Canon / PSP user evaluating ASP vs LR - seeking input

[Amamba]

Hi,

I am a long time DPP user, shooting Canon T3i at the moment. I've used to only doing basic editing in RAW & then following up in a JPEG editor, so earlier this year I purchased PSP. While PSP is a fine local editor, I feel that I can save much more processing time getting a better RAW editor. DPP is great as far as output quality, but it's really not set up for fast processing of many photos.

So, I downloaded the trial of LR4, and the trial of ASP. I also noticed that Adobe seem to have slashed the cost of LR license in half - it used to be around $300 for a standard lic, now it's $150. Still more than twice the cost of PSP.

LR has more tools, as I expected, and what seems as a nicer denoising. The biggest problem, however, is the way ASP interpret Canon files. The skin tones especially are much worse off in ASP. The reds are oversaturated, and the exposure appears flat. By contrast, LR shows CR2 files much closer to the way DPP does. Correcting a portrait that's a bit off is too much struggle in ASP, the JPEG straight out of camera actually looks much better than the RAW file.

So, here's the question... are there any downloadable profiles that I can use to make ASP play nicely with Canon CR2 files ? I want to settle on a RAW processing soft within a couple of weeks and I'd prefer to get ASP due to cost and ability to work in Linux, but I need to know that it won't turn into a major struggle.

[ogrizzo]

You can try to browse this thread. Once you have a preset that satisfies you, you can set ASP to apply it by default to each RAW file from your 600D.

[Tadjio]

Hi,
I am a long time DPP user, shooting Canon T3i at the moment. I've used to only doing basic editing in RAW & then following up in a JPEG editor, so earlier this year I purchased PSP. While PSP is a fine local editor, I feel that I can save much more processing time getting a better RAW editor. DPP is great as far as output quality, but it's really not set up for fast processing of many photos.
[snip]
The biggest problem, however, is the way ASP interpret Canon files. The skin tones especially are much worse off in ASP. The reds are oversaturated, and the exposure appears flat. By contrast, LR shows CR2 files much closer to the way DPP does. Correcting a portrait that's a bit off is too much struggle in ASP, the JPEG straight out of camera actually looks much better than the RAW file.

After using the DPP + PSP approach for many years, I have now switchd to using ASP for my Raw conversion and most editing, with only the occasional call to PSP as an external editor. I am pleased with this combination.

I have a Canon EOS 550D (T2i) similar to yours and shoot RAW+JPEG. The major factor I see is that whereas DPP recognises Canon's Picture Styles, ASP does not. If you are using the 'Standard' Picture Style (or Landscape or Portrait) you might see a significant difference with the ASP Raw conversion, which would not happen with the JPEG.

If you look at the RAW and JPEG images side by side, the RAW ones are slightly underexposed and a little less vibrant in ASP.
The Histograms look very similar but are shifted to the left (Shadows). In the early days Corel recognised a fault here and improved it, but perhaps not quite enough.