Introducing AfterShot Pro 2 and Greg Wood, product manager

[Brainslug]

I can confirm the tiling problem. Noticed it on some of the images I played around with (Canon 5D3, ASP2_x64 on Linux).
Thought it was just my graphics card, but tried it on two different machines (both Nvidia) and the problem occured randomly on both machines.
Tried turning OpenCL off, but that didn't help. Won't spend much time on this, but now that someone else noticed this particular problem, I thought I'd throw it out there.

Not that I would buy ASP2, but out of curiosity - will the Linux/MAC versions be the same price as the Windows version? Seeing that they don't have HDR functionality I would think they're cheaper?

[awm03]

This is my wishlist / tips about future development, in order of importance:
- Better plug-in support, it would be terrific to have topazlabs plugin in ASP (http://www.topazlabs.com/)

I have the Topaz bundle myself. Those and others are either Photoshop compatible plugins or standalone applications. AfterShot is non-destructive and they are not compatible with the AfterShot plugin architecture.
The workaround would be to export a copy into tiff and use the necessary plugins on that before having it back into the AfterShot workflow.

Arnfinn, if you designate Topaz Fusion Express as your External Editor in ASP, Fusion Express pops up a window where you may choose your Topaz plugins. ASP will automatically create a TIFF (16 bit or 8 bit, your choice) to pass on to the plugin you chose. It works really well. The Fusion Express applet should have been included with your Topaz plugins, but if you don't see it in the Topaz folder, you can download it for free at Topaz.

[lenscape]

Well this is very interesting.

I'm an unusual character: a professional photographer who uses no Adobe, Apple or Microsoft products. I depend on Linux, a bunch of open source software and AfterShot Pro, around which I've developed my own work-flow supported by lots of Bash scripts.

After years of neglect and apparent abandonment, version 2 pop-ups with promises of lots of jam tomorrow and we're supposed to hand over more cash to see if the myriad issues with AfterShot Pro 1.2 have been addressed. I have my doubts. AfterShot 1 Pro didn't address the same issues in Bibble 5. It still hangs. It still crashes. It still produces odd results.

I, like many others, I'm sure, stopped reporting problems with ASP because no one was listening.

It's not the money. The upgrade fee is reasonable - if it's a genuine functional upgrade - but this looks like another repackaging exercise similar to the utterly pointless facelift moving from Bibble 5 to ASP where they changed the icons and moved them around. It achieved nothing except to slow me down. It's an ergonomic mess.

What I think Corel and Greg Wood fails to understand is that people like me utterly depend on this software for our livelihood. Poor quality control and poor support have a direct impact on our work and our business.

It is genuinely reassuring to see Greg Wood appear from nowhere and tell us everything's going to be alright but he has to overcome a long history of disappointments. I stopped taking Corel seriously a long time ago and it's going to take more than a few easy promises to fix that.

Now, please stop thinking you're doing anything useful by adding new features until you've fixed the bugs. At the moment, that's really all I'm concerned about.

Priorities:
1. Linux - you have a lot of Linux users.
2. Bugs
3. Support - we need a worthwhile support forum where bug reports ARE TAKEN SERIOUSLY, given a tracking number and fix date. Do the job properly.
4. Fix the UI - get someone who actually uses it to design it, not an art graduate.
5. Re-energise the plug-in community
6. New features.

Thank you.

Dale Strickland-Clark

[lundbech]

Well this is very interesting.
[...]
It's not the money. The upgrade fee is reasonable - if it's a genuine functional upgrade - but this looks like another repackaging exercise similar to the utterly pointless facelift moving from Bibble 5 to ASP where they changed the icons and moved them around. It achieved nothing except to slow me down. It's an ergonomic mess.
[...]
It is genuinely reassuring to see Greg Wood appear from nowhere and tell us everything's going to be alright but he has to overcome a long history of disappointments. I stopped taking Corel seriously a long time ago and it's going to take more than a few easy promises to fix that.

Agreed.

We have a new version and a another UI facelift, not that it's any improvement this time, but still the question remains: Why? With so many other thing that should have been done.

And once again we have a Corel representative appear and sweettalk us into throwing our money after Corel, just like Mr. Champagne did some time ago, only to disappear into oblivion.

It is nice to hear Mr. Wood tell us (here end on facebook) what he's learned in the first 24 hours of ASP2. The question is: Will he be here still in six months or a year from now?

[Arnfinn]

This is my wishlist / tips about future development, in order of importance:
- Better plug-in support, it would be terrific to have topazlabs plugin in ASP (http://www.topazlabs.com/)

I have the Topaz bundle myself. Those and others are either Photoshop compatible plugins or standalone applications. AfterShot is non-destructive and they are not compatible with the AfterShot plugin architecture.
The workaround would be to export a copy into tiff and use the necessary plugins on that before having it back into the AfterShot workflow.

Arnfinn, if you designate Topaz Fusion Express as your External Editor in ASP, Fusion Express pops up a window where you may choose your Topaz plugins. ASP will automatically create a TIFF (16 bit or 8 bit, your choice) to pass on to the plugin you chose. It works really well. The Fusion Express applet should have been included with your Topaz plugins, but if you don't see it in the Topaz folder, you can download it for free at Topaz.

Yes I know that. I think you meant to adress your answer to imopen. I gave the workaround in a more general manner...

[awm03]

Yes I know that. I think you meant to adress your answer to imopen. I gave the workaround in a more general manner...

Thanks, Arnfinn, for clarifying. Hope this helped imopen.

I would like for ASP to designate more than one external editor. That way I could use the Topaz plugins and PaintShop Pro too. Wonder if this would be an easier fix from the tech standpoint than trying to get Topaz products to plug in as plugins?

Someone above mentioned "fix the UI." I like the UI as is, frankly. Everything you need or want to do is right in front of you or in the general vicinity. It's nice not to have to switch modes to manage or to view or to edit.

[lenscape]

Someone above mentioned "fix the UI." I like the UI as is, frankly. Everything you need or want to do is right in front of you or in the general vicinity. It's nice not to have to switch modes to manage or to view or to edit.

No. The UI really is a dog's breakfast. It isn't just an opinion. It is measurably bad.

Here are a few things that spring to mind in no particular order.

1. Colour labels used to be all in a row on the tool bar so setting a label was one click away. Now they're on a drop-down so no you need two clicks.
2. Display settings and mode buttons are split across the width and height of the screen. Some options on the extreme left and some on the extreme right. Some on the top row, some in the 'status' bar. It's random and disorganised.
3. Plugin tabs are uselessly identified as Plugins1, Plugins2, etc. You can't rename them and you can't group your plugins so to find anything is always a search.
4. Why are plugin tabs scrolled and tabbed? The contents of each tab is taller than the screen so you have to scroll to see what's there. Either scroll the whole list or fit within the tab and don't scroll. It's a mess. Move all the plugins to a separate window and let me control what showing and what isn't. These problems have been solved for years.
5. Related to 4. Let me rearrange the order of all the tool groups in the right panel.
6. There's no mousey way to switch images in image view.
7. Forward and back buttons on the mouse are ignored.
8. When viewing pictures in the metadata browser, there's no way to jump to an image's folder in library view. You have to note it's folder name and hunt it down manually.
9. General lack of mouse button programmability. Lots of mice have many buttons these days.
10. Lack of tablet support.
11. I can undock the right panel but not the left. Why?

[Arnfinn]

Someone above mentioned "fix the UI." I like the UI as is, frankly. Everything you need or want to do is right in front of you or in the general vicinity. It's nice not to have to switch modes to manage or to view or to edit.

I'm not going to take the blame for that - awm03 are the one you quoted...

[lenscape]

Someone above mentioned "fix the UI." I like the UI as is, frankly. Everything you need or want to do is right in front of you or in the general vicinity. It's nice not to have to switch modes to manage or to view or to edit.

I'm not going to take the blame for that - awm03 are the one you quoted...

Apologies. Corrected.

[Hobgoblin]

Someone above mentioned "fix the UI." I like the UI as is, frankly. Everything you need or want to do is right in front of you or in the general vicinity. It's nice not to have to switch modes to manage or to view or to edit.

No. The UI really is a dog's breakfast. It isn't just an opinion. It is measurably bad.

Here are a few things that spring to mind in no particular order.

1. Colour labels used to be all in a row on the tool bar so setting a label was one click away. Now they're on a drop-down so no you need two clicks.
2. Display settings and mode buttons are split across the width and height of the screen. Some options on the extreme left and some on the extreme right. Some on the top row, some in the 'status' bar. It's random and disorganised.
3. Plugin tabs are uselessly identified as Plugins1, Plugins2, etc. You can't rename them and you can't group your plugins so to find anything is always a search.
4. Why are plugin tabs scrolled and tabbed? The contents of each tab is taller than the screen so you have to scroll to see what's there. Either scroll the whole list or fit within the tab and don't scroll. It's a mess. Move all the plugins to a separate window and let me control what showing and what isn't. These problems have been solved for years.
5. Related to 4. Let me rearrange the order of all the tool groups in the right panel.
6. There's no mousey way to switch images in image view.
7. Forward and back buttons on the mouse are ignored.
8. When viewing pictures in the metadata browser, there's no way to jump to an image's folder in library view. You have to note it's folder name and hunt it down manually.
9. General lack of mouse button programmability. Lots of mice have many buttons these days.
10. Lack of tablet support.
11. I can undock the right panel but not the left. Why?

Hard to disagree with most of that, but the 'customToolsUI.txt' fix still works for reordering and renaming the tabs to you own preferences.
The instructions are buried somwhere in this Forum - http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=45735
They are also in AFX's Book.

I've attached my working copy if its any help

[afx]

Someone above mentioned "fix the UI." I like the UI as is, frankly. Everything you need or want to do is right in front of you or in the general vicinity.

So you are working on a small screen

On my 30" it is a nightmare for mouse users (thankfully there are hotkeys).

Button and control element placement is very inefficient for mousers.
Why does the status bar have buttons that have nothing to do with the status?
Why is the title bar wasted for zero information? It could be used as status bar.
Why do we have a few buttons left and right below the menu bar? There is enough space on the menu bar even on my 13" notebook to accommodate the buttons in one corner all together.

Why are some buttons highlighted in blue which looks like sore eyes on the UI?

Why is information on the thumbs only available when one hovers over the thumb?

Why are tab labels barely readable for inactive tabs?

No, the UI is definitely not an improvement.

cheers
afx

[lathspell]

I can't agree more to the complaints about the UI. Anyone remember Bibble 4 with all the freely floating tools for an almost ideal multi-monitor support? Anyone working with CaptureOne? I would give someone a big hug (and a little money) if ASP could re-introduce a flexible and logical UI. Actually that was one of my biggest hopes for ASP 2 (beside better, flexible, even selectable camera-optimized demosaicing algorithms and settings for new features like PC Noise Removal not interferring with settings from old features like NN Noise Removal).

[rainer042]

Hello Mr Wood,

yesterday I purchased AfterShotPro 2 for linux. If been using this software since bibble4 and AfterShot1 later on. On one side Bibble and Aftershot have always delivered a high quality workflow with stunning results. One reason for this was the integration of Noise Ninja, for which I purchased the registered version. I have always been able to obtain great result in reducing noise where it was needed using NN. Unfortuantely NN is no longer there in Aftershot2.

Instead there is Athentechs noise reduction system. When working on a raw photo in ASP2 I realized that turning on noise reduction with a low level resulted in artefacts, dark spots in the photo. Using high levels in this tool removes these dark spots but also a lot of detail.

So I compared the quality of noise reduction using Athentechs tool integrated in AsP2 and NN in ASP1 using a photo I took recently using identical settings except for noise reduction system chosen. I can send you the original raw and xmp settings file if you are interested for further analysis, no problem...

You can see the difference in the thread below and in another thread thats mentioned here:
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?t=53628&f=90

The results show clearly that Athentechs noise reduction solution is currently not really usable and that NN is the far better tool.

So beeing a user of Bibble and Aftershot for a long time I am disappointed about the quality of the noise reduction system in ASP2. Its really bad. Bibble and Aftershot have always been a synonym for a high quality and fast raw developing process thats also available for linux. Quality and linux are the reasons why I have been purchasing this software always right from the start.

So my request is to consider the reintegration of Noise Ninja, simply because its really good and Athentechs anti noise solution is not good. I do not want to argue against Athentech, e.g. I really like Perfectly Clear, because it usually yields good results. But their anti noise tool fails in this respect. Thats why I would like to see NN again.

I do not care if this could be realized in form of a plugin or directly in ASP. But at the moment developing photos using ASP 2 is no fun if you need to eliminate noise. So please help finding a solution, so that also in the future ASP is a synonym for quality and thus worth its money.

Have a nice day
Rainer Krienke

[Arnfinn]

@AFX This isn't my qoute you have quoted from, it's awm03's. Please see three posts above yours...
_____________

UI DESIGN
I agree with you and others that there's much to improve about the UI. Actually I was very disappointed about the UI (non)improvement in the transition from B5 to AfterShot. I think that Bibble had a much better approach where they collected most of the available buttons in one place; the top bar. With the Corel takover I remember that we were told with nice words that the top professional UI designers of Corel had made it so much better. Right...
So, as others also points out, why all the available empty real estate at the top above, when you with the UI professionals upgrade now have to visit all corners of the UI to do the job? This is especially painful with the Multi-View and Lock buttons now situated on the far opposite corner from everything else. I do use and access those all the time. The Bibble developers at least had the brains to have the most functional buttons collected in one place. I would love to have the buttons placed in an easier accessible way than it is at current.

After the Corel takeover and transition to AfterShot, their customer relationship (read: forum dialog) went completely south compared to the Bibble developers dialog with their forum to the degree that I thought it pointless and a complete waste of time to participate and expressing my views here in this forum. I continued to use the product, and checked the forum from time to time and everytime I ended up disappointed. Corel didn't take either the software or it's users seriousely.
Now the tune and resources dedicated finally seems to have completely changed at the AfterShot development, and my joy and hope with the product is back. Yes, please do something with the UI, and please don't do the mistake of using the same "professional" heads that created this UI mess in the first place. My guess is that the UI was changed just for the sake of change, and that Corel wanted a visual footprint after taking over Bibble. Not the right way to do things in my book...

Remember the old saying; "If it aint broken - Don't fix it". You fixed something good into worse. Now it's time to fix it again. This time into something better...

[afx]

@AFX This isn't my qoute you have quoted from, it's awm03's. Please see three posts above yours...

I thought I had the right one, strange. fixed.

With the Corel takover I remember that we were told with nice words that the top professional UI designers of Corel had made it so much better. Right...

Yup. So far it gets worse on every release.....

cheers
afx