Not supporting DNG is a *bug* - let me explain

[redlow]

I have had an ongoing thread with support on this topic for the past week. Very frustrating. As a previous poster noted, I do not understand why Corel isn't trying to support this. I am one of the use cases .. a photography amateur who has used Lightroom for years and now, fed up with paying an ongoing subscription for lightroom and photoshop, turned to Aftershot. Of course, during this time I, like many others, converted all my RAW files unknowingly to DNG -- as it was the default option. Now, I find I can't move any of the thousands of images I have to Aftershot. HOW can they not want to gain customers from Adobe products?

I also agree that it is laziness... because the fact is... I can display and open my DNG files in Windows 10 native file explorer. I can also open the images in Corel Paintshop Pro. As others explained, I haven't actually found software that didn't support the format until now. Just create a plugin, and explain that XMP info isn't supported. It will still make the vast majority of us happy enough that we can switch platforms.

Anyway, I will open an enhancement request in feedback, and then go back to Lightroom as I sure am not converting those files back manually.

[linuxphotog]

I'll just chime in as another previous LightRoom user with thousands of Adobe DNGs. Even just a readonly way to see my existing library would be great. I can convert images to TIFF or something if I need to go back and edit them further, but it's way to much work (and additional space) to convert my whole library.

[dfms]

Hi,

I'm frustrated too. I have a Ricoh GXR and a SeaLife dc2000, both create images in DNG and I can not process them. Neither the photos of my iPhone (iOS 12) in that same format.

What I do not understand either is how on this page it is stated that DNG can be used ... https://www.aftershotpro.com/en/pages/dng-file/

For now, for me, AfterShot CAN NOT be a serious substitute for Ligthroom ...

Will this change or is it simply not going to be solved?
If it is not solved, I am afraid that I will look for other alternatives such as Luminar or ON1, among others.

[TexasNightOwl]

I have a Samsung S9+ phone that outputs its RAW files in DNG format. PaintShop Pro 2019 will open the DNG files without any problems. ASP 3, not so much (doesn't give an error on opening, just doesn't open). I don't understand why the PaintShop team cannot share their knowledge with the AfterShot team. Aren't there standards for DNG like their are for jpg? This, combined with so few new cameras supported and it feels like AfterShot is a dying product with minimal support.

[geek65535]

Worse, Adobe-converted DNGs are still not supported, but Corel has this up: https://www.aftershotpro.com/en/pages/dng-file/

[Voiceofexperience]

Hah! That's hysterical - Corel bigging up the benefits of DNG, despite having refused to acknowledge them (in fact, they actively denied those benefits for years, like Bibble Labs before them) when users tried - and failed - to persuade them to let Bibble/Aftershot work with DNG.

[hwlim]

I bought ASP 3 for process my Samsung Note 10 dng file, but ASP 3 cannot open, it is a wrong purchase.

[sloughmom]

I'm a Linux user looking for a good photo library management solution. There's not a lot of great options in the linux world, and AfterShot stands out as one of the only commercial products available that kindof fits the bill. I own a Canon 5D Mark III. Sometimes I shoot Dualiso raw files with Magic Lantern, which after post-processing creates DNG raw files. I also have a photo library going back many years which contains some DNG files from various manufacterors.

After evaluating AfterShot I realized like the other posts in this thread have pointed out, that it does not support DNG files unless they are from supported cameras like certain Pentax models (listed here: https://learn.corel.com/aftershot-pro-downloads/). And also that it does not fully support DNG files as claimed here: https://www.aftershotpro.com/en/pages/dng-file/

AfterShot can be convinced to work with DNG files if certain strict conditions are met however.
1. The DNG file must be uncompressed. It does not seem to load lossless jpeg compressed DNG files.
2. There must be a camera format for each camera that you wish to read a DNG file for, and it must contain specific lines.

For example for my 5d mk iii, modifying the 5d mk iv camera profile with these lines in the Info.afpxml file inside of the camera profile in the configuration directory worked to load uncompressed DNG files shot with this camera.

Code: Select all

modelName="Canon EOS 5D Mark III"
qualName="DngReader"
extension=".CR2"
extension1=".DNG"
fileFilter="Canon RAW Files ( *.tif *.TIF *.cr2 *.CR2 *.dng *.DNG)"

However I'm having difficulty loading DNG files shot with my older Canon 60D and Canon Rebel XT (350D) - The image does not seem to display correctly and looks purple. Most likely the raw bayer data is stored differently, or there is some different decoding mechanism needed. None of the other software I use have any problems loading these raw files (Digikam, Rawtherapee, Fotoxx, Geeqie, Darktable, Lightroom, Krita, Photoshop, etc).

It's really a lost opportunity which makes me quite sad because I see a lot of potential for AfterShot as a photo library management software. Working with huge amounts of raw files is really speedy with the program and it blows anything else available on linux out of the water.

Just thought I would report my findings here in case it helps anyone else struggling with the same problems. Hopefully someone from Corel is listening...

[SpeakerToMeat]

Thanks a lot sloughmom for your post. Saddly this kind of screws me over a little. I'm using DNG on one of my cameras, a Canon PowerShot S100 since CHDK with DNG is the only way I can take B&W photos in camera AND still get a raw. And of course ASP doesn't consider my camera should be doing DNG.

My problem is thereś no .azcam for this camera, all the support there is, is built into the binary (I checked with a hex editor directly). So I'd have to make my own, and I'm lacking a LOT of calibration info for that. So, before I set into trying to see if there's any way to de-encode the camera information from inside ASP's binary I wonder if anybody has already done the work by any chance to save me the effort and help me on the way of making my own camera profile for it to be able to use DNG with it.

I work on linux, and I bough ASP to use mainly on processing photos from my D3200, since it's a very fast and pretty good program in Linux, I love the power of DarkTable but obtaining the result I want from it is a much much slower process than with ASP which is a breeze, specially when you have 700 photos to process at once. I'd hate to be forced to use DT for my daily carry and ASP for my event photos.