Purchased AfterShot Pro 2, got AfterShot 2 (non-Pro)

[madbrain]

I just purchased a license for an upgrade to the Pro version on the Corel web site.
The confirmation email from Corel / CleverBridge clearly says it's the Pro version.
The download files all have "AfterShotPro2" in the name.

Yet, when I installed it, it only created an "AfterShot 2" link on my desktop (Win 7 64-bit). Not AfterShot Pro 2.
I registered it with the license key provided.

When I start the program, the logo says "AfterShot Pro 2", as does the About box.
However, the title bar says AfterShot 2, not AfterShot Pro 2.

I can't find the Perfectly Clear Noise reduction anywhere - only RAW Noise . This seems to indicate it's the non-Pro version.
The program is fairly useless to me without the noise reduction plug-in. It is actually a major downgrade from ASP1 which had Noise Ninja.

Can anyone help me access the Pro features I paid for ?

[josephlin]

Hi, could you please confirm what splash image and about image you saw in your system? If it's same as below snapshot and I'm surely what AfterShot version you got is "PRO".

You should able to find "Perfectly Clear Noise Removal" function from "Detail" tab of right panel. Please double confirm with it.

[madbrain]

Joseph,

Thanks for the prompt reply ! I have to say that I didn't expect this from Corel on a week-end.

The splash screen is Pro indeed. And the Perfectly clear noise reduction is there in the details tab. I guess I didn't look hard enough.
But I think you should make it more obvious in the UI and show "After Shot Pro 2" as well in the title bar and the desktop links, IMO.

It seems that Perfectly Clear noise reduction is not as good as Noise Ninja was. Is there any way to move the Perfectly clear noise reduction to the main (basic adjustments) tab ?

In ASP1, there was a checkbox for "Noise Ninja" right in the Basic adjustments. And the strength could also be adjusted from the main tab.
One could click the details tab to also control the Noise Ninja smoothness. The right-side panel was split, and the basic adjustments still remained on top, while the additional details settings were shown below.

But in ASP2, Perfectly clear Noise reduction is not shown in the Basic adjustments (standard tab). Worse, the side panel is no longer split. When I click "details", the basic adjustments disappear, and are replaced with detail settings only. My monitor has 1600 lines and this means half of the right side panel is blank in ASP2, whereas it was fully populated in ASP1 before, and thus much more functional.

This really affects my workflow quite a bit - having to switch back and forth between the details and basic tabs in ASP2, whereas I didn't have to do that before with ASP1. It's a pretty big usability issue for me - it basically triples the number of clicks I have to do to process my images - as I usually want to adjust the noise reduction level and exposure in tandem. It should be fairly obvious why one would want to do that - when raising exposure level, additional noise is introduced, so it is quite natural that one would then subsequently want to apply noise reduction quickly afterwards.

This slower workflow is all the more disappointing given that ASP2 itself has gotten faster vs ASP1 now that it's 64-bit - unlike many of your competitors that are just so incredibly bloated.

Another - admittedly much smaller - usability issue is that I have to move my mouse all the way from the right side panel (where the adjustments are) to the top left to switch back to switch from Image view to Thumbnail view whereas the icon to switch back to Thumbnail view used to be right above the side panel in ASP1. It may not sound like much, but on a 2560 pixel wide monitor, it is a lot more motion to do that. I guess I will just have to memorize the keyboard shortcuts - just found that there are some for this, fortunately.

Given my criticisms of the UI in ASP2, you may wonder why I upgraded from ASP1 at all. The answer is that the 32-bit ASP1 was choking on my large picture collection, and the 64-bit was my main reason for upgrading. ASP1 was seemingly always running out of memory when browsing my large directories with hundreds/thousands of images and had to be restarted constantly. It was just showing grey thumbnails all the time. Kind of a vexing problem given my machine has 32 GB of RAM, but of course ASP1 being 32-bit could only address 4GB, and ASP2 is free to eat more. At the moment, I'm not seeing any of these issues with ASP2.

I didn't really do a thorough evaluation of ASP2 when it was first released earlier last year - I was honestly unimpressed with the update (and am still somewhat underwhelmed), and I thought the price for the upgrade was also too high. The current upgrade price ($37.99) was more reasonable, so I finally upgraded anyway. My second choice would probably have been Lightroom, which I think meets all my functional needs, except that it is much more bloated and also far more expensive.

Julien