Comments on: Corel AfterShot Pro vs Adobe Lightroom 4: noise reduction

By: David

David — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 14:09:31 +0000

Hello Alec, I do have a quick question for you…. It would be nice to move out of Lightroom to another program(for many reasons), but what happens to the thousands of photos that have been edited in Lightroom…. can they be imported in their edited form or will I have two sets of photos and have to keep Lightroom to access and view the photos edited in Lightroom? Do you have a system to reconcile the fact that half your photos are edited in one program and others in another?….. Starting with a new program sounds like it will bring a certain amount of disorganization or scattered organization… Do you have a system or method to make it more organized or is that the price that has to be paid to change programs?

By: Peggy

Peggy — Tue, 31 May 2016 22:23:58 +0000

I would be interested to know if you have reviewed PhotoDirector 7 and your thoughts?

By: AnonGuy

AnonGuy — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 23:11:37 +0000

Corel doesn't have anything comparable to Photoshop, so no, they don't charge you $400 with $150 upgrade to PaintShop Pro, which is much slower, terrible for RAW Processing, and lacks a ton of features a lot of pros use.

Secondly, if you look at some of Corel's Pro applications (their CAD and CorelDraw packages), they are just as expensive as Photo applications like Adobe InDesign were...

AfterShot Pro costs the same as Aperture, and Lightroom isn't exactly breaking the bank, either, and is still available as a perpetual license so if you're looking for something like that there's no reason to bitch and moan about subscriptions. They simply don't force that on you for RAW Processing. You only need the subscription if you're using PS CC.

WordPerfect costs practically the same as similar Microsoft Office SKUs.

Corel Draw costs the same as InDesign did.

Their CAD Package costs on par with many other mid-tier CAD packages.

The only cheaper applications they have are those that are clearly not marketed towards professionals, but more consumer/prosumer.

By: alec

alec — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:48:28 +0000

Hi John,

Thanks for the hands-on feedback. Any chance you could share with us some before and after sample images on flickr or somewhere?

Thanks again for sharing your experience with Adobe alternatives (with Creative Cloud mandatory, I'm looking even harder for the exit).

By: John

John — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:58:25 +0000

I just installed the trial of ASP, and I already have a license for Noise Ninja. The default noise reduction in ASP is pretty poor, but with the full version of NN it works pretty well. I tried ASP vs CS6 (ACR 7.4) vs RawTherapee 4. ASP holds its own against Adobe, once you have Noise Ninja installed. I experimented on a file from my 5D mark III, at ISO 6400 for reference. Each of those three apps clean up the chroma quite well. RT4 is the slowest and hardest to get set just right (I probably have to figure out a profile for a better starting point), but has tons of options and one feature I wish the others had... a thumbnail with outline showing you just what you see in the edit window, which is good when you look at 100%.

By: Alec

Alec — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 21:34:14 +0000

Good point, Aiz. However Adobe is well beyond the point of no return. Corel is at least making an effort without nearly such intrusive licensing.

By: alec

alec — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:21:15 +0000

Hi Aiz,

Corel does not:

track my computer
build trojans into their software (latent for the moment but there)
charge me $400 with $150/upgrade
not allow me to work with their software on Linux

So far Corel is looking a lot better to me here.

Capitalist does not make all companies equal. Some companies have a more positive profile working for their clients and their staff and not their shareholders and the market.

I highly recommend Yvon Chouinard's book on the evolution of Patagonia outdoor wear "Let My People Go Surfing".

By: aiz

aiz — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 01:25:24 +0000

what makes you think adobe is an evil company but corel is helping the human race? they are both companies. and usually corel has lousy shitty programs compared to adobe. they even had that crappy linux distro that... doesn't exists anymore.

By: alec

alec — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 01:01:54 +0000

Hi Emile,

Thanks for those tips, they are really helpful. I am using the paid version of Noise Ninja now and leaving RAW at default.

While I'm not entirely happy with the quality on a pixel basis, I've had great results with ASP in terms of overall impression. Lots of people have loved the images I've created.

Here's one using AfterShot Pro's kodachrome processing:

Just click the image to see the full 100% version.

By: Emile

Emile — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:24:39 +0000

Also, chroma noise reduction with Wavelet Denoise desaturates a little the image when used with strong settings (30-40), so I usually turn up vibration and/or saturation when I use it.