Performance

The Lens Correction works easily and has a good preview system to see how close you are to getting the correct results. However, we did see that on our test image, we got some stretched pixels that were useless and had to crop the bottom of the image off to hide it.

Corel say that AfterShot Pro 3 is 4x faster than Adobe Lightroom CC 2015 at converting raw files. We put it to the test by converting 10Gb if raw images through each program. The computer that we used is a custom built machine with an AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C + 8G 3.70GHz with 8Gb RAM.

Getting the images to convert is really easy in Corel AfterShot Pro 3. You simply select the folder you want to convert from raw to JPEG (or from camera raw to TIFF files), choose the folder you'd like to send the converted files to and it starts itself. To convert 200 various raw files to full size JPEG (a total of 10Gb of information) took AfterShot Pro 3 7 (seven) minutes and 5 (five) seconds. Lightroom takes longer to import images, catalogue and select them, which isn't necessary in AfterShot Pro 3, but it still only took 15 seconds longer in the Adobe program.

Conclusion

The design of Corel AfterShot Pro 3 – as with previous versions – is that of a good amount of features on an easy to use UI. Corel have accomplished it if you're the type of person that likes to have as many options available to you on the workspace. Rivals such as Lightroom prefer a minimalist approach to their window and will scurry bits away in drop down tabs. Corel have opted for a busier space with tabs and options down each side of the panes.

With the features and performance running roughly similar, it has to boil down to convenience and price. Importing images, selecting and exporting is actually easier in AfterShot Pro 3. As we said earlier you don't have to import an entire folder and catalogue them before selecting which you want to export. You simply locate the folder you desire, select the pictures you want to import, edit them and export them.

In terms of price, Corel always have an aggressive pricing policy that makes you wonder how they make any money. If they do, why are Adobe charging so much? AfterShot Pro 3 costs $79.99 while Lightroom CC costs $119.8 per year. The installed footprint is smaller and also works with Linux.

Chances are that Corel still has a fight on their hands to bring Adobe enthusiasts over from the integration of Lightroom, Bridge and Photoshop. Where Corel continue to fall is in the slow processing power of PaintShop Pro which, while faster with each subsequent release, is still a long way off matching Photoshop. If Corel get that right, then more photographers will have justification for investing in a whole suite. Until then, they'll continue to play second fiddle to Adobe, which is a shame because these programs that they make are actually really good.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	5
Value for money	4

Your Comments