[Multicore usage?]

I work on a MacPro (soup can) with 6 core. I looked at the Activity Monitor, and only 6 of the 12 green processor bars are ever used at once. With PS and Zerene, all 12 are used. Any way of getting AP to use all 12 units?

 

To be sure, there I have no complaints about speed. The only time I have to wait is when saving large (1-2 GB) files via thunderbolt to RAID1 drive, but I think this is I/O limited, not a question of processor speed. 

[Advantages over Photoshop ?]

Large file speed is way superior. Manual stitching of four 430 MB files with rotation (PS beachballs galore) is a piece of cake.

Re $4 a month, that is student pricing, which will go away the second you have no more student status. And even then, because PS mandates a full year subscription (not month-to-month) it is at least $48. AP is $40/50 depending on special offer.

 

AP's 5 no-validation-code installs is great. With today's work being done in multiple locations, 1 home, 1 work, 1 mobile install would require multiple licenses.

[Which Mac Computer?]

Will be interesting to see how AP deals with batch processing once the macro editor is available. I noticed CR2 file batch processing is faster in DxO than PS CS5.5. Computer makes a huge difference with stacking deep stacks (>100 x 300 MB tif files using Zerene): MB air: don't bother, 6 dual core Mac Pro still runs hot for 10 minutes solid).

 

Flash drives have high failure rate due to limited write-over cycles. I use SS drive only for system and apps/scratch disk, so it is >80% empty, so loads of bad sectors can accumulate. All working files are on a thunderbolt RAID1. File reading is faster than on previous mac-pro tower with built in drives, which really surprised me. Saving 500 MB files is done in a second, so no complaints. Up to 100 MB file saving is done in a blink of an eye.

 

AP runs smooth with one NEC UHD 322 4K display and one Apple 27" cinema display on a 32GB RAM soup can.

[Introduce Yourself]

Hi there,

 

natural history museum scientist doing a range of imaging from scanning electron microscopy, to light microscopy, macrophotography, dSLR, and even 4x5" view camera. Have used PS v3 - CS5.5 extended currently on Mac Pro. Imaging mainly for print publication, including >1000 page book designs with >1000 figures (QXP). Need rock-solid platform for large master files (100 MB - 1 GB) with excellent color management and proofing options. Efficient tool use is also critical: switching brushes, switching from adding to subtracting selections, changing units (much better in AP than PS), moving layers, scaling individual or multiple layers, forced orthogonal lines. Have to look into customized keyboard commands.

 

Looking forward to macro editor in AP, then I can mothball PS for good. Other functions such as heavy z-stacking (>100 x 300 MB 16 bit tif files) can be done with other apps (HeliconFocus, Zerene); PS CS5 stacking was worse than useless. Thus far very impressed with AP, and I just scratched the surface. Drawing speed on 4K NEC UHD 322 display is excellent. The absence of a license key is pure joy! Opens Canon 5DsR CR2 files no problem [no longer supported on any PS CS version].

[Advantages over Photoshop ?]

Just started with AP, and am thoroughly impressed. PS user since v3 to CS5.5 extended.

Advantages:

- Full Bezier tools right in the image application. 

- Arrow customization with immediate WYSIWYG feedback upon moving sliders [PS is utterly clumsy with entering percentage values with keyboard, then enter, see how it look, refine, repeat repeat repeat ...]

Arrow width: should be able to enter either pixel or mm/inches, not just %.

- Golden ratio spiral overlay in crop tool. GE-NI-OUS!  Custom aspect ratio for crop tool.

- Brush management and adjustment: double click on brush, and all adjustments are there [no detour to brush-edit menu]. I wish there was an option to add a bit more description to the brush names, more than just diameter (e.g., diameter and hardness maybe also plus spacing).

- Help menu is excellent!

- Changing units right in Photo Persona - move tool, no detour through preferences-units.

- Light fall-off correction is very nicely implemented.

- Opens Canon 5DsR CR2 files no problem. Out of luck with any CS-versions of PS.

- Text insert both as linear string, but also as text-box like in page-layout programs (QuarkXPress).

 

I know I am just scratching the surface, just 1 day into it, but AP made my holiday! Cudos!