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Both cover photo editing. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Aftershoot | Capture One | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $120 | From $18 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Annual only | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 30 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | macOS, Windows | macOS, Windows, iOS |
| Covers | Photo Editing, AI Content Tools | Photo Editing, Design & Graphics |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Culls and edits a wedding shoot overnight
Aftershoot learns from edits a photographer has already made and then applies that style to a whole shoot, after throwing out the blinks, the blurs and the duplicates. For anyone delivering thousands of frames a wedding, culling is the job it saves most of. Plans are sold by how many images a year you put through it, and everything exports back into Lightroom or Capture One rather than replacing them.
Our note
The thirty days matter more here than on most trials, because the tool has to learn your style before the output is worth judging. Feed it a whole delivered wedding early rather than a handful of frames, or the trial will tell you nothing.
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RAW editing and tethering for professionals
Capture One is what photographers move to when Lightroom's colour handling and tethered shooting stop being good enough. The colour editor works on ranges you define rather than on fixed sliders, and tethering to a camera is the feature its users will not give up. It is a professional tool with a professional learning curve, and it still sells a licence you buy once.
Our note
The perpetual licence is the reason to look here rather than at the subscription-only alternatives, and it is worth doing the arithmetic: $349 is about nineteen months of Pro. Buy the subscription if you want the newest camera support the week it ships, and the licence if you do not.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
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