Capture One Pro vs Lightroom

Capture pilot is a feature that allows any web-enabled device to remotely connect to Capture One and use a subset of its functionality like view a selected catalogue, rate images and even make minor edits to photos. An iOS app for Capture Pilot is available as well that in addition to default functionality also allows controlling a tethered camera though that functionality has to be purchased separately.

Once you hook up your camera to Capture One, the program offers a bunch of useful tools and workflows based on your needs.

For example, it has Composition Mode that allows setting up the shot without taking up hard-drive space by replacing the last image taken with the a one as soon as you take it. It has Hot Folder functionality that will keep an eye on changes in a set folder and as soon as any new images appear in that folder they will be added to Capture One; great for cameras that are not supported by Capture One natively and unlike other Hot Folder functionality in other programs C1 captures everything coming in quickly and imports all images as active. Many cameras can be controlled via the program and if the camera has live view, similar functionality can be enabled in Capture One. Plus, live view allows superimposing an overlay; great for cover shooting. There's also a overlay mask that shows wether a shot is in focus or not. And many other functions and design decision that help with ease of use.

A huge amount of color editing options, with the ability to modify overall, to extremely targeted ranges. Especially robust support for editing skin tones.

Straight imports seem a bit sharper and more dynamic than many other RAW editors.

Lightroom allows, for example, organizing images based on folders, color labels, flags, rating, keywords, GPS location, it can automatically create smart albums (albums that automatically update based on set rules) and it can be set to automatically backup, rename based on set rules, apply default processing, add keywords to images on import. It offers that functionality in an intuitive way and allows extensively customizing layout, behavior and workflow of managing assets to better suit your needs.

Can merge multiple shots into one in order to expand dynamic range.

Lightroom has built-in facial recognition support that can be used to find the same person in any collection of photographs.

Lightroom has over 900 lens profiles from all kinds of manufacturers, including major lens brands like Canon, Nikon, Leica, Pentax, Ricoh, etc. You can see the full list of supported lenses here. Lens profiles will in most cases speed up the process of correcting lens distortion down to 1-2 clicks.

At a high level the interface is organized into broad groups of tools called workflow modules. Modules like "Library" for asset management and "Develop" for manipulating the photos. Each module displays only those tools that are needed for that task. This allows you to separate concerns between tasks and reduces interface clutter. When you're, for example, developing the image, you're not bothered by interface tools relating to exporting it.

Within each module tools are grouped in a logical manner. Develop module, for example, will group tools relating to basic image adjustment, lens correction, and effects.

And there are a plethora of keyboard shortcuts that improve the workflow speed even further. At all times you can easily navigate between images you're working via arrow keys, quickly compare images before and after making edits with \, or see side by side comparisons with y.

You can connect your camera directly to Lightroom and have Lightroom display images as soon as they are captured.