COREL, where do you go from here...?

[Arnfinn]

This was intentionally intended as a response to a question in the plugins section, but the answer is more relevant as a foundational question to the Corel AfterShot development team. The lack of love, commitment and dedication for the development of AfterShot is significant and it is the telltale sign of the importance that Corel has to invest more in its raw processing flagship, if it's not going to end up as a second grade abandonware.
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is there any way to "upgrade" my Gradfilter Pro License?
I purchased one for ASP1 and ASP2, so I thought maybe there is a reward for long-term customers who want to use it with ASP3 too, and maybe a better price for that.

Unfortunately, no. The Corel AfterShot/Photo Development team seems to have been completely underfunded since they first acquired the great raw processor Bibble Pro and renamed it to AfterShot Pro. Technology wise, the software had some great features that was ahead of its competition, but also its shortcomings. If Corel had actually invested in the development it could have been all in the forefront of raw processing technologies, but it has mainly been down to a few bug fixes and a new feature once in a while all since the acquisition. By that, lagging behind its competitors further and further every day. Every new product manager of the AfterShot team has had great promises for both the software and the development team's communication with the community, but so far both the development and the communication has been scarce at best.

Regarding the Gradfilter, I also have a paid pro version and AfterShot 2 as the latest version. The fact that AfterShot 3 was only a minor upgrade (hardly worth the main version status), and the fact that even paid customers of the GradFilter Pro version had to purchase the plugin at the same price point as new customers was the complete turn-off in my book. They didn't even bother to add features to it or improve anything and give it a new version number. Just a new forced payment for the compatibility they themselves broke with their internal Qt 5.4 kernel upgrade. So, in reality this means that those "suckers" that already had paid for it, had to move in line with all new and old AfterShot customers and shell out money for the same software they already had paid for earlier. To me it's not about the money itself, as it's a really small sum to pay, but its about the signal Corel is sending to its customers. 1. They don't appreciate the value of their existing customers. 2. They are flat out broke and has no appropriate resources for further development.

The fact is, that the GradFilter is in its current version mainly is about back level compatibility with the thousands upon thousands of images where the plugin has been used in the past, and for current basic grad level functionality. Actually, this kind of functionality should have been part of the core program. Every other major raw processor has grad filter functionality as standard. In most cases even far more advanced than the GradFilter plugin. Only Corel has the guts to charge even paid owners of this plugin twice, without even adding anything new or improved to it...(!). They really must be broke...

Introducing the New AfterShot Pro 3 by Greg Wood » Wed May 11, 2016 7:36 pm
http://forum.corel.com/EN/posting.php?m ... 0&p=326295

Gradfilter is back!
Throughout the ASP2 cycle, Gradfilter has been constantly requested. Now its back! Corel has acquired GradFilter Lite and GradFilter Pro from its original developer, Roger Barnes (thanks Roger!), and we've added both GradFilters to our plugins manager under the "Get More" tab. As in the past, Gradfilter Pro is a paid plugin. Unlike the past, Gradfilter Lite now has a small cost as well, which is effectively how we're funding the acquisition of this great plugin. At launch, through the end of May, these will be discounted so loyal upgrade customers get a special price as a thank you for your loyalty. (Lite is $1.99 USD; Pro $14.99) We're glad to have Gradfilter back.

Since the GradFilter has its shortcomings, I did suggest an alternative that would have brought AfterShot back to the forefront with its competitors. But to no prevail.

My previously published [Suggestion] Grad Filter Plugin & Grad Layer Tool http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=56543
A gradient tool for layers would have used the same layer technology they already has integrated into AfterShot, without the limitations the GradFilter plugin has. Actually, I would have expected a functionality like this or similar with a major upgrade, but no. AfterShot is lagging behind its competition all and every day, and has done so almost since they acquired it's predecessor, Bibble Pro.
As of such, I have lost my faith in both the development team and the future of this software. I do use AfterShot Pro 2 almost every day to sort through and compare/organize images, and even convert those that don't need so much extra work, but I do also use other raw converters for my images.

I have always had my hopes that Corel, one day would put some love and dedication into this fine piece of software, but hopes are getting slim.
Please, Corel, please prove me wrong...

[Hobgoblin]

Nicely put.
Too late for me too.
I've switched to https://www.darktable.org/.
Good support and has all the tools you could ever wish for, and it is free.

[benoitgphoto]

Yeah I have been patient with Corel and I am really disappointed. I was coming in when Apple scrapped Aperture and found ASP2 not bad overall for the price but ASP3 is bad, really bad stability wise. This software is crashing when you breathe too strong. Today, I edited 4 pictures and my editing is quite basic, no layers, no batch processing etc. Only exposure, sharpening and contrast adjustment. And ASP3 crashed on every single pic. This is unacceptable especially 6+ months after release. I would not want to have shot a 500+ pics wedding and run batch processing on that. It is to believe Corel makes the money out of fools they are catching the first time and even from more stupid people like me who throw money a second time for an update. Sadly, they just do not care to deliver good initial quality software. I mean they have a big potential software in their hands but they just do not realize it. They can attract people who do not want to embrace Adobe model and softwares with ASP/PSP combo but they just don't see it. Now competitors are beating them up. Affinity Photo is available or will soon be available on PC coming from Mac version and this is a serious Photoshop competitor at a very good price. I have been using it on Mac for a while and this is the best PS alternative out there. ON1 will be launching Photo Raw software this month and they seem to have taken a bit from ASP and this software looks very good at a decent price too for the non Linux users. Same thing on CorelDraw side...no Mac version for years and Affinity had developed Affinity Designer on Mac, available or soon to be on PC...again praised software decently priced. Still same thing on productivity with WordPerfect Office...they can easily be a strong competitor to Microsoft but....Too bad they are sleeping at Corel...they use to be a great software company and I wanted so much to use their software but at this point of time, ASP3 will be my last Corel software. People who shoot in RAW are usually people who can afford quite good not cheap equipment and they need to not just be competitive price wise but quality wise also. Nowadays, in tech business, a company must invest and innovate if they want to survive and more importantly, they need to deliver high initial quality product and Corel is not there at all.

[Ludgateman]

Sad to say I agree. I still use ASP3 as my photo library lives there, and I love the tagging functions, plugin and RAW development alongside the library and catalogues, but, and it's a big but, Serif Software here in the UK have developed Affinity Designer, available for PC & MAC, released Affinity Photo on Mac and currently in Beta for PC, and are teasing rumours of a DAM on the horizon. When that arrives, I'll be waving goodbye to ASP - the level of support Serif have put in to the Affinity line is astounding - just visit the user forum to see how it SHOULD be done - and all from a small company whose software is winning awards, accolades and being touted as a real rival to Photoshop - wake up Corel!

[thazooo]

Have to agree. I waited over a year for ASP2 to support my camera, now with ASP3 I'm waiting again. This lack of staying current is also drifting over to their other programs also. PSP X8 locks up on my box, yet PSP X6 runs. VSP X8 won't even start but X9.5 runs. Kinda hit and miss, and not worth it.
Sad.

[-cr]

Although I still find it sad, I have to say: I don't really care where Corel goes from here with ASP. Too little, too late. I'll probably keep using ASP2/32bit as my main RAW developer as long as I don't need support for a new(er) camera (or until OS compatibility breaks or anything like that), and enjoy all the plug-ins I've long become accustomed to (including Nostalgia and Nuance!), as well as the lack of crashes that ASP3 seems to have introduced.

After that, I'll most likely switch to DarkTable, which in the meantime I've also learned to appreciate. DT has come a long way since I had last given it a try some years ago.

Sorry Corel ... but thanks for keeping Bibble alive for the last few years, anyway!

[MasterChief]

Although I still find it sad, I have to say: I don't really care where Corel goes from here with ASP. Too little, too late. I'll probably keep using ASP2/32bit as my main RAW developer as long as I don't need support for a new(er) camera (or until OS compatibility breaks or anything like that), and enjoy all the plug-ins I've long become accustomed to (including Nostalgia and Nuance!), as well as the lack of crashes that ASP3 seems to have introduced.

After that, I'll most likely switch to DarkTable, which in the meantime I've also learned to appreciate. DT has come a long way since I had last given it a try some years ago.

Sorry Corel ... but thanks for keeping Bibble alive for the last few years, anyway!

Somewhat concur with you. I have heard many complaints about Corel the past few years, but see little increase in customer support. I have used PSP, beginning with X$ thru X9. I also just purchased ASP3 a couple of months ago. Not being able to use plugins such as NIK and others is a bummer.

So I do care which way Corel goes. There is a lot of potential there if they just learn how to tap it. PSP will never replace PS, but ASP could certainly give Lightroom a run for its money.

[Voiceofexperience]

There is a lot of potential there if they just learn how to tap it

Well saying you're new here - some of us have been making these same complaints for ten years.

but ASP could certainly give Lightroom a run for its money.

Heh - not in a million years. And it's not even as if Lr is a hard target to go for, as its IQ isn't much to talk about: but even it gets the IQ basics - noise reduction, highlight handling, demosaicing - right.

Corel (Bibble before it) has had years and years and years to "give Lightroom a run for its money". Yet it's no closer now than it was when I got my (just released when I bought it) Canon 30D.

What amazes me most of all is that anyone would persevere with ASP given the long history of its inadequacy - surely good results are more important to people than an obsession with Linux, which seems to most hold-outs' reason to cling on to it..?

Want Corel to pay attention?

Stop buying their software.

[benoitgphoto]

I have been watching and I just bought ON1 Photo RAW. This is very promising and if well executed, will be a true competitor to LR and Capture One. By buying it early, you get access to the pre-release. Some will argue on that practice but this is a different topic. The pre-release version 1 was terribly buggy. Within a week, they made an update to the pre-release that corrected over 50 bugs and it is much more stable (actually pretty close to ASP 3 as far as stability). The pre-release does not have crop tool and histogram but they will be available at launch, they are still optimizing them. The scheduled official launch date is December 19th. Yes there are a lot of features missing (like automatic lens correction among others) but ON1 posted a 2017 roadmap about their expected monthly updates. This is where it jumped in my face...for ASP2 Corel has a roadmap on a missing feature at launch and it was HDR module. For ASP3...no Roadmap for improvements or anything. For example, there are a lot of missing lenses in their database. They ask to send them feedback if we want one lens profile to be added and if we do, this will be added maybe sometime, you can't know when...a much serious practice would be to get a roadmap like this:: in 3 months, we will be adding Sony lenses. In 6 months, we will have added Fuji-X mount lenses in our database. Same with Canon, Nikon, Sigma, Tamron. They can prioritize on customers requests or a poll posted here where they will inform their customers of it. But sad truth, for version 3, they do not have any roadmap of anything. They do not even commit on updates frequency. That simply tells me that Corel is not committed to ASP3...so I agree with the previous poster : Want Corel to pay attention, stop buying their software.

Just went to their site to check when was the las update : Actually it was 2 days ago on December 7th. This update does not show up in ASP3 and it is not posted anywhere. This updates is bugs fixes and get the version from 3.1.xxxx to 3.2.xxx Don't see anything in there that justifies a .1 update

[Dutchmm]

I too liked ON1 Photo RAW. My only gripe is that it won't run in a W10 guest on my linux box. Supposedly it might if I had a more modern graphics card, but on a small (miniITX) fanless system, that's just a pipe dream. OTOH you (or someone else in this, or a nearby thread) mentioned Affinity Photo for Windows. And that is the direction I am going. It runs (crawls would be closer to the truth) on my AMD based laptop, but it will run the same in my i7 linux box. And (like ON1 RAW) it has the blending options we have all been crying for in ASP since forever.

So, au revoir Benoit, and adieu ASP.

[benoitgphoto]

I too liked ON1 Photo RAW. My only gripe is that it won't run in a W10 guest on my linux box. Supposedly it might if I had a more modern graphics card, but on a small (miniITX) fanless system, that's just a pipe dream. OTOH you (or someone else in this, or a nearby thread) mentioned Affinity Photo for Windows. And that is the direction I am going. It runs (crawls would be closer to the truth) on my AMD based laptop, but it will run the same in my i7 linux box. And (like ON1 RAW) it has the blending options we have all been crying for in ASP since forever.

So, au revoir Benoit, and adieu ASP.

Same here..good bye ASP. I've been processing a truck load of photos with ON1 Photo Raw Pre-release for the last couple of days. Yes it crashes (pre-release) but all in all, it is gonna be awesome in a very short term.

[garibaldi]

Has anyone tried ON1 Photo Raw with WINE? I sent them a message asking if they had any plans for Linux support and they said they are not planning to bring it to Linux I wonder if it would work with WINE...

[Dutchmm]

I tried it in Crossover 15, just before Codeweavers issued Crossover 16.0. It wouldn't install. Codeweavers are saying that their new version - the first to be based on WINE 2.0 - is much more capable with 64-bit apps; I am still struggling, though. Microsoft .NET 4.6.1, which is a pre-requsite for DXO Optics, won't install on my Mint 18 machine.

If you have a relatively recent and powerful system - ON1 requires a graphics card up to at least OpenGL 3.3, and you don't get that on every motherboard - you could try running a dedicated Windows guest VM. It's how I am using Affinity Photo (only needs DirectX 10) here.

HTH

[Arnfinn]

This wasn't intended as a thread/discussion of ON1 RAW on different Linux configurations. Please make new thread for that purpose...
Well, it probably doesn't matter much anyway... ASP seems more and more like abandonware, so, unless Corel does something positive with the software, or the Corel Development Team chime in and tell us where they are going with this, it's not much point discussing ASP anyway. It's beginning to show signs that it has been mothballed...

Please COREL, tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that you care for ASP and have active plans for it...

[Dutchmm]

This wasn't intended as a thread/discussion of ON1 RAW on different Linux configurations.

So tell me, in Norway, when you find an apparently dead body, don't you slap the face to see whether there is a reaction?

Because, if there isn't, then some of us need a way forward.