Bye Bye AfterShot

[t3mujin]

For now I'm good with ASP, but I'm in the process of upgrading some of my gear in the near future and not having RAW support for those cameras makes that the perfect time to move on to other software.

[Blrfl]

I am sorry to hear about the bibble team...

I'll feel sorry for them if they were actually fired, but absent proof, I'm not going to break any ankles jumping to conclusions.

One possibility that nobody's explored yet is that Corel wanted to merge Bibble Labs into one of its existing offices. If the crew in Austin didn't like that idea, the deal may have been structured so Bibble would operate as a subsidiary until some condition was met and then close down. Terms like that aren't unheard of and would provide a good opportunity for those at Bibble to turn sweat equity into cash and go do something new.

I don't have any more facts than anyone else, but a new version going into beta at about the same time Austin vanishes into thin air might indicate that Corel is comfortable maintaining ASP unassisted.

--Mark

[MarkZ]

Firing the Bibble team may have been a no-brainer from a crass business perspective, as much as it is untasteful for us. I assume the team was based largely in Texas - it would be a huge saving to transfer the work to Taiwan. That is where the PSP development is done and Iikely ASP as well.

[madsec]

Firing the Bibble team may have been a no-brainer from a crass business perspective, as much as it is untasteful for us. I assume the team was based largely in Texas - it would be a huge saving to transfer the work to Taiwan. That is where the PSP development is done and Iikely ASP as well.

Your right, big buisnesses do their decissions only on financial data, so maybe it was just cheaper to move the development to another place. If the Linux support will be continued is such a decission as well, if it does cost more then it brings in it will be dead. Windows/Mac users wouldn't be concerned about a dead Linux version, so Corel doesn't need to bother with such side effects.

[Dutchmm]

One encouraging aspect of this PR triumph[/sarcasm] is the fact that when one looks at the survey monkey there are 4 versions to which a report can relate:

1.0.0.39, which is where we came in
1.0.1.10, which is where we are now
1.1.0.7 which seems never to have been released
1.1.0.10

Now unless Corel is going to have such a long beta cycle that they have to beta two versions at the same time - and I have never heard of such a thing happening in my admittedly short (30 years) career in IT - this means that they had the courage to bin a release without letting it out into the wild. This suggests a more resolute attitude to software quality than there has sometimes been in the past.

Now if we can just get rid of the "If I told you I would have to kill you" mentality ....

[afx]

One encouraging aspect of this PR triumph[/sarcasm] is the fact that when one looks at the survey monkey there are 4 versions to which a report can relate:

Two betas with basically the same warts and nobody at Corel tells the plugin developers what changed and what they need to do to make their plugins less crashy...
Those with a contact to the original developers know though.
That tells you something about where Corel is headed...

cheers
afx

[Dutchmm]

Two betas with basically the same warts and nobody at Corel tells the plugin developers what changed and what they need to do to make their plugins less crashy...
Those with a contact to the original developers know though.

That is why - despite my resolution that after retiring from consulting that I wouldn't tell people how to run their business anymore - I suggested that we need an open beta. I mean open to all registered owners, open as to what are the new features, open as to what has (still) to be tested, open as to what doesn't work (yet), and - of course - with full disclosure to the plugin devs of any (un)expected changes in the API.

[larschristian]

This is sad news. From now on I can no longer recomend ASP to my friends... Guess ASP is going to die, as they seems to drop everything that made it a viable competitor to LR....

[lundbech]

This is sad news. From now on I can no longer recomend ASP to my friends... Guess ASP is going to die, as they seems to drop everything that made it a viable competitor to LR....

This is ridiculous. Why do you say that it is going to die? The words from Corel are these:

Hi all, we've seen your concerns so wanted to let you know that Corel continues to support AfterShot Pro and are in development for the next planned product update, currently in beta.

Stay tuned - we'll have more news as we get closer to the release.

Thanks for all your support.

But you can no longer recommend it to your friends, because a single former beta-tester has spread the rumour that one or more from the development team has been fired? Do you know for a fact that the development has not been taken over by others? Do you know for a fact that Corel is going to drop AfterShot no more than a year after acquiring it? Why om earth would they want to do that?

Maybe I should ask why you are trying to spread the rumour that "ASP is going to die"?

[grubernd]

.. because a single former beta-tester has spread the rumour that one or more from the development team has been fired? Do you know for a fact that the development has not been taken over by others? Do you know for a fact that Corel is going to drop AfterShot no more than a year after acquiring it? Why om earth would they want to do that?

fact is, the original team is no longer working on the code, they have been set free.
my source: direct word from at least two of them.

which means, that the people that designed the code and maintained it up to 1.0.1.10 (and some betas beyond), are no longer doing that.

personally i give corel the benefit of the doubt until they cannot keep up with decent camera updates any more. bibble4 had a green state, quick, fast updates, support for quirky cameras (fuji, non-bayer-hurray!). bibble5 went yellow right from the start, dropping support for some older cameras with non-standard demosaics (fuji, nikon d1x). aftershot inherited that state and is currently dark-orange on the verge to red. nikon D800E anyone? i know it sounds cheesy, "everything was better then", but back in the B4-days that would have been a nightly build and done.

cosmetic changes to the software can be done by anyone, maintaining it, supporting new cameras is a whole different story, though, because you need understanding of the code to get around the sticks that camera manufacturers are throwing at software developers. and that's not even talking about things like the non-bayer fujis..

as a longtime user and beta-tester i am still willing to put some time in feedback, tests etc, but having gone from "hey eric, this is weird" - "okay, it's fixed" to giving a full step-by-step bug report and receiving NO feedback at all is kinda hard. and this is surely something that not only the old beta-crew is feeling but lot's of the longtime users, too.

bottomline: i wish, want and hope that ASP lives on, but Corel is clearly in the position that they have to work for it - for old and new customers alike.

[jknights]

Well I have tested the latest beta and it doesnt work with plugins so I wont be using it any more. In fact it is uninstalled.
I am back on version 1.0.1.10 as this does work with plugins.

Bibble/ASP without plugins then I might as well use RAWPhotoProcessor or DCRAW.

[Hobgoblin]

Well I have tested the latest beta and it doesnt work with plugins so I wont be using it any more. In fact it is uninstalled.
I am back on version 1.0.1.10 as this does work with plugins.

Bibble/ASP without plugins then I might as well use RAWPhotoProcessor or DCRAW.

An ASP 'Beta' that does not work with the existing Plugins is not even worthy of considering as 'Beta'.

This suggests that Corel and its development team have missed the point of the independent development of plugins or perhaps they wish to actively disengage from this form of user involvement.

For myself the existing Bibble/ASP offering meets most of my needs and I will carry on using it on Linux and probably Windows as well.
I may consider changing to DxO for Windows but at present DxO supports Pentax K5 PEF (Raw) images but not the older Pentax *ist series PEF (Raw) images of which I have a large collection.
R.

[stefanve]

Well I have tested the latest beta and it doesnt work with plugins so I wont be using it any more. In fact it is uninstalled.
I am back on version 1.0.1.10 as this does work with plugins.

Bibble/ASP without plugins then I might as well use RAWPhotoProcessor or DCRAW.

They would be really stupid if they stopped with plugins, I hope this is just disabled for the specific beta, maybe they have a API redesign in the works. (Yes i'm a optimist )

[bear_sk]

cosmetic changes to the software can be done by anyone, maintaining it, supporting new cameras is a whole different story, though, because you need understanding of the code to get around the sticks that camera manufacturers are throwing at software developers. and that's not even talking about things like the non-bayer fujis..

Most of the changes for new camera can be done with filling color correction data for specific camera sensor with bayes mask. Therefore most useful test images are color checker charts.

With DCRaw, when I sent sample raw files to Dave Coffin (author od DCRaw), I received patch with suppot for my camera next day.

[wongjai888]

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They would be really stupid if they stopped with plugins, I hope this is just disabled for the specific beta, maybe they have a API redesign in the works. (Yes i'm a optimist )

Since Paintshop Pro X4 already accepts Adobe plugins, I wonder if it would be difficult for Corel to extend that to the ASP update.