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.
Affinity Photo is also on the same level as PS, I don’t know about “surpassed” but Adobe is no longer the clear leader.
Davinci Resolve is, for my use case, just as good as Premiere and Afx.
It's also free.
I wish gimp was as good as Ps.
In my opinion Capture One best features are:
1) image and color quality 2) tethering capabilities 3) workflow customization and optimization
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)
It's basically Coke versus Pepsi.
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.