Does anyone here use it? Cull? Edits? Both? Neither? Interested in opinions of those who have utilised it within their workflows, either as a failed trial or a permanent addition. Thanks!
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Thoughts on Aftershoot?
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Looks to be subscription based. I know that's all the current (en)rage, but I really try to avoid subscription services. Especially as I have no desire to use my photography to earn extra income.
Yeah it is. And it’s only really useful for high volume stuff like weddings etc I think - which is fine as it’s the type of thing I do. I wouldn’t expect anyone not making money or not being inundated with post production to do to find it particularly worthwhile.
Not something I have seen before to be honest as my culling is at its best done as follows:
Select All -> Delete. 🤣
Select All -> Delete. 🤣
I have been very pleased with Narrative Select, which is similar to Photo Mechanic in some ways but I prefer the way it functions for me. I find it handy when, say, I've shot a few hundred images of Alfred or another bird where there are a lot of photos which on the surface are going to look pretty much the same: the bird standing there, posing, not doing anything. The zoom-in feature is useful for noticing small details and slight, subtle changes in the tilt of the head, a blink of the eyes, the partial opening of the beak..... The zoom also verifies how well I've nailed focus, too, although these days with the animal/bird eye focus feature, that isn't much of an issue. Useful for checking feather detail, too.
With Narrative Select I can zip through multiple images fairly quickly, setting aside ones which look good for editing, and then after I'm done I discard the majority and save just the few that seem worth processing.
With Narrative Select I can zip through multiple images fairly quickly, setting aside ones which look good for editing, and then after I'm done I discard the majority and save just the few that seem worth processing.
I had never heard of this prior to you mentioning this. Is it AI bases like aftershoot? Doesn’t seem to have the editing option though - this editing option in Aftershoot has surprised me with how good it is at replicating my own style.
Just make sure there isn’t any small print about them implicitly getting rights to use your images to “teach the algorithm”
They do use my images for exactly that, the AI learns directly from my specified LR catalogue how to edit in the manner I do normally. It has to or it couldn’t do what they are advertising it does. It does appear to have a good privacy policy though.
Although it may have some AI components, it is not like Aftershoot in that it culls for you; the user still manually reviews his or her own images, and right, there is no editing piece, it is strictly for culling and reviewing, etc. It will offer suggestions when an image is not suitable (say, a portrait and the user has his or her eyes closed) or when a particular image is more outstanding than the similar ones shot at the same time in burst mode. I use Narrative Select first when I have a lot of images to look at and cull, and as I'm going along, I copy the chosen images to a new folder, which then at the end is ready to take into my editing program, DXO PhotoLab 6.
Sounds similar, culling wise. I let the ai do it and then check the results. Really all it’s doing is filtering out blurry and eyes closed pics and grouping similar shots together. Then the ai picks 30% of each group. It’s normally ok but I wouldn’t ever rely on it without checking. It’s a massive time saver though. I shoot thousands and thousands a week as a freelance photographer. It’s especially useful for weddings.
However, it’s the editing aspect I’m most fascinated by. I thought it would be like pressing auto on Lightroom, but it’s not at all. It truly seems to edit like I would, leaving me not to worry about white balance and basic exposure settings. Meaning I have more time to beautify the images with masks and removal tools etc. All in all I think I’m taking 50% less time on the majority of shoots, and sometimes under excellent shooting conditions I estimate 80% quicker.
Still early days in the testing - had it about 2 weeks, but it’s a mighty good start.
Actually.....I think I might be interested in the culling part of the program, but not necessarily the editing part. Are they offered separately or only together? It sounded as though they were offering the culling part of it for a particular price starting out, etc., and that there would be another fee charged for the editing component later?
At the moment the editing is in beta and free within the culling sub. When it’s released it will be separated as I understand it.
OK, OK, so I succumbed to temptation.....the 30-day free trial was just too hard to resist and I really was curious about this program! I had several recent large folders of unreviewed/unculled images and today decided that this was worth a try, anyway, just to see what would happen. So now I've got magic unicorns stepping in and applying their culling skills on some of my images?!! 
HOLY COW!!! Three large folders which I had been putting off sorting through are now neatly winnowed down into much more manageable size for my further review and then editing -- all within a very short period of time. Probably a whole lot more accurate in many cases than what I would do in my own culling when doing things manually. That's astonishing!
I like that this program is nondestructive so that if I have the urge to look through one of the folders again because I remember a certain image or two which didn't show up in the culling results I can still do that, and also that now that I'm a little more familiar with how it all works I can tinker with the settings and selections that I make in order to more carefully refine my parameters in the first place and then simply run the whole thing through again. I definitely will be doing that with the first folder I ran through the system, as of course then I was seeing it all for the first time and didn't quite get the fine-tuning bit of the selections, etc.
I can absolutely see the usefulness for me of this software, especially when I am out there shooting wildlife and have too heavy a finger on the shutter release while in burst mode..... This looks to be a major time saver when culling, which has always been an issue for me.
In the future I hope that the Aftershoot folks provide additional categories such as wildlife and or birds, as I think a lot of nature photographers would really appreciate being able to more quickly cull through their large folders of RAW images of those. Right now that is handled in the "Other" category, which is fine but I'll bet we'll be seeing a Wildlife or Birds category soon.
Didn't get into the whole editing piece of this at all today; at this point I need and want to get a good grasp on the culling component, which is my main reason for trying this program in the first place, before checking out the editing part of it.
HOLY COW!!! Three large folders which I had been putting off sorting through are now neatly winnowed down into much more manageable size for my further review and then editing -- all within a very short period of time. Probably a whole lot more accurate in many cases than what I would do in my own culling when doing things manually. That's astonishing!
I like that this program is nondestructive so that if I have the urge to look through one of the folders again because I remember a certain image or two which didn't show up in the culling results I can still do that, and also that now that I'm a little more familiar with how it all works I can tinker with the settings and selections that I make in order to more carefully refine my parameters in the first place and then simply run the whole thing through again. I definitely will be doing that with the first folder I ran through the system, as of course then I was seeing it all for the first time and didn't quite get the fine-tuning bit of the selections, etc.
I can absolutely see the usefulness for me of this software, especially when I am out there shooting wildlife and have too heavy a finger on the shutter release while in burst mode..... This looks to be a major time saver when culling, which has always been an issue for me.
In the future I hope that the Aftershoot folks provide additional categories such as wildlife and or birds, as I think a lot of nature photographers would really appreciate being able to more quickly cull through their large folders of RAW images of those. Right now that is handled in the "Other" category, which is fine but I'll bet we'll be seeing a Wildlife or Birds category soon.
Didn't get into the whole editing piece of this at all today; at this point I need and want to get a good grasp on the culling component, which is my main reason for trying this program in the first place, before checking out the editing part of it.
Today I conducted a test. First I ran a folder of around 850 images through Narrative Select, made my choices and then put the memory card back into the camera and shot off a bunch more images that I could already guess weren't going to be anything I'd want to edit, meaning that I would have wasted time even in looking through them. I was curious to see how AfterShoot would handle the file, which had now grown to 1154 images.
I tinkered with the various filter settings, then let 'er rip while I went off and did a few domestic chores. After about ten minutes I checked to see what AS was doing and voila, everything was done! (Actually the program took just 7 minutes and 19 seconds.) It provided me with 274 items that it had culled. WOW! It took me significantly longer just to go through the 800 images in Narrative Select earlier. This is definitely a major time-saver. Surprisingly accurate, too.
The acid test: I put the newly-culled results folder into Narrative Select and looked through to see whether or not AS had indeed chosen the images I had previously selected. A Gold Star for AS!! Came through with flying colors, made all the choices I did, plus a few more. It dutifully winnowed down the group of not-so-great images I'd tacked on at the end, and I quickly looked though those and as I'd already decided, none were going to be processed. AS saved me a heckuva lot of time all the way around! I am pleased.
I tinkered with the various filter settings, then let 'er rip while I went off and did a few domestic chores. After about ten minutes I checked to see what AS was doing and voila, everything was done! (Actually the program took just 7 minutes and 19 seconds.) It provided me with 274 items that it had culled. WOW! It took me significantly longer just to go through the 800 images in Narrative Select earlier. This is definitely a major time-saver. Surprisingly accurate, too.
The acid test: I put the newly-culled results folder into Narrative Select and looked through to see whether or not AS had indeed chosen the images I had previously selected. A Gold Star for AS!! Came through with flying colors, made all the choices I did, plus a few more. It dutifully winnowed down the group of not-so-great images I'd tacked on at the end, and I quickly looked though those and as I'd already decided, none were going to be processed. AS saved me a heckuva lot of time all the way around! I am pleased.
Yep it’s surprisingly accurate. I have to say though after running my last few shoots through it (a ballet dancer, a quinceañera shoot, and surprise proposal), I have been a little less impressed. I noticed a few things I knew I had shot that had been badly selected and I had to recull all shoots with my traditional method (manual with fast raw viewer). Still happy but I still need to keep a manual eye on it, which aside from the eyes closed and blurry filters (always useful) - so I’m not sure that it’s a time saver if I need to basically recull anyway. Still massively impressed with the edits though.
That was why I decided to run the images through Narrative Select first, do a manual culling, and then see what happened when I added a few hundred more images to the card and then had AS do the whole lot. I would have been very disappointed if it had not selected the same ones I earlier had. Very pleased so far, but I still have many more folders of images upon which to let it work its magic and see if those unicorns really do dance accurately over them all!
I don't do portraits, weddings, and such, but I imagine that AS is pretty fine-tuned for working with those kinds of images, certainly more than wildlife. I have a couple of older folders with images of geese, and it'll be interesting to run those through to see if AS recognizes when they shut their eyes! In the past I've always had to cull carefully and be on the lookout for that, as that blank white round area just isn't attractive at all as opposed to the open, dark eye with a nice catchlight.
This program will be most useful to me when I'm shooting wildlife in burst mode and suddenly have over 1000 or more images to review, many of which are inevitably going to be nearly the same if it is a bird standing around in the water or on a surface. Birds are unpredictable, and one may be standing around or casually floating around in the water and then all of a sudden decide to take off. Inevitably there's going to be blur (wings, especially) and an image may not be the sharpest in the drawer but it's often usable anyway because of its nature, especially if it involves unusual activity on the part of one or more birds. That is what presents the challenge when manually culling and making human decisions and choices -- and certainly it will also to an automatic program like AS.
I can see the importance of careful consideration of the filtering options and it is good that AS provides the opportunity to run the culling process through again after modifying one's filter choices. This is definitely fun to figure out and to use, and even if I have to run a folder of AS selections through Narrative Select later manually it still will be a time-saver having cleared out most of the duplicates or near-duplicates and the totally blurry, out-of-focus images, etc. that can happen when a bird makes moves for which the photographer wasn't exactly prepared.
Not sure if I'll get around to tackling the editing functions of this program, as at this point I'm still wrapped up in the culling piece of it. Already envisioning a huge backlog of files and folders magically being culled by this program, and that not only is a time-saver, it also will free up space on a couple of external drives as well. Pretty cool!
I don't do portraits, weddings, and such, but I imagine that AS is pretty fine-tuned for working with those kinds of images, certainly more than wildlife. I have a couple of older folders with images of geese, and it'll be interesting to run those through to see if AS recognizes when they shut their eyes! In the past I've always had to cull carefully and be on the lookout for that, as that blank white round area just isn't attractive at all as opposed to the open, dark eye with a nice catchlight.
This program will be most useful to me when I'm shooting wildlife in burst mode and suddenly have over 1000 or more images to review, many of which are inevitably going to be nearly the same if it is a bird standing around in the water or on a surface. Birds are unpredictable, and one may be standing around or casually floating around in the water and then all of a sudden decide to take off. Inevitably there's going to be blur (wings, especially) and an image may not be the sharpest in the drawer but it's often usable anyway because of its nature, especially if it involves unusual activity on the part of one or more birds. That is what presents the challenge when manually culling and making human decisions and choices -- and certainly it will also to an automatic program like AS.
I can see the importance of careful consideration of the filtering options and it is good that AS provides the opportunity to run the culling process through again after modifying one's filter choices. This is definitely fun to figure out and to use, and even if I have to run a folder of AS selections through Narrative Select later manually it still will be a time-saver having cleared out most of the duplicates or near-duplicates and the totally blurry, out-of-focus images, etc. that can happen when a bird makes moves for which the photographer wasn't exactly prepared.
Not sure if I'll get around to tackling the editing functions of this program, as at this point I'm still wrapped up in the culling piece of it. Already envisioning a huge backlog of files and folders magically being culled by this program, and that not only is a time-saver, it also will free up space on a couple of external drives as well. Pretty cool!
Yes it’s super useful that’s for sure. Really does do a good job most of the time. I have actually thought of a couple of workflow experiments to try out with it to see if I can fine tune it.That was why I decided to run the images through Narrative Select first, do a manual culling, and then see what happened when I added a few hundred more images to the card and then had AS do the whole lot. I would have been very disappointed if it had not selected the same ones I earlier had. Very pleased so far, but I still have many more folders of images upon which to let it work its magic and see if those unicorns really do dance accurately over them all!
I don't do portraits, weddings, and such, but I imagine that AS is pretty fine-tuned for working with those kinds of images, certainly more than wildlife. I have a couple of older folders with images of geese, and it'll be interesting to run those through to see if AS recognizes when they shut their eyes! In the past I've always had to cull carefully and be on the lookout for that, as that blank white round area just isn't attractive at all as opposed to the open, dark eye with a nice catchlight.
This program will be most useful to me when I'm shooting wildlife in burst mode and suddenly have over 1000 or more images to review, many of which are inevitably going to be nearly the same if it is a bird standing around in the water or on a surface. Birds are unpredictable, and one may be standing around or casually floating around in the water and then all of a sudden decide to take off. Inevitably there's going to be blur (wings, especially) and an image may not be the sharpest in the drawer but it's often usable anyway because of its nature, especially if it involves unusual activity on the part of one or more birds. That is what presents the challenge when manually culling and making human decisions and choices -- and certainly it will also to an automatic program like AS.
I can see the importance of careful consideration of the filtering options and it is good that AS provides the opportunity to run the culling process through again after modifying one's filter choices. This is definitely fun to figure out and to use, and even if I have to run a folder of AS selections through Narrative Select later manually it still will be a time-saver having cleared out most of the duplicates or near-duplicates and the totally blurry, out-of-focus images, etc. that can happen when a bird makes moves for which the photographer wasn't exactly prepared.
Not sure if I'll get around to tackling the editing functions of this program, as at this point I'm still wrapped up in the culling piece of it. Already envisioning a huge backlog of files and folders magically being culled by this program, and that not only is a time-saver, it also will free up space on a couple of external drives as well. Pretty cool!
Dumping a wedding in and relying on it isn’t going to work for me I don’t think.
On my next massive shoot I’m going to do a normal cull the way I normally do in fastrawviewer, then I’ll pre edit them with AS, then I’ll cull through AS with the AI. Then I’ll have a clearer picture of what it is and isn’t catching.
My big problem is I can’t quite work out how to set groupings up properly, and that’s arguably its most useful feature.
Let me know what you think of the edits bit when you try it out!
I gave narrative select a go and I like it, the interface is clean and I like the little coloured flags for focus and eyes etc, but it was selecting architectural elements as faces; statues, building domes and other random stuff, and then marking otherwise excellent photos as trash due to them being out of focus. I’m based in Paris and I shoot a lot of stuff around the city. For portraits it was all over the place due to the architecture of the place. Shame because it looks great.
Yes, for critical situations such as weddings or formal portraiture for a special occasion it is important to be sure one has the absolutely best images possible in the various situations -- and that's hard, with people and facial expressions and all that! With birds and animals the main concern is getting at least one eye in focus, preferably with a catchlight, and that the eyes are open. I use the zoom feature on Narrative Select a lot to double-check, especially if it is a small bird with small or dark eyes. I don't pay much attention to the ratings system they use, as usually it's obvious to me when looking at an image myself that it is OOF or not a good shot in some other way. Sometimes they'll indicate that an image isn't satisfactory but I had shot it that way on purpose for artistic reasons (especially if using shallow DOF). Usually they and I agree on the good images!
That would be a huge problem having a program getting confused with architectural elements -- thinking they are badly-shot human faces when it's a statue or a gargoyle on a building! I'm sure a statue with angel wings really confounds the system!
Yes, I need to figure out more about setting up groupings in AS, haven't really done that yet, as it usually isn't an issue for the kind of shooting I do but I can see where it would be extremely important in wedding photography in particular.
After. have run a few more files of images through the AS culling program then I'll see about trying out the editing piece of it, just to see how it works and if it really is all that effective. I tend to do pretty basic editing, nothing fancy, and it could be a time-saver in some situations. I do also tend to crop quite a bit, and that might be where the program and I differ. Only way to find out is to experiment with it!
That would be a huge problem having a program getting confused with architectural elements -- thinking they are badly-shot human faces when it's a statue or a gargoyle on a building! I'm sure a statue with angel wings really confounds the system!
Yes, I need to figure out more about setting up groupings in AS, haven't really done that yet, as it usually isn't an issue for the kind of shooting I do but I can see where it would be extremely important in wedding photography in particular.
After. have run a few more files of images through the AS culling program then I'll see about trying out the editing piece of it, just to see how it works and if it really is all that effective. I tend to do pretty basic editing, nothing fancy, and it could be a time-saver in some situations. I do also tend to crop quite a bit, and that might be where the program and I differ. Only way to find out is to experiment with it!
Still have not tried out the editing component available with AfterShoot, but I sure do really like the culling program! It really is a significant timesaver in situations where I've shot a lot of birds or other wildlife and had too heavy a finger on the shutter button. For me, this is definitely a keeper of a program! I mainly use it for those times when I have a couple hundred or more images to be reviewed and culled, and so far it has been really useful.
I am not a slow, methodical shooter; I tend to move fast and capture fast action and so on, so for me this culling program is really a wonderful solution. Very happy with it!
I am not a slow, methodical shooter; I tend to move fast and capture fast action and so on, so for me this culling program is really a wonderful solution. Very happy with it!
At $9.99/mo and unknown if will be more as the editing component develops, why not just get Lightroom and Photoshop for $9.99/mo? Lightroom will definately cull and organize plus typically has enough editing without jumping to Photoshop...but you have both.
I am hardly an Adobe fan and for several years went through the "dump Adobe" exercise. In terms of the full Creative Cloud, successful with dumping most, but invariably the $9.99/mo Photography Plan held up. While I do have other photography software I use Lightroom/Photoshop as a primary. None of the others were as comprehensive, but worse - annual updates, while you can skip a year or two, were as much as the Adobe subscription.
What caused me to look at this was initially thinking Aftershoot was a similarly named photo organization program Aftershot by Corel. Initially considered Aftershot/Paintshop Pro as a substitute to Lightroom/Photoshop as I had used Paintshop since it was one of the most have shareware programs back in the day that then made the jump to commercial when bought by JASC. Upgraded every few versions including when Corel bought from JASC...so even now upgrade eligible. What killed it - Aftershot is PC/Mac where Corel has never converted Paintshop Pro to Mac - and a constant sore point on the Corel forums - next version wish list, etc. Aftershot, while it has the sorting and editing capability similar to Lightroom, it may be able to give you what Aftershoot does at a relatively inexpensive one time cost.
I am hardly an Adobe fan and for several years went through the "dump Adobe" exercise. In terms of the full Creative Cloud, successful with dumping most, but invariably the $9.99/mo Photography Plan held up. While I do have other photography software I use Lightroom/Photoshop as a primary. None of the others were as comprehensive, but worse - annual updates, while you can skip a year or two, were as much as the Adobe subscription.
What caused me to look at this was initially thinking Aftershoot was a similarly named photo organization program Aftershot by Corel. Initially considered Aftershot/Paintshop Pro as a substitute to Lightroom/Photoshop as I had used Paintshop since it was one of the most have shareware programs back in the day that then made the jump to commercial when bought by JASC. Upgraded every few versions including when Corel bought from JASC...so even now upgrade eligible. What killed it - Aftershot is PC/Mac where Corel has never converted Paintshop Pro to Mac - and a constant sore point on the Corel forums - next version wish list, etc. Aftershot, while it has the sorting and editing capability similar to Lightroom, it may be able to give you what Aftershoot does at a relatively inexpensive one time cost.
For me it's not about how much a monthly subscription costs..... I really don't want to use and deal with Lightroom and its catalog and the control it takes over my images.
I am still very happy with the AfterShoot program, for me it does what I wanted and gives me the freedom to move my images wherever I want after that and beyond.... I'm not a professional photographer, I'm just shooting for myself and most of my shots are abstracts, macros, closeups, flowers and wildlife, so if I come home with a card filled with 430 images, many of which are more-or-less repeats shot in burst mode, no big deal if AS makes a mistake and doesn't select a particular image as one I'd really want to review and process. I don't think Alfred, a turtle or a cormorant is going to scream at me that the image I've shot, reviewed and culled and then edited doesn't show his or her best side!
That said, yes, I do sometimes go back and manually review and cull the entire shoot session myself as well, just to be sure that something hasn't been inadvertently omitted which really was kind of an interesting shot worth editing. So far AS has been pretty accurate at nailing the shots with which I'd want to go further.
Obviously this program is not needed when I've just shot, say 100 or fewer images; those I just go ahead and review and cull myself and then take on into editing.
I am still very happy with the AfterShoot program, for me it does what I wanted and gives me the freedom to move my images wherever I want after that and beyond.... I'm not a professional photographer, I'm just shooting for myself and most of my shots are abstracts, macros, closeups, flowers and wildlife, so if I come home with a card filled with 430 images, many of which are more-or-less repeats shot in burst mode, no big deal if AS makes a mistake and doesn't select a particular image as one I'd really want to review and process. I don't think Alfred, a turtle or a cormorant is going to scream at me that the image I've shot, reviewed and culled and then edited doesn't show his or her best side!
That said, yes, I do sometimes go back and manually review and cull the entire shoot session myself as well, just to be sure that something hasn't been inadvertently omitted which really was kind of an interesting shot worth editing. So far AS has been pretty accurate at nailing the shots with which I'd want to go further.
Obviously this program is not needed when I've just shot, say 100 or fewer images; those I just go ahead and review and cull myself and then take on into editing.
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Can you elaborate on just what you mean by the "control" Lightroom takes over your images?
Lightroom puts your files exactly where you tell it to and builds a catalog that tells it where to look for them. If you move them, no big deal-the next time you open Lightroom you just tell it where they are now and go on with what you were doing.
I don't and never have used LR so I can't answer that question from personal experience, but from everything I have read about it and heard about from other photographers I know that LR is not a choice I want to make when deciding how to process, store and share my images.
Given your comments in this thread and others you have made here, I really don't think you have any understanding at all of how Lightroom works or what it does.
By all means choose the software you want to use, and many people won't use Lightroom because they don't want to support Adobe on principal, a sentiment I totally understand and even agree with to some extent although I hold my nose and do it because I find the software worth it.
For a lot of the scenarios you've described in this thread and elsewhere, Lightroom really is an ideal program for you. Really-it makes sorting through hundreds or thousands of images a breeze. You can edit while you're sorting-Lightroom's editing tools are still limited compared to Photoshop but they get more powerful all the time(really-Adobe now pushes updates every few weeks on the subscription model) and things like exposure and color adjustments are fast and simple.
Your main criticism that I read keeps coming down to "I want control over where I store my files." When you run files through Lightroom, your files stay exactly where you put them. If you have Lightroom handle operations like getting files off a card, it places the copies exactly where you tell it to put them. As I said too, if you move something, as long as YOU know where you moved it, all you need to do is point Lightroom to where you moved it when it pops up and says it can't find the file.
BTW, too, a core functionality of Lightroom is it quite literally DOESN'T touch your original images. Every edit that you make in Lightroom is basically stored as a "markup" in the catalog and not as part of your original file. Those edits get shown when you view the image in Lightroom, and they get applied when you export to a different format like JPEG. Still, though, at any point you can grab your original RAW file and it's still exactly how you left it(especially if you choose, as I do now, to leave it in its original format and not convert to a DNG file).
There's a reason why it's such a popular program for photographers, and it's not just because Adobe has such a hold on the industry.