ASP 2 Review Not Good

[rondo]

Recent review of ASP 2 from PC & Tech Authority. Have to say I agree with what they have to say. I hope Corel reads it and sees what users have been saying confirmed by another source, and maybe someday Corel will get ASP up to snuff.

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Review/39 ... Photo+feed

[Greg Wood]

Hi Rondo,

Yes, we saw this one. It originally appeared on a UK site in July, and unfortunately this PC Authority review doesn't reflect the multiple updates we've made to AfterShot since the time of the author's original review. (the improvements we've made had already been identified and reported by beta and forum users among others). I was disappointed that they posted a review of a now-out-of-date version of AfterShot Pro without stating that, but I digress--point being here that we're working on an ongoing basis to improve AfterShot -- to the extent that a review from July is no longer accurate in October/November!

We're motivated by reviews like this for obvious reasons including our brand and reputation, but as I alluded to above, AfterShot users and forum members here consistently identify issues and opportunities earlier and with more insight than reviewers who may not know the product as intimately and its users' feedback we are most motivated by. (So to sum up: we do pay attention to reviews like this, but forum and user feedback is weighted much more heavily.)

[Tadjio]

This review raises several issues that I do not believe have been resolved. Greg are they being addressed?

As before, we found that recovered highlights were susceptible to banding.

AfterShot Pro 2’s own raw-processing engine still falls short of the standard set by Adobe Camera Raw.

There’s a new Local Contrast control... – but Lightroom’s similar Clarity control produces better results, with fewer artefacts around high-contrast lines.

Noise reduction now benefits from a new algorithm that’s offered in addition to the existing one. However, its ability to tackle noisy images still falls considerably short of Lightroom’s.

Lightroom also takes a clear lead for comprehensive support of cameras’ raw files.

AfterShot Pro 2 can only correct for lens distortion automatically, and for fewer lenses, leaving the user to tackle vignette and chromatic-aberration correction manually for each photo.

Lightroom is an extremely tough opponent against which to go head to head. We had high hopes for AfterShot Pro 2, but this update doesn’t rise to the challenge.

Personally I believe these are the issues that need addressing in order to improve the image quality and results from what is in many ways an excellent and useful product!

[rondo]

Greg Wood:

Thanks for taking the time to point out the review was an old one- I thought it was recent. I admire the work you've tried to do with ASP, and know it's a daunting project to try and catch up on. I'm a long time Corel user, and don't often use ASP 1 or 2 due to many of the issues that still make it problematic. I do use it for it's RAW support of some of my older cameras at times. I'm not a fan of Adobe products, and Lightroom has it's issues too and only gives the user the catalog option, not catalog and file system as ASP does. Mostly I use DxO Optics Pro for it's file system and lens corrections (though it doesn't have the speed ASP does), and then fine tune my exported files in Corel Paint Shop Pro.
I believe ASP one day can become a superior product in the line of it's competitors, but it just isn't there for me yet.