Introducing AfterShot Pro 2 and Greg Wood, product manager

[Greg Wood]

Hello everyone,

It is my pleasure to announce arrival of the new Corel AfterShot Pro 2. Corel has this morning issued a news release announcing the new AfterShot, and you will find our webpages are live at http://www.aftershotpro.com. I won’t mind at all if you stop reading here and go over there—that’s what I would do too!

My name is Greg Wood and I’m the new head of photo products here at Corel. I should put a caveat on my use of the word ‘new’ – I’ve been working with our photo team on AfterShot Pro 2 for the past few months now and prior to that I have worked for more 13 years at Corel, most recently in digital media product marketing.

I strongly believe that for Corel’s photo team to be successful, I need to build a strong relationship with you and other users of our software. I’m eager to build great products that help you achieve whatever creative goal that motivates you, and my commitment is to always listen to you and do my best to ensure that we take your feedback and ideas to heart.

Before I tell you a little more about AfterShot Pro 2, here’s a little background on me. With this many years under my belt, I have a long-standing affection for Corel’s photo and video software. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with many of those who’ve managed these products in the past, including Rick Champagne, Craig Copley, Jeff Stephens and others all the way back to Doug Meisner.

I understand where products like AfterShot Pro and PaintShop Pro have come from and where they must go in the future. I’ve heard and read about your likes and dislikes, ideas and concerns. I appreciate the time and dollars you spend on our products, and I’m sincerely motivated to help you achieve your creative goals, whether your passion is photography, design or another creative enterprise. I’m looking forward to talking with you about your projects and needs and look forward to introducing exciting new products in the future.

AfterShot Pro 2
AfterShot Pro 2 marks an important launch for us. It’s our second launch of AfterShot since we acquired Bibble, and this new version has been driven by an extensive research initiative undertaken in 2013 to understand where AfterShot Pro should go in the future. In many cases, our research has mirrored what we’ve seen in these forums:

- We need to deliver more frequent product updates, especially in terms of camera profiles.

- We need to continue to meaningfully develop the product in terms of performance and photo adjustment.

- And of course we need to consistently and openly communicate with you our AfterShot Pro users.

The launch of AfterShot Pro 2 today addresses many of these areas, with a variety of enhancements from new 64-bit ports of AfterShot Pro 2 on Windows, Mac and Linux; to new photo tools such as our new AfterShot HDR (now available on Windows, and coming this summer to Mac and Linux); to a variety of user interface and usability enhancements and bug fixes.

We’re excited about the improvements in the new AfterShot Pro 2, but we're not stopping here. Our plan is to deliver more frequent updates to AfterShot Pro, including the regular addition of new camera profiles (driven by your feedback) on an ongoing basis. Our first update to AfterShot Pro is scheduled for later this summer when we’ll add more camera profiles, HDR on Mac/Linux and the latest bug and usability fixes that we hear about from you and our other users.

The whole team here at Corel is very excited about the potential of AfterShot Pro and I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about AfterShot Pro 2, including where it should go in the future. But I’ve said enough for now! I encourage you to try the new AfterShot Pro 2 today and I hope you enjoy yourself doing so.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

[Aestivator]

Hi,

Whilst it is great to see aftershot pro 2 it is extremely annoying that just two weeks ago I purchased aftershot one and now find I have to spend another 45 quid if I want to upgrade.
Surely there should have been some advice given on this to those who purchased (in good faith) so close to the launch date of asp2. At the very least a heavily discounted upgrade should be in order.

Thanks,

John

[brucet]

Thanks for the communications Greg. Only time will judge you on your promises. Reading posts on this and other forums is only part the issue. The rest is down to Corel as to how they respond to user concerns. I wish you the best of luck.

regards

[anatolli]

Hello Mr. Greg Wood!

The EM1 -orf files are displayed with a wrong color.
All yellow colors are blue.

I also seen a bug when enabled the Perfectly clear Noise reduction function. After enabling there are some zones with hard transitions in the picture. In a high grade noticeable.

Why are the numeric keypads at the sliders gone?


greetings
Anatolli

[nex4]

Greg, I wish you can forward my thread to your camera profiling team:

http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 7&start=15

The NEX-3N profile is clearly not collected properly.

[risbac]

Trying to own the new website. And I get this :

Server Error in '/' Application.

Runtime Error

Description: An exception occurred while processing your request. Additionally, another exception occurred while executing the custom error page for the first exception. The request has been terminated.

It's trying to open the French version apparently.

[Greg Wood]

Hi,

Whilst it is great to see aftershot pro 2 it is extremely annoying that just two weeks ago I purchased aftershot one and now find I have to spend another 45 quid if I want to upgrade.
Surely there should have been some advice given on this to those who purchased (in good faith) so close to the launch date of asp2. At the very least a heavily discounted upgrade should be in order.

Thanks,

John

John, contact Corel Support -- you're within your 30 warranty window. You might find they'll do something for you

[Greg Wood]

Hello Mr. Greg Wood!

The EM1 -orf files are displayed with a wrong color.
All yellow colors are blue.

I also seen a bug when enabled the Perfectly clear Noise reduction function. After enabling there are some zones with hard transitions in the picture. In a high grade noticeable.

Why are the numeric keypads at the sliders gone?


greetings
Anatolli

Hi Anatolli, thanks for the report--we'll look into this

[boBBrennan]

Hello Mr. Greg Wood!

The EM1 -orf files are displayed with a wrong color.
All yellow colors are blue.

I also seen a bug when enabled the Perfectly clear Noise reduction function. After enabling there are some zones with hard transitions in the picture. In a high grade noticeable.

Why are the numeric keypads at the sliders gone?


greetings
Anatolli

Hi Anatolli, thanks for the report--we'll look into this

_______________________________________________________

....my same report for the E-M1 ORF.

Actually I reported this on the COREL ASP FB.

PLUS another bug .....

The kybd key 'F' for JPG batch export plain does nothing, it just does not work, the only way is to do top-bar File/Export with Batch preset/JPG full size F
______________________________________________________

Thanks for a quick bug update for these and anymore.

boBBrennan
Arlington, TX USA

[Arnfinn]

The update certainly looks promising, based on the info I have found on the website. I will definately purchase the update.

What I'm most pleased about however is your introduction and your expressed commitment to have a better and closer dialog to your customers through this forum. As a long time user (since Bibble 4) the Corel takover has so far been a big disappointment regarding this. I was active on the Bibble forum, and also at the new Corel/AfterShot forum in the beginning but at a time got very frustrated and disappointed to the point that I stopped participating, as I felt that the team behind the product almost didn't care about either it's community or the product. The latest development tells me that Corel is finally putting resources and commitment into the product and their relationship with their customers.

What I originally fell for when choosing my raw converter the first time (Bibble 4.1), besides the technology, was the strong connection the company/team had to it's users through the original Bibble forum. The development team participated in the discussions and used some of the good suggestions to improve the product. The close connections between development and users was the very foundation for the strong community surrounding Bibble. It also had many of it's users taking pride in the making of plugins. Often ideas presented in the forum, or missing functionality in the main product ended up being developed as plugins. The Corel takover didn't seem to be either well planned or well organized. Much of the enthusiasm and spirit from the Bibble time disappeared. Also to the point where there seemed to be less and less interest in developing and updating plugins.

Now with the 2.0 update it seems that Corel is finally doing the right things. Please learn from the history and keep a close contact with this community, and keep us a bit more updated about what's happening behind the scenes. Better communication will lead to a more active and dedicated community, and ultimately the user feedback and suggestions will lead to an even better product.

Please keep up the good work Greg and the rest of the AfterShot team. I'm really excited about the new spirit. I believe that it will raise the value of After Shot even further...

[Greg Wood]

The update certainly looks promising, based on the info I have found on the website. I will definately purchase the update.

What I'm most pleased about however is your introduction and your expressed commitment to have a better and closer dialog to your customers through this forum. As a long time user (since Bibble 4) the Corel takover has so far been a big disappointment regarding this. I was active on the Bibble forum, and also at the new Corel/AfterShot forum in the beginning but at a time got very frustrated and disappointed to the point that I stopped participating, as I felt that the team behind the product almost didn't care about either it's community or the product. The latest development tells me that Corel is finally putting resources and commitment into the product and their relationship with their customers.

What I originally fell for when choosing my raw converter the first time (Bibble 4.1), besides the technology, was the strong connection the company/team had to it's users through the original Bibble forum. The development team participated in the discussions and used some of the good suggestions to improve the product. The close connections between development and users was the very foundation for the strong community surrounding Bibble. It also had many of it's users taking pride in the making of plugins. Often ideas presented in the forum, or missing functionality in the main product ended up being developed as plugins. The Corel takover didn't seem to be either well planned or well organized. Much of the enthusiasm and spirit from the Bibble time disappeared. Also to the point where there seemed to be less and less interest in developing and updating plugins.

Now with the 2.0 update it seems that Corel is finally doing the right things. Please learn from the history and keep a close contact with this community, and keep us a bit more updated about what's happening behind the scenes. Better communication will lead to a more active and dedicated community, and ultimately the user feedback and suggestions will lead to an even better product.

Please keep up the good work Greg and the rest of the AfterShot team. I'm really excited about the new spirit. I believe that it will raise the value of After Shot even further...

Arfinn - thanks for your note. Upon stepping into this role, it became quickly apparent that this is more a community than it is a 'product' to be managed. I'm going to try and keep that sense of community going. Lots of work to do, I hope you'll hang in for the ride. Thanks!

[hannes_hab]

Hello Mr. Wood,

I really enjoy to see a sign of life concerning AfterShot Pro.
I would like to upgrade but I have tree main problems:

One of my cameras, the nikon coolpix p330, is still not supported.

I am on linux - so for now I have no benefit from the HDR Feature.

I think the new Noise Reduction is not as good as Noise Ninja was - unfortunately the NN Settings in old Pictures are deleted - so working side by side with ASP1 on problematic pictures (with versions) is not possible.

What I like: support for bigger images like panoramas often are, most plugins are working (problem with GradFilter - hoping this is solvable!) - even Texa and Typewriter works! Hoping that new plugins will come.
Local contrast is fine, especially for pictures with strong Fill Light.
What I don’t like: this update is not really a big thing. So the discount for upgrade related to buy the product as a new user is small.
Most wishes did not come true: No watched folders - no improvement on the DAM-functionality -no automatic reimport of new or changed or exported pictures ...
Concerning picture Quality and Highlight Recovery - I have to test these things in detail yet.

Thank you for your communication here in this forum!

[-cr]

[...] Upon stepping into this role, it became quickly apparent that this is more a community than it is a 'product' to be managed. I'm going to try and keep that sense of community going. Lots of work to do, I hope you'll hang in for the ride. Thanks!

I'd say it still is mostly the product that counts - although it does have a community here. I'm glad you've recognized how important the latter may be to the product, and I hope you continue the communication you've started here. Welcome, Greg!

[-cr]

[...] most plugins are working (problem with GradFilter - hoping this is solvable!) [...]

Thanks for the note, Hannes!
While I don't use ASP plugins extensively, GradFilter is one of the plugins whose functionality I consider essential in a raw converter. I guess I'll wait for a new version before converting to ASP2.

[imopen]

Hello Mr. Wood,
I'm using AfterShot since it was Bibble 4, I'm happy to see that the Corel Management is going to take care of this product and it will not be abandoned.

This is my wishlist / tips about future development, in order of importance:

- Linux, Linux, Linux
- Better plug-in support, it would be terrific to have topazlabs plugin in ASP (http://www.topazlabs.com/)
- Better sharpening tool
- Better clone/heal tool
- Better highlights recovery tool
- Better noise reduction tool
- Linux, Linux, Linux

Keep up the good work,
imopen