Why the past tense? Which tools have been surpassed? Have Photoshop been surpassed? I am genuinely curious here.
I take note of Capture One, but is it an "acceptable yet technically inferior alternative that I picked because I don't agree with Adobe business practices" (which I think is a valid reason) or a viable alternative even for someone who doesn't have a problem dealing with Adobe and their subscription model.
Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher have been a breath of fresh air for the last few years. They have you pay once, not a subscription. The features keep coming at a great pace while retaining a very sensible UI.
Reminds me of the early days when pro Mac software was well designed and reasonably priced; not the bloatware we get from Adobe
and Microsoft today, for example.
I’ve been a Capture One user for several years and it’s a more powerful tool than Lightroom for sure. Layer capability removes the need to go to PS for most simple use cases. Their color tools were much better previously as well but LR has some major recent updates. I also like their session catalog model, but that’s optional and mostly personal preference. It’s not as well designed IMO, a bit more of a power user tool where you can tweak the UI to your liking, but in terms of functionality it’s as good or better than LR.
Affinity Photo is also on the same level as PS, I don’t know about “surpassed” but Adobe is no longer the clear leader.
I gave up GIMP for Krita years ago and have yet to see a reason to change (I still use Adobe as well, but for FOSS tools, Krita has stayed at the top for me)
Actually I'm using Darktable with great success for post processing my raw files on Linux and Mac. On the paid side Affinity & CaptureOne provide great alternatives.
I’ve tried it for years and years, paid customer. Had issues with Sony files and now have issues with Nikon Z raw files. C1 generates artifacts in transitions, terrible ones. Filed a bug report and got met with the worst customer support in my life, “devs don’t wanna fix this, use ICC profiles”, as if ICC profiles would fix bad processing of the files…
Which is sad because the software in general is a lot better than Lightroom, but your first point just isn’t true and that should be the primary thing to get right in a raw processor. Also, don’t conflate over sharpening and extra saturation for better quality (C1 defaults)
Is there some sort of cloud storage integration? One thing I like about Lightroom CC is how seemlessly I can move between devices and not have to worry about having large HDDs and backups.
I'm not a designer full time, but have dabbled over my career and in my youth used Photoshop and Premiere heavily. I'd say Pixelmator and Sketch were more approachable, discoverable and had better workflows. This made the combo of being easier to pick up than Adobe tools and more powerful for professionals.
I was able to use Figma productively in my first day of using it. The added collaboration features with Figma's App preview mode and collaboration in the tool made me never look at anything else when I needed to design something.
Capture One and Lightroom are definitely fighting in the same class. Both are true pro-grade tools. Some people and some workflows will prefer one of the two, but that's how preferences work.
So, in double-blind tests, most people prefer the 'Pepsi' analogue, but when they know or think they know which one is the 'Coke' analogue, the choose that one?
. o O ( I don't really know which is the Pepsi and which is the Coke, in this matchup. )
Why the past tense? Which tools have been surpassed? Have Photoshop been surpassed? I am genuinely curious here.
I take note of Capture One, but is it an "acceptable yet technically inferior alternative that I picked because I don't agree with Adobe business practices" (which I think is a valid reason) or a viable alternative even for someone who doesn't have a problem dealing with Adobe and their subscription model.