Observations on AfterShot Pro

[afx]

... 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.

Did you try the straighten slider instead of the the cursor?

cheers
afx

[dburton]

... 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.

Did you try the straighten slider instead of the the cursor?

cheers
afx

Took me a few minutes to figure out what you were talking about, but I found it in the tool panel. Thanks. That's easy to use particularly if there's a horizontal/vertical image reference near the edge of the picture, and the slider is a bit sensitive for me, but I think this qualifies as a correctable item in my article.

Now, if I could just make the program less crash-prone and easier to print from, life would be better . . .

DJB

[afx]

Now, if I could just make the program less crash-prone

Any patterns to that?

and easier to print from

Don't bother, get QImage if you want it easy.

cheers
afx

[marbly]

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.

How big is your db? I have only created a test catalog with about 25 photos. I have at the moment about 50k out-of-camera raw files and some older jpeg files. I will wait to see if an ASP update fixes lots of bugs before thinking about importing all of them.

[dburton]

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.

How big is your db? I have only created a test catalog with about 25 photos. I have at the moment about 50k out-of-camera raw files and some older jpeg files. I will wait to see if an ASP update fixes lots of bugs before thinking about importing all of them.

I have about 35k personal images - I haven't cataloged my customer files, since I only work with them in Lightroom. Every time I open the personal catalog, the program hesitates before loading the thumbnails, and then every time I scroll down the thumbnail view, appears to either re-build a portion of the database or the thumbnails (I can't tell which, but a small dialog says it's importing chunks of images), but I already performed an import of all the images involved, which took well over an hour and appeared to be finished at the end of the process.

BTW, Henry, you asked before if I were running in 32-bit. Nope, this is a year-old AMD hex core processor running W7 64-bit with 8 GB of RAM. Neither Lightroom which handles the same size database quickly and without crashing, nor Photoshop, nor Zoner (a whole different, but positively emerging, story and which also built a database on all my personal images) have a problem on this hardware.

BTW(2) I looked at your website. You are one prolific and talented travel photographer.

DJB

[dburton]

Now, if I could just make the program less crash-prone

Any patterns to that?

Please see my concurrent response to Marbly - ASP generally crashes often when I'm trying to scroll through my personal catalog (the small test catalog for my article had no problem). Occasionally when making rapid adjustments withe sliders.

and easier to print from

Don't bother, get QImage if you want it easy.

I totally agree. I own and love the old QImage (as stated in the article, LR's module has been functional for me and so I haven;t used QImage in a long time). Do you have the new (not so new now) Ultimate version? If so, how do you like it?

I just realized I have mangled the quoting mechanism, so I've put my answers in red

DJB

[afx]

Every time I open the personal catalog, the program hesitates before loading the thumbnails, and then every time I scroll down the thumbnail view, appears to either re-build a portion of the database or the thumbnails (I can't tell which, but a small dialog says it's importing chunks of images), but I already performed an import of all the images involved, which took well over an hour and appeared to be finished at the end of the process.

If you had 35K image imported within an hour, that was without building previews I assume. So when accessing them it still has to rebuild the previews.
(My 85K take more than a night with previews, and my DB sits on a fast SSD).

Check your Preferences and make sure preview generation is on.
Select your DB, make sure that the recursive view is on (little multifolder icon over the catalog list)
It should start to generate previews.
Let it do that on its own until it is finished.
Life will be much smoother afterwards.

I own and love the old QImage (as stated in the article, LR's module has been functional for me and so I haven;t used QImage in a long time). Do you have the new (not so new now) Ultimate version? If so, how do you like it?

Still using the old studio.
At first glance upgrading to Ultimate would give me only one useful feature ICCv4 support, but as my own profiles are all created with Argyll and I have been able to get v2 profiles from the vendors this is not a strong motivation. The UI still seems to have the same quirks in Ultimate, so there is no incentive to switch.

cheers
afx

[marbly]

BTW, Henry, you asked before if I were running in 32-bit. Nope, this is a year-old AMD hex core processor running W7 64-bit with 8 GB of RAM. Neither Lightroom which handles the same size database quickly and without crashing, nor Photoshop, nor Zoner (a whole different, but positively emerging, story and which also built a database on all my personal images) have a problem on this hardware.

I notice that LR 4 is officially out now and they reduced the price from $300 to $150. I suspect partly that is because they have more competition now and also because they may feel a bit chastened by customer dissatisfaction after their recent efforts to significantly raise the cost of using PS. I'll probably download the trial, but get a load of these download sizes:

ASP 1: 33mb
LR 3: 234mb
LR 4: 719mb

I hope the new ASP will be available soon (without rushing it out with lots of unfixed bugs) so that I can continue evaluating it along with the new LR 4.

BTW(2) I looked at your website. You are one prolific and talented travel photographer.

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I do like to travel and photograph.

[dburton]

Every time I open the personal catalog, the program hesitates before loading the thumbnails, and then every time I scroll down the thumbnail view, appears to either re-build a portion of the database or the thumbnails (I can't tell which, but a small dialog says it's importing chunks of images), but I already performed an import of all the images involved, which took well over an hour and appeared to be finished at the end of the process.

If you had 35K image imported within an hour, that was without building previews I assume. So when accessing them it still has to rebuild the previews.
(My 85K take more than a night with previews, and my DB sits on a fast SSD).

Check your Preferences and make sure preview generation is on.
Select your DB, make sure that the recursive view is on (little multifolder icon over the catalog list)
It should start to generate previews.
Let it do that on its own until it is finished.
Life will be much smoother afterwards.


cheers
afx

Thanks, afx. I already have the recursive setting on, and had the build previews box checked. Nonetheless I will run the "re-build previews" command and see if that helps. My best friend the Nikon Shooter has an SSD. If you blink you miss the acces time.

[dburton]

I notice that LR 4 is officially out now and they reduced the price from $300 to $150. I suspect partly that is because they have more competition now and also because they may feel a bit chastened by customer dissatisfaction after their recent efforts to significantly raise the cost of using PS. I'll probably download the trial, but get a load of these download sizes:

ASP 1: 33mb
LR 3: 234mb
LR 4: 719mb

I hope the new ASP will be available soon (without rushing it out with lots of unfixed bugs) so that I can continue evaluating it along with the new LR 4.

The LR4 file (I downloaded it today) contains both the windows and the Mac versions (I think your LR3 size was for Win only), and the file is further bloated by more camera and lens profiles and video support, but you are correct - it's fat compared to ASP.

DJB

[seanmpuckett]

QImage now has an Ultimate version that might actually print colour correctly? I never once got accurate colour with Studio no matter what profile I used. I probably wasted over a thousand dollars in media and ink on that p.o.s. In addition to the distorted prints that didn't come out at the right dimension; that right there blew a $300 roll of canvas. Won't even talk about the UI.

Oddly enough, I'd suggest using Lightroom to print. Decent layout capabilities, and the colour is as accurate as your profiles. The resampling algorithm isn't super fancy duper like QImage but honestly... pixel peepers need to give it a rest.

Okay, this was off-topic but very near to my heart.

[marbly]

The LR4 file (I downloaded it today) contains both the windows and the Mac versions (I think your LR3 size was for Win only), and the file is further bloated by more camera and lens profiles and video support, but you are correct - it's fat compared to ASP.
DJB

Hmm, that is surprising. The download page has separate downloads for Windows and Mac:

Windows: 719mb
Mac: 384mb

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/inde ... _lightroom

I am not sure why Adobe would combine the Windows and Mac versions if you select Windows, but not include both if you select Mac. Someone elsewhere suggested that the Windows version gets a 64-bit and a 32-bit version and that probably makes sense. Can you verify that when you downloaded the Windows version you also got a Mac version? If so, this sounds like Adobe needs to fix their download page. My internet connection is not so fast so I am a bit reluctant to even download the 719mb trial.

Anyway, this is an ASP forum so I don't want to spend too much time discussing LR here. LR is the Big Daddy competition to ASP though so it can't be ignored, especially now that the newest version of LR has just been released with a much lower price. I see quite a few reports on the Adobe forum about serious speed issues with it though.

[dburton]

The LR4 file (I downloaded it today) contains both the windows and the Mac versions (I think your LR3 size was for Win only), and the file is further bloated by more camera and lens profiles and video support, but you are correct - it's fat compared to ASP.
DJB

Hmm, that is surprising. The download page has separate downloads for Windows and Mac:

Windows: 719mb
Mac: 384mb

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/inde ... _lightroom

I am not sure why Adobe would combine the Windows and Mac versions if you select Windows, but not include both if you select Mac. Someone elsewhere suggested that the Windows version gets a 64-bit and a 32-bit version and that probably makes sense. Can you verify that when you downloaded the Windows version you also got a Mac version? If so, this sounds like Adobe needs to fix their download page. My internet connection is not so fast so I am a bit reluctant to even download the 719mb trial.

Anyway, this is an ASP forum so I don't want to spend too much time discussing LR here. LR is the Big Daddy competition to ASP though so it can't be ignored, especially now that the newest version of LR has just been released. I see quite a few reports on the Adobe forum about serious speed issues with it though.

Bog "Doh!" from me. I meant to say 32 and 64 bit versions (it's been another long day). Mac is smaller because it only comes in 64-bit flavor. I need a good night's sleep before I respond to any more posts

Don't know about speed yet.

DJB

[marbly]

Bog "Doh!" from me. I meant to say 32 and 64 bit versions (it's been another long day). Mac is smaller because it only comes in 64-bit flavor. I need a good night's sleep before I respond to any more posts

No problem.

The ASP download is 33mb and it is for Windows 64-bit and 32-bit so I can't help but wonder why LR 4 needs a 719mb download to do the same. Something seems strange here.

[ormdig]

I notice that LR 4 is officially out now and they reduced the price from $300 to $150. I suspect partly that is because they have more competition now and also because they may feel a bit chastened by customer dissatisfaction after their recent efforts to significantly raise the cost of using PS. I'll probably download the trial, but get a load of these download sizes:
1001 Noisy Cameras has this quote "Speculation on lower LR4 starting price
You may have noticed that the last few months there have been a number of discounts on LR3. Perhaps Adobe was testing different price points to see where more new buyers where at. However, the starting price of LR3 was $300, while the starting price of LR4 is $150. Is there someone to perhaps thank for the discount.The answer (perhaps) is the Bibble team. Corel quietly purchased Bibble last year, and earlier this year they revealed a Bibble-developed competitor, After Shot Pro with a starting price of $100, a current price of $90, and a record-low of $50 during the leap day. Perhaps the $150 LR4 starting price is partially Adobe's attempt to maintain market share against a new lower priced alternative.