upgrading my travel photography

As photographers who use a Macintosh undoubtedly know, Apple is discontinuing its professional-level photo program, Aperture. I have happily used Aperture for many years and grew to appreciate its ease of use. Here's a photo, processed in Aperture, from my trip to Costa Rica two years ago.

Aperture 3.6

So I needed a replacement program. I first downloaded a trial version of Adobe Lightroom 5. Although reasonably priced, I found the program a bit disappointing. What I missed the most was Aperture's quarter-tone levels adjustment, and Lightroom's curves adjustment simply didn't do it for me. Still, this turned out a bit better than the Aperture image.

Lightroom 5

So I kept looking, and after googling the subject discovered Capture One Pro 8. Like any software tool, the program has a significant learning curve, but here's the same photograph processed using Capture One. The detail on the leaf is stunning. Click on each picture to see a larger versions in order to compare the image quality.

Capture One Pro 8

Granted, this is not a totally objective test, as it represents my "best efforts" in processing the same photograph in three different programs. I'm sold on Capture One. If you are too, use the code AMBDAVID at Capture One's online store.

What do you think of these three versions of the same photograph?

copyright (c) 2015 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.