PainShop Pro vs AfterShop Pro for RAW editing?

[Randyflycaster]

I'm new to all this. Recently, I purchased PSP X4, which I'm learning now.

On a photography board, someone commented that if I want to do any editing on RAW photos, I'll
need AfterShot Pro.

Is this true?

What are the basic difference between the programs? Am I better off just putting PSP aside and
jumping to ASP?

Thanks so much,
Randy

[LeviFiction]

PSP's RAW processing is under developed. You can do RAW processing inside of PSP but don't expect great results. Of course sometimes it does well enough though not as often as is necessary for good RAW processing.

AfterShotPro is the popular Bibble program. A program built more for RAW processing specifically. It does its processing non-destructively so you can always go back and change something. It's functions, and the plugins designed to help you process it, are very very good.

Now, if the only thing you're interested in is processing RAW then yes ASP is what you want, not PSP.

But if you want to do some serious post-processing and really work on the image after you've made it look good with the RAW functions of ASP then PSP beats ASP hands down. It all depends on what you're looking to do. Many use both ASP and PSP together because of these individual strengths.

Similar to, though not exactly like, how people use Lightroom and Photoshop together. Lightroom is made more for photo management and RAW processing, and Photoshop is made form image editing and creation. Of course Lightroom and Photoshop share RAW processing functions, where as PSP and ASP do not but you get the point.

[Randyflycaster]

Thanks for the info. Very helpful.
Randy

[Tadjio]

But if you want to do some serious post-processing and really work on the image after you've made it look good with the RAW functions of ASP then PSP beats ASP hands down. It all depends on what you're looking to do. Many use both ASP and PSP together because of these individual strengths.

LeviFiction has summed the overall situation up well.
I have never liked the PSP Raw Conversion. I always used to use my camera maker's software (Canon DPP) and then pass a TIFF file to PSP for further editing.
I now use ASP for Raw Conversion and most of my 'ordinary' editing but when I need PSP to 'really work on the image' I use the ASP call to PSP as an External Editor and it passes a TIFF file across automatically. In practice I use PSP less and less for photo editing as ASP does such a good job.