain hues in the skin, cyans, greens, yellows, reds with tiny pleasing adjustments to saturation in a way inspired by film which we find super pleasing. For C1 to accurately read these files in the same way Hassy would neec to hand them the keys to the transforms which I am not sure they want.

Torger on LuLa years ago analysed the Phocus code and files on the hard drive and pin pointed the respectivec HNCS luts.

I guess Hassy has an interest to keep Phocus a good advantage in its native file processing.

C1 has cut competition thinking from the old P1 days to maximize sales – if they could process Hassy, I am sure they would want that. Need to ask DJI ...

Indeed. I guess it came both from Capture One and Hassy not to work together. And I am not sure Capture One would have done a subsequent work in order to get them at the Phocus level. I am using Lightroom (mostly for the catalogue that I need). It looks now better than C1 for most of the tools (they already introduced AI masking some time ago), and the colours are almost as good for HB files as with Phocus, only lens corrections are not. Lightroom looks to be a good compromise (for me....). And it is cheaper. These are the reasons why I left C1 for LR some months ago. Subscription for subscription....

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Well in terms of value for money I get a lot more from my adobe subscription than from the C1 subscription. I also feel C1 tries to become this one-stop-shop tool to increase its perceived value to justify the high cost, but in reality I always work in Photoshop for the final step. I do very basic processing, mostly just exposure and contrast and highlight recovery, in C1. PS is by far more capable, let alone its ability to use scripts.