Corel AfterShot Pro was hyped as a serious Lightroom competitor when it was announced over two years ago. While the program received a few updates along the way, it was quickly forgotten and written off by most photographers. Adobe’s Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture were just too well oiled to let AfterShot Pro in the door. However, that hasn’t stopped Corel from building a better version of AfterShot Pro.
Corel has announced AfterShot Pro 2 for Windows, Mac and Linux and priced it competitively at $79.99 and just $59.99 for those upgrading from version 1. Also, if you are a Lightroom or Aperture users, you can get the upgrade pricing for a limited time.
Corel claims that AfterShot Pro 2 is the fastest RAW converter and photo management software on the market. It delivers on 64-bit processing with 4x faster speeds than the leading competitor (presumably, Lightroom 5).
AfterShot Pro 2 also adds built-in HDR processing and noise reduction from Athentech, among several other new features and new camera support.
Here’s a list of upgrades from Corel in AfterShot Pro 2:
- NEW! 64-bit power: Now 30% faster! Get even more processing power and remove memory limitations with new 64-bit architecture. Enjoy greater stability and responsiveness app-wide. AfterShot Pro 2 is 4x faster than the competition—delivering faster results and saving you more time.
- NEW! Updated RAW camera profiles: Adding 26 new profiles, AfterShot Pro 2 supports more than 250 camera profiles, including RAW formats from all major camera manufacturers. New camera profiles will be updated throughout the year. Read more about supported cameras at www.aftershotpro.com.
- NEW! Workspace enhancements: Enjoy a more fluid workflow with a modern, streamlined interface. Enhanced Zoom delivers better previewing of smaller images, and a new Image Reset button lets you undo all your changes and view your original photo in a single click.
- NEW! Complete High Dynamic Range (HDR) tools (Windows): Now available in the Windows version and coming later this summer to Mac and Linux, new HDR tools make it simple to create stunning photos with intense visual contrast. Combine multiple exposures to create a single, stunning HDR photo. Apply Smart Photo Fix, White Balance, Brightness/Contrast, Fill Light/Clarity, Local Tone Mapping, High Pass Sharpening, and Digital Noise Removal.
- NEW! Easier batch processing: Redesigned batch processing controls make it simpler and faster to configure any batch processing task.
- New! Red Eye Removal: New manual Red Eye Removal gives you precise control when cleaning up your photos.
- New! Local Contrast: Recreate the look of a high-end camera lens and make objects within an image ‘pop’ by bringing out the texture and dimension in your photos.
- NEW! Bigger Images, Better TIFF performance: 64-bit performance supports much larger images including files of up to 250 Megapixels and TIFF files larger than 30MB.
- NEW! Noise reduction by Athentech: Optimize your images with new Athentech Imaging Noise Removal. This award-winning technology automatically adjusts lighting for every pixel in a shot while maintaining true color and zero clipping.
More details and trial downloads available here on Corel’s website.
bah! I would have totally jumped in on this…but they don’t support the Canon 6D? Darn!
Yeah, that’s a pretty big oversight for camera support.
actually 6D is listed
Looks like they added it. When I checked the other day, it was not in the list. I guess it was just an oversight that it wasn’t listed. Good news!
corel developing and doing a very good program
Before switching to Lightroom, I was using Bibble (later bought by Corel), and it was so much faster than Lightroom. It’s really good stuff, but I’m so heavily into Lightroom now, I don’t know if I would make the switch.