[Kobayashi.K]

TIFF isn't a RAW format. DNG is the preferred RAW format, TIFF is the preferred format...the point is moot if future software isn't written to support those formats.

I agree, I was a bit careless, RAW and TIFF are two different categories. DNG is probably the 'preferred' RAW format for the Library of Congress because there are no good alternatives. A photographer, however, must decide how to conserve his work in the long run, and with the recent events it is good to have an extra TIFF as a backup (albeit imperfect, but better than JPEG).

June 18 is the next earnings data for Adobe so, we'll see what their move has brought (until now their stock is quite stable, surprisingly).

Back to the original question. I recently tried both AfterShot Pro and PaintShop Pro X5, but my impression is also that AfterShot is an unfinished product and it depends too much on 3-rd party plug-ins to my taste, so I decided to buy PaintShop which has everything in place. It can open a whole bunch of RAW files like PEF (Pentax), NEF (Nikon), CRW (Canon), ORF (Olympus), and others.

[West Penn]

AfterShop Pro works fine with K-01 DNG files. You can download the free trial version of ASP at the Corel website and try it for yourself, but I assure you, it does work.

[Rodney9]

AfterShop Pro works fine with K-01 DNG files. You can download the free trial version of ASP at the Corel website and try it for yourself, but I assure you, it does work.

I downloaded Corel AfterShop Pro yesterday ( 30th June 2013 ) and it will not see the DNG files from my Pentax Q.

[wildman]

Will Aftershot Pro work with newer Pentax cameras shooting DNG?

Just a thought -

If you have a DNG file that wont work on a given program run it through Adobe DNG converter (free).
It's made to convert proprietary RAW formats like CS2 (Canon) for instance into a standard Adobe compliant DNG file.

However it will recognize a DNG file and convert it to a second DNG file if that makes sense. Perhaps it converts non complaint DNG files to the latest DNG compliant standard I really don't know but it's worth a try and then see if Aftershot will recognize it. You have nothing to lose by trying.

Addendum:
Just compared the converted DNGs to the originals and the converted ones are significantly smaller so apparently it is changing something I just don't know what. The converted ones load up and look fine in ACR and PS by the way.

---

Last edited by wildman; 07-01-2013 at 05:28 AM.

[Rodney9]

Just when I thought I'd found the perfect work flow, another step is needed, or do I just shoot jpg's ?

[simico]

If you have a DNG file that wont work on a given program run it through Adobe DNG converter (free).

That won't help AfterShot Pro. It simply denies to open DNG files created by the Adobe converter and DNG files from unsupported cameras. The problem is not in the DNG files, ASP just refuses to open it if the manufacturer and camrea model in the EXIF is not in its supported cameras list. If you modify to EXIF to contain a supported camera then it will read the same file fine.
So really, it's just an interesting decision of ASP developers.

By the way ASP is dead software, just check Corel user forum. Many of us already jumped ship to other software.

[wildman]

If you modify to EXIF to contain a supported camera then it will read the same file fine.

Sounds like they went out of their way to purposely cripple the software - strange.

[rawr]

By the way ASP is dead software, just check Corel user forum. Many of us already jumped ship to other software.

Why do companies do this? All too often a perfectly decent company with great products is bought, then effectively killed.

[wildman]

Why do companies do this? All too often a perfectly decent company with great products is bought, then effectively killed.

They are, often, not buying the product but the legal right to reduce competition in the market.

[simico]

Why do companies do this? All too often a perfectly decent company with great products is bought, then effectively killed.

As someone wrote on the Corel forum: "Corel, where software goes to die."

My guess: Corel just wanted to get the raw engine to implement it in PSP. Probably it was easier to buy a small firm (Bibble Labs) and their product than develop internally "in house". I can't really imagine any other sane reason for not releasing any new useful release, not supporting new cameras, not fixing several year old critical bugs, firing the entire original developer team, leaving customers in the dark with zero communication (or once in a blue moon some new product manager throws in some promises then disappears) ,etc.

Too bad, I liked Bibble 5.x / AfterShot Pro, for me it was the best available solution on Linux at that time (Darktable was very basic with strange UI, RawTherapee was too cumbersome to use for me). It's very fast, has good UI, some unique features, all in all could have been a very good product competing LR. Unfortunately it also has half-finished thus semi-useless features, some missing basic features (although there are good, free 3rd party plugins for them) and many critical bugs. Good example of how to screw a nice product with great potential.

[Rodney9]

As someone wrote on the Corel forum: "Corel, where software goes to die."

My guess: Corel just wanted to get the raw engine to implement it in PSP. Probably it was easier to buy a small firm (Bibble Labs) and their product than develop internally "in house". I can't really imagine any other sane reason for not releasing any new useful release, not supporting new cameras, not fixing several year old critical bugs, firing the entire original developer team, leaving customers in the dark with zero communication (or once in a blue moon some new product manager throws in some promises then disappears) ,etc.

Too bad, I liked Bibble 5.x / AfterShot Pro, for me it was the best available solution on Linux at that time (Darktable was very basic with strange UI, RawTherapee was too cumbersome to use for me). It's very fast, has good UI, some unique features, all in all could have been a very good product competing LR. Unfortunately it also has half-finished thus semi-useless features, some missing basic features (although there are good, free 3rd party plugins for them) and many critical bugs. Good example of how to screw a nice product with great potential.

Simico, what do you use now ? I found Darktable too slow and feature limited and I agree Raw Therapee is cumbersome. After shot was terrific till I found it couldn't see my Q raw files.

[simico]

Simico, what do you use now ? I found Darktable too slow and feature limited and I agree Raw Therapee is cumbersome. After shot was terrific till I found it couldn't see my Q raw files.

I use Lightroom 4 in Virtualbox virtual machine (I'm too lazy to fiddle with Wine and already had a Win7 virtual machine). I gave Darktable and Raw Therapee another try and still didn't like them enough. I'm very satisfied with LR4 now, just have to get used to a couple of things.

[ChopperCharles]

Lightroom 5 is too damn slow, and the interface and workflow horrid. I was hoping AfterShotPro would be the solution, but it doesn't support my Q. So, on to looking for other alternatives...

Charles.

[ChopperCharles]

Also, aftershot pro's RAW developer is junk compared to lightroom. Not loving lightroom at all, but damn if it can't make some nice looking jpegs out of high-iso raw files. The color noise slider is worth putting up with the crappy interface...

Charles.

[RGlasel]

Corel just wanted to get the raw engine to implement it in PSP

Possible, but I doubt it. Not only does PSP properly handle DNG files, where ASP doesn't, but PSP seems to be better than the RAW conversion in Corel PhotoPaint. I tried the demo version of ASP but removed it when it wouldn't recognize my K-30. Apparently ASP is fast and lets you make all adjustments in the same mode, so you don't have to switch from library mode to develop mode for instance, and it runs on Macs, whereas PSP doesn't. There doesn't appear to have been any serious upgrading or updating in ASP for a few years, so I expect it to wither away until there aren't any customers left that need support for it. PSP on the other hand is getting regular updates, and the program has been altered considerably in recent years.

DNG is like PDF, it isn't going away and will become the standard everywhere. Any image manipulation program that doesn't support DNG is dead in the water from here on in.