Saturday, February 4, 2012

Comparison - Raw Processors Pt 3

So far we have seen Adobe Lightroom 4, and Capture One Express 6. Both look very similar but there are some differences the separate them but one that puts them in the same category and that is price.  Well now we have the third contender, After Corel's Purchase of the Bibble 5 property, renaming it it now appears on the market as Aftershot Pro.  This is the lowest priced of the group.  So let's see if you get what you pay for or does it compare to the market share holder from Adobe.  I am going to say this many from the industry say Bibble 5 was the best raw processor around.


3-1
Well AfterShot Pro looks very similar to Lightroom and Capture One, although some differences in the design show up right away.  First the controls are on the right hand side, which feels more natural, secondly all of the features are available through tabs down the right side.  the left side has your catogues and different versions of the catalogue.  You will also notice that you can flag and rate your picture right on the main screen at the top.
3-2

In the tab to the left (3-2) you will see all the familiar tools that you need to get you to processing the image.  In a lot of cases you may not even have to leave the program to finsih your image.  You can flag in this section as well.  This is the color tab, but you can adjust curves, something those with PSE have been missing. do your color Correction, color balance and white balance.

You can also set yoour ICC profile for printing as well especially if your using a professional lab fro processing.

The one thing you will notice that each tab gives you the opporunity to turn features on and off on the spot.

At the bottom of the viewing screen (3-1), there you can toggle from full screen to normal view, there is also a slider to increase  the viewable picture size.


3-3






This is the Standard tab that opens as soon as you load pictures, you will notice that the Histogram is here as well and all of your basic adjustments, including sharpening.

One thing, you will notice  is the presets that come with the program are also right here as well you can download some from Corel free of charge with registration of the program.



 




3-4


The Detail tab (3-4) it has sharpening, and 2 different noise sections, raw noise adjustment, But there is also an added bonus here NOISE NINJA standard comes included with AfterShot as well as no need to download specific camera profiles for Noise Ninja, After Shot already has custom camera profiles built in.

Going down a little and you will notice that there is a section for lens correction when you open this section you can set your camera and specific lens.

You can ask the program to read the EXIF information to pull the information.

Chromatic Abheration is adjusted in to separate secitons and vignette adjustments can also be found here.

There is also mirror and invert in the last section.

Not a bad array of tools all on one tab.

The one thing to remember is that each tool has to be enabled to use it.



3-5



The Metadata Tab is exactly that and more. You can set your metadata, and also all of your key words can be set. Now as you go along the Keyword sets can be built as well to save time. All the Keyword sets are able to be modified and added to.


Again intuitive for use and all of the tabs are lined up for workflow to make work simple and straight forward.


The learning curve to start using this program is very small although the features are extensive and learning will continue, in order to learn all of the features.

3-6


3-6 is the output tab

This can be found on the left hand side the last tab under the library.

AfterShot Supports Batch output to various file types in 16bit and 8 bit formats as well as gallery setup and also printing formats for professional packakages as well .

Aftershot is like the others an asset management tool but is also a workflow tool and batch editor.

One other thing is Linux owners will be glad to hear this Corel kept support for linux and in this area Aftershot is the only raw processor of the 3 supporting linux in both 32 and 64 bit.



So after all is said and done and you figure all of what you have seen there are reasons to purchase any one of them.  In our last and final part of the comparison we will put them all together and the features and we will declare the winner (s).  When you are looking into a new software purchase you should always have a look and see what is out there, as you can see in this area there are very good products out there in all price ranges.

"I also paint, draw and I'm into film and photography as well, and the same thing applies to all of them. You're presenting this material to the general public and hoping that they're going to 'get' what you're doing. Some don't, some do. "
Paul Kane

PT1            PT2         PT3
Until Next time........