Observations on AfterShot Pro

[dburton]

I've spent the last few weeks between shooting assignments and "domestic" work trying out ASP. I find it is a very capable program, but for my use, it suffers from some real limitations in the current version.

There's some detail to what I've found here: http://www.bluedonkeyphotography.com/A_ ... rt_Two.pdf

To summarize, though (this is two-way which is why I didn't post this in the wish list or what-do-you-like threads):

I love the ability to work with images outside the catalog system.
The interface is attractive.
Raw conversion seems very effective.
A few other items referred to in the piece linked above
The custom-version programs are fun, and some of them very useful

I really wish it had dual-screen capability
I would really like to be able to access PS-compatible plug-ins
The program crashes when I nudge it a little.
I find the printing end difficult and not intuitive.

I own ASP, and will keep following it since, despite my Adobe habits, I really am a cheerleader for competent low-cost alternatives - I'm even re-visiting Paint Shop Pro X4 and really like Painter.

Feel free to look at the article and give me any feedback you wish, especially if there's anything I've misunderstood or inadvertently misrepresented about the program.

Dale Burton

[thazooo]

Enjoyed your write up and comparison. I've always been a Corel User and it was interesting to read what an Adobe User thought of the Corel products.
I used the Bibble software for several years but drifted away because of some conversion problems with my camera brand. The Longgggg wait for 5
also added to my drifting. ASP's release is good and I'm back using it.
In your comparison you used PSP X4 as your Corel Editor. I know Corel is pushing ASP and PSP as The working combination of products. You as a PS
user will probably find Corel Photo Paint a better match to PS. It is as powerful as PS and if you can translate terminolgy, can do the same edits.
PP is found in Corel Graphics Suite.

[pesto126]

I too cannot believe that dual-monitor support is not developed (nor on the plate to be developed it appears). I would welcome the ability to undock toolbars and totally customize the UI across monitors.

[marbly]

Dale, thank you for the excellent evaluation of ASP and LR. Awhile back I spent some time evaluating both for my use also. Along the way I created a thread and updated it as I discovered things and thoughts came to me. If you are interested you can see it here:

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=6262

I, reluctantly, decided that ASP 1.0.0.39 was not ready for release, but I will watch for a later version that is less buggy. You discovered things that I didn't and I mentioned some things about both that you didn't. I was learning both at the same time so I didn't have a pre-formed view of how things "should" be done since I had no experience with either.

I plan to look at the update to ASP and LR 4 when they are both available as non-beta releases and I will update that thread some more.

[dburton]

Enjoyed your write up and comparison. I've always been a Corel User and it was interesting to read what an Adobe User thought of the Corel products.
I used the Bibble software for several years but drifted away because of some conversion problems with my camera brand. The Longgggg wait for 5
also added to my drifting. ASP's release is good and I'm back using it.
In your comparison you used PSP X4 as your Corel Editor. I know Corel is pushing ASP and PSP as The working combination of products. You as a PS
user will probably find Corel Photo Paint a better match to PS. It is as powerful as PS and if you can translate terminolgy, can do the same edits.
PP is found in Corel Graphics Suite.

thazooo -

Thanks for your response. Your suggestion about PhotoPaint is very interesting, since I have GS X5 and Photopaint absolutely chokes on .CR2 raw files from both my Canon 5D Mark II and my Canon 7D. That has, so far, rendered it useless for my purposes. Note that I really loved Photopaint at one time and found it very powerful, but I don't know what's up with the current version and my cameras. Feels as if Corel has frozen its development along the way. I suppose I could try converting to TIF before linking with Photopaint (that may be redundant since I suspect ASP would create a TIF and the send it over). Oh, what the heck, I'll give it a spin for fun and see how it works. I know it does layers and that 95% of the purpose I would go out of LR (or, you never know someday, maybe ASP). Thanks for the tip. I'll let you know here how it goes.

DJB

[dburton]

Dale, thank you for the excellent evaluation of ASP and LR. Awhile back I spent some time evaluating both for my use also. Along the way I created a thread and updated it as I discovered things and thoughts came to me. If you are interested you can see it here:

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=6262

I, reluctantly, decided that ASP 1.0.0.39 was not ready for release, but I will watch for a later version that is less buggy. You discovered things that I didn't and I mentioned some things about both that you didn't. I was learning both at the same time so I didn't have a pre-formed view of how things "should" be done since I had no experience with either.

I plan to look at the update to ASP and LR 4 when they are both available as non-beta releases and I will update that thread some more.

Marbly - Followed the link to your thread and will print it out so I can digest it over a couple of days - there's a ton of material there! Wish I'd known about it earlier - would have helped enlighten my effort. I know what you mean about referring, even implicitly, about "the way things ought to be done." Hard to avoid that.

I note also that you use Elements 9. There's only one reason (well, maybe 2 - the ACR controls are less generous) I haven't given Elements serious consideration in my main workflow, and that is its inability to work in layers without conversion to 8-bit depth. This is slightly paranoid on my part - an 8-bit per channel image can survive some types of editing without the dreaded "banding in the sky" and other side-effects but I just don't like running the risk.

You may also want to see Part One of A Modest Exercise here (it's shorter, mercifully): http://www.bluedonkeyphotography.com/A_ ... ercise.pdf

Anyway - more later - I really look forward to digging into your analysis (so far, it looks really good) and offering whatever feedback is constructive.

DJB

[marbly]

Marbly - Followed the link to your thread and will print it out so I can digest it over a couple of days - there's a ton of material there! Wish I'd known about it earlier - would have helped enlighten my effort. I know what you mean about referring, even implicitly, about "the way things ought to be done." Hard to avoid that.

The thread is currently up to 4 pages so it isn't just the first page you see when you click on my link. Since it was written more or less in real time as I was discovering things sometimes I posted something that I then made an update to in a later post as I learned more. Keep that in mind. I am waiting for an ASP update and the LR 4 release version to continue my evaluation.

I note also that you use Elements 9. There's only one reason (well, maybe 2 - the ACR controls are less generous) I haven't given Elements serious consideration in my main workflow, and that is its inability to work in layers without conversion to 8-bit depth. This is slightly paranoid on my part - an 8-bit per channel image can survive some types of editing without the dreaded "banding in the sky" and other side-effects but I just don't like running the risk.

In the thread I think I mentioned that I used to use PS CS2, but the ACR for it doesn't work with my newer cameras and even if it did it is an old ACR that isn't nearly as good as the ones these days. I love photography and have since a kid, but I do it as a rather serious hobby, not a business. I don't get paid to do it so my needs (to be more accurate, my desires ) are different than yours. For example, these days I mostly put photos on my website and don't print much since I am in various places all the time. For the moment, a few months in Japan. One of these days though I will want to print again too. For now, PSE 9/ACR works pretty well, but I do wish it didn't have the stripped down ACR controls.

You may also want to see Part One of A Modest Exercise here (it's shorter, mercifully): http://www.bluedonkeyphotography.com/A_ ... ercise.pdf

Thanks for posting this also. I read through it a few minutes ago.

Anyway - more later - I really look forward to digging into your analysis (so far, it looks really good) and offering whatever feedback is constructive.

Yes, please, let me know if you have comments. I would particularly like to hear your thoughts on the output sharpening issue I brought up in the thread (relevant for both ASP and LR). If you mostly print, I suspect, it is not much of an issue for you though.

By the way, you mentioned the free RawTherapee 4 raw converter/non-destructive editor. Version 4 says it is beta, but if you look at the forum you will see that the developers explain that it should be considered a stable version with updates every 2 months and that the use of the beta tag is an anachronism from sometime back when they had thought they would release differently. I tried RT a long time ago (around version 2) and it was so darn slow and crashed so much that I found it almost unusable (slow for conversion, but mostly the UI would hang up for long periods). I downloaded version 4 recently and it is almost like a whole new program. It seems very stable and works well with an amazing number of controls to adjust things. You mentioned you had problems with it. Are you running a 32-bit Windows, by chance? They have a note on the website saying that the reduced memory available with 32-bit Windows results in a rather poor experience. I have Win7 64-bits and it seemed very stable and worked well.

Lastly, I appreciate good, articulate writing so I really enjoyed reading your PDFs for that reason in addition to the content. Thanks again for posting.

[thazooo]

Enjoyed your write up and comparison. I've always been a Corel User and it was interesting to read what an Adobe User thought of the Corel products.
I used the Bibble software for several years but drifted away because of some conversion problems with my camera brand. The Longgggg wait for 5
also added to my drifting. ASP's release is good and I'm back using it.
In your comparison you used PSP X4 as your Corel Editor. I know Corel is pushing ASP and PSP as The working combination of products. You as a PS
user will probably find Corel Photo Paint a better match to PS. It is as powerful as PS and if you can translate terminolgy, can do the same edits.
PP is found in Corel Graphics Suite.

thazooo -

Thanks for your response. Your suggestion about PhotoPaint is very interesting, since I have GS X5 and Photopaint absolutely chokes on .CR2 raw files from both my Canon 5D Mark II and my Canon 7D. That has, so far, rendered it useless for my purposes. Note that I really loved Photopaint at one time and found it very powerful, but I don't know what's up with the current version and my cameras. Feels as if Corel has frozen its development along the way. I suppose I could try converting to TIF before linking with Photopaint (that may be redundant since I suspect ASP would create a TIF and the send it over). Oh, what the heck, I'll give it a spin for fun and see how it works. I know it does layers and that 95% of the purpose I would go out of LR (or, you never know someday, maybe ASP). Thanks for the tip. I'll let you know here how it goes.

DJB[/quote

Don't use Photo Paint RAW converter, best that can be said about it is that it works, Maybe. I was talking about After Shot Pro / Photo Paint workflow. Using Tiff and files over 100MB (pano's) I never run into a slow down or choke

[Tadjio]

Dale, I've just finished reading your article, especially your comments on learning ASP, which I found interesting, thanks.

I really wish it had dual-screen capability
I would really like to be able to access PS-compatible plug-ins
The program crashes when I nudge it a little.
I find the printing end difficult and not intuitive.
Dale Burton

I have commented on dual-screen capability in a separate thread.
I too find the program crashes when I nudge it a little, especially if it has to 'wake' a hard drive.
As to printing, I think this is the worst aspect. I can now print 6x4" confidently but I have to remember to set my printer to portrait mode always and to Scale Crop / Scale Reduce I haven't yet dared try anything larger.
Overall, coming from PSP, I like the ASP facilities although I expected more DAM from the Library Catalog.
I am hoping the promised improvements in Highlight Recovery will improve editing.

[dburton]

Enjoyed your write up and comparison. I've always been a Corel User and it was interesting to read what an Adobe User thought of the Corel products.
I used the Bibble software for several years but drifted away because of some conversion problems with my camera brand. The Longgggg wait for 5
also added to my drifting. ASP's release is good and I'm back using it.
In your comparison you used PSP X4 as your Corel Editor. I know Corel is pushing ASP and PSP as The working combination of products. You as a PS
user will probably find Corel Photo Paint a better match to PS. It is as powerful as PS and if you can translate terminolgy, can do the same edits.
PP is found in Corel Graphics Suite.

thazooo -

Thanks for your response. Your suggestion about PhotoPaint is very interesting, since I have GS X5 and Photopaint absolutely chokes on .CR2 raw files from both my Canon 5D Mark II and my Canon 7D. That has, so far, rendered it useless for my purposes. Note that I really loved Photopaint at one time and found it very powerful, but I don't know what's up with the current version and my cameras. Feels as if Corel has frozen its development along the way. I suppose I could try converting to TIF before linking with Photopaint (that may be redundant since I suspect ASP would create a TIF and the send it over). Oh, what the heck, I'll give it a spin for fun and see how it works. I know it does layers and that 95% of the purpose I would go out of LR (or, you never know someday, maybe ASP). Thanks for the tip. I'll let you know here how it goes.

DJB[/quote

Don't use Photo Paint RAW converter, best that can be said about it is that it works, Maybe. I was talking about After Shot Pro / Photo Paint workflow. Using Tiff and files over 100MB (pano's) I never run into a slow down or choke

thazooo -

Tried the round trip. Didn't work for me, since none of the plug-ins I like to use will work with a 16-bit image, and none of the Topaz modules will even open when the file is downsampled to 8-bit, although they're not greyed out. PP is fine if you like to work in 8-bit TIF and only use certain plug-ins. I'm trapped by my own laziness in this regard but, well, there it is.

DJB

[dburton]

Marbly -

Just found out how to add a post without quoting the whole dialog. Anyway, I was out shooting and then editing all day (I just love deadlines, don't you?) but got through the long printout of your photo club alpha link, having dog-eared many pages. I have just a couple of questions/comments, which I'll post here (and any of the rest of you reading this - check out the thread on that forum - he's got a lot to say).

However, I'll quickly respond to the output sharpening question. You're right - I don't do any critical web output (well, except for my website, but without using any of the sharpening options in LR's Export dialog, I haven't found a problem with the rendered JPGs at the normally 400-600 pixels per side size I display at. For prints, I'll mess around a lot with the "Capture" sharpening but then run the "normal" output sharpening for medium to large prints and there's never enough difference that I feel the need to preview that instruction's effect. It sure does matter to some, though, and you're not the first or only person by a long shot to bring this issue up. Maybe I need to get my eyesight checked. I don't see why Adobe couldn't remedy the problem.

I'll get back into this prior to mid-week before I forget what I was going to say.

DJB

[Tadjio]

Dale, looking over your "Miscellaneous Functional Matrix" in your article, after 'Dual Monitor' which I have discussed separately, you mention as your second issue 'Crop/Straighten', saying "No auto-crop on straighten. Even PSP does this".

I am familiar with the PSP way of working but sometimes I have to cancel and redo the Straighten in PSP when I find I don't want the Auto-Crop. I think the ASP method is better, where you Straighten first and then have the 'Fit' option in Crop, which PSP doesn't have in such a simple way, and then you can fine-tune where you place the crop by moving or re-sizing the rectangle.

[dburton]

Dale, looking over your "Miscellaneous Functional Matrix" in your article, after 'Dual Monitor' which I have discussed separately, you mention as your second issue 'Crop/Straighten', saying "No auto-crop on straighten. Even PSP does this".

I am familiar with the PSP way of working but sometimes I have to cancel and redo the Straighten in PSP when I find I don't want the Auto-Crop. I think the ASP method is better, where you Straighten first and then have the 'Fit' option in Crop, which PSP doesn't have in such a simple way, and then you can fine-tune where you place the crop by moving or re-sizing the rectangle.

Tadjio -

I had not thought of this, but I just tried the straighten tool in PSP X4 and it turns out there's a little "crop image" checkbox in the toolbar above the preview screen, the state of which persists between sessions. So if you want to straighten first and then crop (OK, I guess you have to change tools, but I think you have to do that in ASP too), you can. Does this address your concern or did I miss your point entirely?

DJB

[Tadjio]

Does this address your concern or did I miss your point entirely?
DJB

You've got the point. All I wanted to clarify is that ASP is fine for Straightening/Cropping, just like PSP...

[dburton]

Does this address your concern or did I miss your point entirely?
DJB

You've got the point. All I wanted to clarify is that ASP is fine for Straightening/Cropping, just like PSP...

Well, it's fine if you want to use a two-step process but when I'm doing quick leveling and the center of the image is where I wanted it and the general cropping was satisfactory, I like the image to re-crop at the "leveled" state without my having to go an extra step. Seriously, if I'm missing a way to do this automiatically I need to correct my matrix, so please let me know.

BTW, I tried your tool panel separation/placing on the second monitor, and I think it's a dent temporary workaround. I have to do it in reverse of your arrangement, however, since my larger, widescreen display is on the right, so I place the toolbar on the right edge of my HP19 monitor. Going to single image view in the display removes the thumbnails and with the left panes collapsed, I get almost as much preview space on my larger monitor as Lightroom affords me. Glad I looked at your thread.

However, ASP still has trouble with the size of my database, so it's still an experimental piece and not a day-to-day tool. I'm now relegated to a state analogous to the psychiatrist/light bulb joke - I really want it to change but it's not going to do so withot some help from the programmers.

DJB