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Both cover photo editing. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Capture One | Imagen | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $18 | From $7 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Usage-based |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | macOS, Windows, iOS | macOS, Windows |
| Covers | Photo Editing, Design & Graphics | Photo Editing, AI Content Tools |
| 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 |
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.
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Your own editing style applied by the photo
Imagen trains a personal profile on a few thousand of a photographer's own edited images and then applies it to new shoots, priced per photo rather than per month. Culling, cropping and retouching are add-ons on the same meter. Paying by the photo suits an uneven year better than a subscription does, and the first thousand edits cost nothing.
Our note
Against Aftershoot the split is billing rather than quality: this charges per photo and that charges per year. Work out your annual volume and the answer falls out, and remember the beta-priced extras here are not permanent.
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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