Ways out of the ASp 2.2 plugin-disaster ?

[rainer042]

Hello,

I am still using ASP 2.1 because I cannot upgrade to 2.2 because of missing plugins for 2.2. ASP 2.2 came out on Apr 23. So now its nearly a month ago and I as well as many other corel customers cannot use the latest and greatest version of ASP.

Corel says that it tried to motivate plugin developers to update their plugins but some did not even respond others do not have the time do recompile their code. Well after all this is not really helpful for me as a photographer. I processed all of my photos with several plugins (zPerspector, Wavelet sharpen+denoise, asGPS) simply because ASP does not provide any or a good solution compared to a plugin that does the job.

So what might be the solution? In my eyes plugins the way they are now and the support they get are problematic like everyone learned right now. Developing is always a hard work and probably for some plugin develeopers it turned out that they did not get anything for their work, or they have another job now leaving them no more time for plugin developement. On the other side corel just does not care about the basic problem: Missing functionality. At the moment corel acts like it sells a car without tires saying, sorry the tires are produced from another company and this company simply is unreachable at the moment.

One solution is not to use plugins. I thought about that but this would break my workflow since in ASP there is simply functionality missing. There is eg. no such tool like zperspector allowing you to get lines straight. So I would have to create a jpg in ASP and then use another external tool to straighten lines. I would have to do this each time I see another minor flaw in the photo I can easily correct with ASP but then afterwards I still have to do straightning again. This is process would be very painful and I do not want to work this way. Similar things could be said about other missing core functionality.

So in my eyes the only way out of this bad situation would be that corel adds more core tools to ASP by default offering functionality that is not yet there or only available by plugins. The best thing of course would be to include the offered plugins to ASP core tools since then no changes would be needed for photos that have already been processed using ASP+plugins. But even if there are newly developed core tools that simply offer the missing functionality the resulting situation would be better than what we see at the moment with the release of 2.2 version of ASp.

At the moment I am really annoyed, by this bad situation. I am annoyed to a degree that I even started to play aound with tools like rawtherapy or darktable. I think they are powerful but not yet as easy to use as ASP but this is a matter of time. And if corel wants me to pay some day for say ASP 3 and I would again have to face the trouble I have now I am not sure what I would do. And I guess I am not the only one with such thoughts....

Have a nice day
Rainer

[Hobgoblin]

Very sadly I have to agree with your observations.
The way forward now is either 'darktable' or 'RawTherapee'.

[Arnfinn]

The ASP plugin Armageddon hit Corel and the community much harder than expected. Corel needs to use all their resources to help plugin developers with their upgrades and where the plugins remains broken or unsupported, incorporate similiar functions into the core product to secure backwards compatibility.

[LViatour]

Darktable solution is here!

I went there a week darktable after many years with Bibble / ASP. Well in darktable everything is better, stable, fast and no need for any plugins is included. And it's free !!!!

[baldrick777]

Darktable solution is here!

I went there a week darktable after many years with Bibble / ASP. Well in darktable everything is better, stable, fast and no need for any plugins is included. And it's free !!!!

The problem is, having to re-learn a new program with all it's intricacies.

I suspect many who use Windows or Mac have far larger offerings of software, could use LR or Elements, but for Linux users, the ease of use component in software is pretty much limited to ASP. Ofcourse, there are other easy-to-use 8-bit RAW editors around, like Pixeluvo, but for the best quality under Linux, it's ASP.

It would be far better for Corel to develop their own core functions which emulate what the existing plugins do.

V2.2 probably should have only been released as a beta, considering the plugin issue. The stable release should have happened when say 70%+ of plugins had been updated.

Hopefully they'll be reading all these comments and be better prepared for the next upgrade.

[Laurent]

Darktable solution is here!

I went there a week darktable after many years with Bibble / ASP. Well in darktable everything is better, stable, fast and no need for any plugins is included. And it's free !!!!

Just try it, darktable is great. It contains all the tools without the need to add plugins and got much better results than ASP2.2. I was able to zoom in to 200% with very good sharpness in the screen.
And Darktable is in the deposits of Opensuse fo the linux users like me.
The grip is different, it took me a few hours. And files "xmp" are not compatible with ASP although darktable write in without problem it does not recognize an ASP development. So all the work done with ASP is to be remade with darktable for those like me who has create their picture library management with ASP.
The only censure is that the tools menu is not detachable as ASP. I work on a laptop with an additional screen and can move the tools menu on the laptop screen allows me to have more image viewing comfort.

[LViatour]

I went there a week darktable after many years with Bibble / ASP. Well in darktable everything is better, stable, fast and no need for any plugins is included. And it's free !!!!

Just try it, darktable is great. It contains all the tools without the need to add plugins and got much better results than ASP2.2. I was able to zoom in to 200% with very good sharpness in the screen.
[/quote]

I started with Bibble there 8 years. Despite that the transition to darktable happened very quickly. In one week I have completely abandoned ASP. And everything is better.
For the French there is a YouTube channel that explains very clearly its operation and that made me a lot of time.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... lw54iiKRMb

[Laurent]

For the French there is a YouTube channel that explains very clearly its operation and that made me a lot of time.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... lw54iiKRMb

Thank you for this link. Great tutorials !!

[andreas]

the whole plugin dev support from Corel has been to give us some vms to compile which (for me) do not work and a lot of primises to help. But there was no help.

Andreas

[lundbech]

Darktable solution is here!

I went there a week darktable after many years with Bibble / ASP. Well in darktable everything is better, stable, fast and no need for any plugins is included. And it's free !!!!

Here's what I wrote about Darktable elsewhere a year and a half ago:

"Anything but Darktable.
Darktable is a powerfull tool, but the UI is an unholy mess. Really!
If you at new to RAW converters/editors you should stay far far away from Darktable. The tools (called modules) are placed according to some programinternal logic, not in any useful order. The UI as a whole suffers from some very bad design decisions.
I've used RawTherapee, AfterShot, Lightzone, Photivo, Darktable and a few others. All of those (except Darktable) I was able to get comfortable with within very short time, even though they are very different, but never with Darktable.
AfterShot I highly recommend. LightZone also. Photivo is very powerfull for converting af single picture, but has a fairly odd UI. RawTherapee og Darktable fall somewhat behind, and with AfterShot and LightZone available why would you want them? "

I have recently had a new look at it, and I haven't changed my opinion.

[Arnfinn]

Introducing AfterShot Pro 2.2! - Postby Greg Wood on Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:14 pm
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=56478

The update to AfterShot Pro 2.2 does results in a couple of side effects to be aware of before upgrading. Plugins did (or do) need to be recompiled for AfterShot Pro 2.2. Recent research told us that most AfterShot users could wait “no more than 1-2 weeks” for plugin availability, and I’m pleased to report that the plugin developer community has responded and we have already have a variety of popular “2.2” compatible plugins available on aftershotpro.com. We’ve maintained access to previous plugin versions as well to support those among you who don’t plan to upgrade.

(!)...??

Finally, thank you for your patience as we continue to enhance AfterShot, including the AfterShot plugin ecosystem and our update process. We have lots more great things planned, and we hope you’ll continue to be a part of it.

So, after all these nice words it's very disappointing to learn that Corel didn't do much to help the plugin developers working through the transition to 2.2. The plugin ecosystem has been the core of the ASP's customers everyday experience. Corel should definitely have acnowledged the importance of the plugins and taken action accordingly. They did after all ask us to contribute on a plugin survey...

"thank you for your patience..." (!) You're welcome...

the whole plugin dev support from Corel has been to give us some vms to compile which (for me) do not work and a lot of primises to help. But there was no help.

The fact that some plugins have gone dead and some developers have abandoned ship is one thing, but lack of support from the Corel Dev team towards those that seriously try to upgrade their plugins is a completely different situation. Very disappointing, Corel...

Recent research told us that most AfterShot users could wait “no more than 1-2 weeks” for plugin availability, and I’m pleased to report that the plugin developer community has responded...

...but no response/support towards the plugin developers from Corel..???

[jknights]

There is a way out but I am not sure Corel would want to go that route. This is to recompile ASPv2.2 with the older QT version (4.2) This would allow all the old plugins to work.

Longer term Corel need to either offer a compile service as I personally dont have the time to do this at present. I used to be able to compile on all platforms but this is when I had active help from the Bibble/Aftershot team to debug compile issues.
This was one off help but it was invaluable as once the platform is working then it is easy to just add projects and compile.

I confess that I still need to test the new VMs but time constraints limit me.

[rainer042]

Hello,

another week has passed by now since I started this thread.

To my knowledge there are still no news about plugins. Are there at least talks going on behind the scenes between corel and plugin developers to solve this problem? Can anyone from corel or of the devs comment on this? Is there only darkness in in the tunnel or can anyone already see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Rainer

[baldrick777]

Hello,

another week has passed by now since I started this thread.

To my knowledge there are still no news about plugins. Are there at least talks going on behind the scenes between corel and plugin developers to solve this problem? Can anyone from corel or of the devs comment on this? Is there only darkness in in the tunnel or can anyone already see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Rainer

The only light I can see at the moment, is to remove asp2.2 and re-install 2.1 32bit.
That way you have what you had before, and the full range of plugins should work.

It's more of a workaround, but I've done this, and it seems to work fine on my 64-bit machine.

Agreed though that this whole experience will hopefully make Corel take note for next time. Maybe next time if they want to do the same thing, they'll release it as a "beta-only" version until atleast 70% of plugins are ported and compatible with 64-bit machines.

[dFlyer]

I also removed 2.2 and reinstalled 2.1. Hopefully the will soon have the plug-ins compiled to work with 2.2 so I can reinstall it.