AfterShot Pro 2 - serious software?

[Bob Rockefeller]

Is Corel's AfterShot Pro serious software? Does it compete favorably with Lightroom and Capture One Pro for RAW conversions? Is it a solid DAM?

I don't read much about it.

[Damon Lynch]

The good:

• It's been around for a long time - almost 16 years. Back in the day Phil Askey described it as an "excellent professional workflow and RAW conversion application"
• It's very good value, going for as low as $40
• Runs on more platforms than the competition
• It's very fast. Aftershot Pro is out of the door and down the road before Lightroom has put its pants on. It seems Eric Hyman really knew his stuff with respect to multicore programming.
• The UI is clean and simple. It's much easier set up outputting in multiple sizes and assigning each a hot key than it is in Lightroom, for instance.

The bad:

• The UI lacks features e.g. inputting metadata is a chore
• The basic processing tools are inferior to other products, e.g. shadow recovery, noise reduction
• It has a DAM but it's pretty simple

The ugly:

• Image quality can at time really suck compared to other projects. For some reason it always seemed to struggle with Canon's reds, for instance.
• The community around it is smaller and less sophisticated

In conclusion I think can be a good solution for the less sophisticated, value-conscious buyer who wants to move beyond out-of-camera jpegs, but wants to spend as little time as possible on RAW processing and on learning how to do it. For everyone else there are better solutions.

[Bob Rockefeller]

In conclusion I think can be a good solution for the less sophisticated, value-conscious buyer who wants to move beyond out-of-camera jpegs, but wants to spend as little time as possible on RAW processing and on learning how to do it. For everyone else there are better solutions.

Thank you for the detailed reply.

It explains why I don't hear much about it in serious photography circles. But, as you said, it sounds like a great step up from Photos.

That puts me back in the Lightroom camp, missing Aperture, and hoping that Capture One Pro can grown into the role of an all-around Lightroom competitor.

[HCS]

What Damon said.

Aftershot, or rather Bibble, is all about workflow. Not the best image quality, not the easiest dam features, but good enough considering it can get things out so fast that it puts others to shame.

The main point being the human part of the workflow. The engine is also flying.

It is also the only multi OS raw converter with a concept of workflow, on all 3 major OS's. There are many more that run on all three, but none of them implements the workflow concept as Aftershot does.

I ran when they sold out to Corel