FilterStorm v Photogene - Thoughts or alternatives?

[donka]

After picking up the camera connection kit for my iPad, I'm now on the lookout for some good photo management / editing apps.

I'm strictly an amateur photographer but looking to use my dslr more often when I am on vacation. I'm looking to upload the days photographs to the iPad and then do a quick first pass to remove the non keepers. I would also like the ability to do editing work when I have a little spare time or on the flight home etc.

I know I can use the standard photo app just to flick through the images and delete the unwanted shots so photo management isn't the biggest priority here but is still a nice to have.
With regards to the editing though, FilterStorm & Photogene seem similar and I think Photogene has caught up in certain aspects with today's new 3.0 update. Any thoughts on these two apps? I also think Filterstorm Pro could be ideal for me with it's included file management system but figure it is a little pricey at the moment over the standard app. I'm not interested in some of the more gimmicky apps that have a handful of presets even though they can be handy time savers in some situations - I prefer to be more hands on with my editing.
Finally Photosmith looks awesome for photo management but I don't shoot enough images to make Lightroom a sensible purchase for me at the moment.

 

[donka]

Okay, so I ended up buying both of these apps so here are my pros & cons of each after a day playing around with them. I'm not going to directly compare them as they are both great products in their own right and also Filterstorm has a v3 update coming up very shortly. Both Apps are the current standard versions as of today.
Feel free to ask any questions or correct me if I have something wrong.

PhotoGene

Pros:
Excellent Noise reduction, Spot healing, Red Eye removal, Text, Vignette, Export options and speed of operation.
Good selection of adjustment options.
Selection of frames, presets etc.
Batch Export.

Cons:
Custom photo album has flaws for dealing with RAW and quick edits imho.
Unable to stack most presets - those you can need stacked in a certain order.
Unable to achieve some simple edits like black & white sepia, cyanotope etc.
Custom presets do not store all changes such as text.

Summary:
Quick to use throughout the edit process with a good selection of adjustments. I would consider noise reduction, vignette and spot healing as best in class. One note on this however, the clone tool is limited to a spot at a time, you cannot clone paint freehand the same way as you can in the likes of Photoshop which may really slow down your progress depending on what you are trying to clean up in your image. The inability to create a black & white image and then tint this to achieve a sepia or cyanotope effect, for example, is a real oversight imho. If you like to do this kind of editing then Photogene is not for you.
One area where I have a real issue with Photogene and this is purely subjective is in the custom photo album. This is a good concept that allows you to browse different sized thumbnails and batch export images. My issue with this is that all thumbnails start of tiny and slowly enlarge to the correct size as they are generated. This is a slow process however and if you have just imported a couple of hundred images and only wish to quickly edit a couple of these pictures, it can be a task in itself identifying these images. You have the option of waiting until thumbnail generation is complete or browse through the tiny thumbnails looking for your image as they continually shift as more final sized thumbnails are generated. It appears there is a work around for this behaviour by disabling Location Services. This disables the custom album and gives you the stock image album selection. This sounds like an acceptable work around for fast edits with the caveat that you can no longer load up and edit RAW images, only JPG. A non issue if you only shoot JPG but a real frustration if you shoot RAW.


Filterstorm

Pros:
Excellent masking abilities.
Ability to brush in changes with almost all adjustments.
Excellent automation system with ability stack multiple edits for really quick edits.
Clean UI.

Cons:
Some features could use extra functionality like Vignettes, text tool and exporting.

Summary:
Filterstorm has a good selection of very solid adjustments. Some of these just work simply although could use extra features such as outlining on the text tool or support for elliptical vignettes. It is hard to comment further on these though, given there is an update around the corner. The UI is very good with it's clean, uncluttered look. The real strength though is in the masking tools; various gradient masks are available or you can simply paint the adjustment in with a user defined brush size and opacity. Automations are easy to store for common tasks and you can easily stack these to literally edit to a finished image in a few taps and seconds.

 

[info]

Thank you for the excellent reviews.