Aftershot Pro update.

cytochrome · October 15, 2014, 05:22:16 PM

There is an update to ASP: version 2.1.0.40

Might be interesting for Fuji users:

Canon SX50 HS
Fujifilm X-T1, X-E1, X-E2, X-PRO1, X-M1, X100S et X20
Nikon D4s, D3300, 1 V3, 1 J4, Coolpix P330 et Coolpix A
Pentax K-500 (DNG seulement), 645Z, Q (DNG only)

Francis

Ferdinand · October 16, 2014, 08:27:34 AM

It's good that updates are flowing more frequently.

But the Fuji x-trans support is not usable, see this post and my reply.

I reported this issue as part of beta testing some weeks ago. It seems that they have fixed release dates and went ahead and released anyway.

cytochrome · October 16, 2014, 08:54:28 AM

I saw the posts on the ASP forum (your's was not online yesterday), still it is encouraging to see that something is still alive in the ASP section at Corel.

By the way do you know if all plugins including Gradfilter work now on the 64 bits version? (I know that Bez does, but I am also using Gradfilter a lot).

Francis

Ferdinand · October 16, 2014, 10:42:05 AM

Don't know.

I have had some communication from the other plugin builders. tintin's zXXX ones generally do I think.

I don't think that the other devs have put in the same level of effort that we have. In some cases it's because the migration to a 64-bit environment is not trivial. I found it very hard and only got there with help from tintin and jonathan.

kbarni has given up and gone away. He sold most of his to corel and has released the others as public domain for anyone who wants to convert them.

I would not hold my breath for gradfilter or for any of sean's that Corel do not own.

Personally I think 64-bit is over-rated.

cytochrome · October 16, 2014, 03:56:41 PM

Quote from: Ferdinand on October 16, 2014, 10:42:05 AM
...Personally I think 64-bit is over-rated.

Two times ?

Thanks for the info, I'm breasting again, was turning blue..

Francis

Ferdinand · October 17, 2014, 12:16:05 PM

Perhaps something was lost in translation, because I don't understand.

cytochrome · October 17, 2014, 03:43:29 PM

must be gallic "humour" . If "64-bit is over-rated" versus 32 bits....

Francis

Ferdinand · October 18, 2014, 09:07:11 AM

I got that part. It was the part about not breathing and turning blue that went over my head ....

cytochrome · October 18, 2014, 09:56:34 AM

Quote from: Ferdinand on October 18, 2014, 09:07:11 AM
I got that part. It was the part about not breathing and turning blue that went over my head ....

QuoteI would not hold my breath for gradfilter

==> Cyanosis

Francis

Ferdinand · October 18, 2014, 10:30:32 AM

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........................

Nytewulf · October 19, 2014, 03:11:29 AM

Given the way Corel has handled AfterShot (going ages without providing support for new RAW formats, rebranding a buggy beta as a release version, etc), I don't have any faith in Corel's commitment to ASP.

Corel effectively abandoned ASP for about a year and a half. A lot changed during that period. I have a hard time imagining ASP making a comeback in this more competitive market.

John

Ferdinand · October 19, 2014, 09:57:50 AM

Me also, but it's better alive that not. Not least because I put a lot of work into my humble plugins, and several others put in a lot more, and I don't want to see it wasted. It's also useful to have it there to place some competitive pressure on the big players - I think ASP pricing is one reason why the LR price fell over time. And of course there aren't many options for the linux crowd. And no other converter has real, user-written plugins that run during the processing pipeline. And it is fast.

But I lost faith a long time ago. I held on for a long time, but faced with Corel's behaviour ..... The fact the latest version was released with a serious bug in x-trans demosaicing, which was reported rather early in the rather short beta-testing, does not help restore faith. There are a lot of long-standing bugs.

[I could say a lot more, but what's the point?]

cytochrome · October 19, 2014, 04:30:26 PM

Faith? In a piece of software? Even Imatch, if ever Mario meets his famous bus and his maker...

ASP is fast, also fast to use and mostly pleasant. It is a complete solution for nearly all my photos, I can handle almost everything from within a single interface. Some times I use Dx09, when I compare the JPGs it is often the ASP one that I prefer.

So I don't speculate about what could happen in the future, at present it is the quickest and easiest way to get a decent photo out of my Pana and Nikon RAWs.

Francis

Nytewulf · October 19, 2014, 09:37:33 PM

Quote from: cytochrome on October 19, 2014, 04:30:26 PM
Faith? In a piece of software? Even Imatch, if ever Mario meets his famous bus and his maker...

The point Mario was making in the Mario-Meets-Bus post, of course, was that the work you put into IMatch will remain your work and that you will always have the option of porting it elsewhere -- it's not being stored in a proprietary vault. For me that, that was an important consideration.

While in the end it's simply a matter of perspective and preference, I need to have a reasonable degree of faith in the software I use just as I need to have faith in the equipment I use. Squeezing everything you can get from a camera or a RAW editor (or a DAM) is a big commitment of time -- and given Corel's history with ASP, there is no reason (for me) to make that commitment to ASP again.

Although, it's not really a matter of faith -- it's more a matter of "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior". Even if development on ASP was stalled, failing to provide support for new RAW formats was inexcusable. I have faith that Corel will do something like that again. :-)) Also, without the support of plugin creators like Ferdinand, I don't think ASP has much of a future -- unlike LR plugins were essential to the functionality of ASP -- plugin development is just as important as program development in ASP. Also, at the time Corel acquired the software, it only had a few competitors and RAW editing was still a bit "hardcore". By the time Corel finally decided to get back in the game, ASP was facing competition not LR (which improved significantly during that period) as well as from a new generation "friendlier" RAW editors that are beginning to mature that I think have more appeal to the expanding number of people who formally wouldn't have bothered with editing RAW files. So the future does not bode well for ASP on that front either.

John

Ferdinand · October 20, 2014, 09:33:01 AM

In common English usage, "faith" may be used more widely than "la foi", as in having confidence in something. I don't have confidence yet that the resurgence will be sustained or go far enough, and so I am reluctant to put in much effort to develop a workflow around it or develop plugins.

Very little that has happened in ASP post Bibble has been an improvement. I still use B5 for NEF images sometimes - I prefer the colours.

cytochrome · October 20, 2014, 02:46:20 PM

Ferdinand, I read quite a lot of fiction in English, and the press too. I also wrote a lot (science stuff). Anyway faith was meant as confidence. I have none.

John Zeman said in a recent post he was dirt old. I am probably older (lets not start a contest...) don't know how many month/years I have to go, certainly not a lot. Living on a day by day basis I use whatever fits my needs without consideration for what may happen, totally indifferent to Corel's strategy or absence of. The next generation of camera with Peltier cooled sensor and stacked shots or whatever improvement are on their way is not for me.

Francis

Nytewulf · October 20, 2014, 06:07:00 PM

Quote from: Ferdinand on October 20, 2014, 09:33:01 AM
I don't have confidence yet that the resurgence will be sustained or go far enough, and so I am reluctant to put in much effort to develop a workflow around it or develop plugins.

That's the Catch-22 with ASP2. Without the plugins, it doesn't provide much more than RAW editors that come with the cameras do. Last night I checked the plugin library, and none of the plugins that kept me using ASP after it became buggy have been updated -- and it doesn't appear that they will be.

I also want an alternative to LR -- if nothing else, I find Adobe's domination of the market unhealthy -- I just don't think ASP is going to be that alternative.

In any case, while I didn't make the connection until this thread, I made good use of your plugins and appreciate the contributions you made.

John

jch2103 · October 20, 2014, 06:31:30 PM

Quote from: Nytewulf on October 20, 2014, 06:07:00 PM
I also want an alternative to LR -- if nothing else, I find Adobe's domination of the market unhealthy -- I just don't think ASP is going to be that alternative.

Try DxO.

cytochrome · October 20, 2014, 07:04:59 PM

I have DxO9 since some month, and don't use it much. In most cases it is slower than ASP. What I like in DxO is the visual choice of a lot of presets that give a quick start into say low-key, or acidulated look, etc. This is neat. And of course Prime when I have time.

But when I compare the final result I often like ASP more. With the D7K I used a personal color preset, the default colors where a bit awful, on the orange side. For Nef, ViewNx2 is pretty good. And it writes IPTC into the NEF!!!

Francis

Ferdinand · October 20, 2014, 09:33:12 PM

Quote from: Nytewulf on October 20, 2014, 06:07:00 PM
Last night I checked the plugin library, and none of the plugins that kept me using ASP after it became buggy have been updated -- and it doesn't appear that they will be.

Updated for 64 bit? Mine have and tintin's have, but you have to look in the forum to find them. I assume that Corel have not put them in the official repository because there are still quite a few missing, which would be embarrassing, but so is not having any of them there.