Newbie question about post processing software?

While I'm a Lightroom and Photoshop User with a few months of PixInsight experience, I followed closely the development of Capture One over the last decade. In terms of postprocessing I consider it on equal terms with Lightroom. Of course there are the usual fanboy discussions whether one is better than the other …
I still believe Photoshop is on a different level, in particular when its about local refinements of the image. As a beginner in astrophotography - like me - start with the tools you already have experience with from daytme photography and take it from there step by step. Capture One for sure will get you quite far.

Have fun and clear skies
Wolfgang

Thanks Edward and Kuechlew, as I mentioned I'm a complete newbie so setting up all my gear.  AP is one of my interests, but I'm also very interested in day-time photography and videography too.  I'm setting up all my gear and software from scratch, so I'm not a particular fan of any one product, just want to invest in the right products for my use-cases.

I've just purchased a Sony A7iv, Sony G 50mm f2.5 and a Sony GM 70-200mm f2.8 OSS II.  I've ordered a new home PC to replace my old PC that died and I'm now looking at investing in the software.  I have definitely decided to purchase pixinsight, so that is a given.  But from what I understand, for AP, after the heavy lifting is done using PI I'll need to do some post processing in something like Ps or Capture One. 

In addition, for my daytime photography, I'm going to need something like Lr/Ps or Capture One and probably something like Premier Pro for video work.  

So my question is, should I go down the Capture One route, or go down the Adobe route?  Is Capture One the equal of Lr/Ps, for the final AP touchups, and the heavy lifting for daytime photography?

One of the things that attracts me to Capture One is that it makes much more efficient use of GPUs and so is much quicker in most things compared to Lr/Ps, also it is a one-off payment rather than a monthly subscription.

That's a tough decission and most likely you can't go wrong either way. Adobe is seemingly more expensive with its yearly plan but given the high frequency of upgrades of Capture One you'll most likely find yourself spending a similar amount of money going the Capture One Route. 

For daytime photography I do 99% of my editing and retouching in Lightroom. For astrophotography after finishing all the PixInsight magic I find myself working almost exclusively in Photoshop. For AP I use Lightroom mainly for its library capabilities. You can do local corrections in Lightroom and Capture One but I find Photoshop much more powerful for this kind of work. Capture One is addressing (some would say copying ….) Lightroom, it was never designed as a contender for Photoshop. 

I never had to take the decision between these products because I was already using Lr/PS when Capture One was born. Switching was never worth the effort to me.

What you have to consider is that PixInsight, Lightroom, Capture One and Photoshop are very powerful applications. While Lightroom and Capture One are fairly intuitive to use, Photoshop and PixInsight are not and will require quite some effort to get used to. Learning all of them at once is a challenge - in particular in addition to the general astrephotography learning curve. So take it one step at a time and don't lose the fun of your hobby by trying too much at one time.

Clear skies
Wolfgang

Many thanks Edward and Wolfgang, that is some good advice.  And I think it makes most sense to go down the Adobe route.  But if there are any Capture One users out there in Astrobin land, I'd like to hear from you.   The speed of performance of Caputre One (making better use of GPUs) is appealing, but if it doesn't have the capbilites of Lr+Ps that performance is of little importance.

Edward Overstreet:
I have not found any issues with speed and adobe products.   There are extremely important settings in LR and PS preferences that can enhance performance for your graphics, ram, and processor.    I think you find that there is no speed advantage with CaptureOne.

Yep, LR and PS are using GPU support too. You may check for GPU compatibility on the Adobe site. Anyway, since the question which product is faster may likely change with any new release I believe you should think in a more strategic way. Looking forward to what Capture One users have to say. You may actually perform a search for Images where Capture One is mentioned and contact the users via personal message in case you don't get a response in this thread. If Capture One serves all your - long term - needs, it's certainly cheaper on the long run. I assume at some point once you have some meaningful data to process you can get the products for a trial period to get your own hands-on experience too.

Clear Skies
Wolfgang