I stopped by the Corel booth at one of the CES 2012 events last week. After seeing Lightroom 4 beta, I figured I had seen the tip of the spear for photo-editing software for the week. Boy, was I wrong.
Corel’s new AfterShot Pro is brought to you by the guys from Bibble after it was recently acquired by Corel. When Jeff Stephens showed me a demo of AfterShot Pro, I kept thinking “that’s all the stuff I’ve been wanting to do in Lightroom.”
While Lightroom 4 beta has added some better local edit features (like WB), it comes nowhere near the power available for local edits in AfterShot Pro. There is so much you can do with masking/layers in a completely non-destructive workflow that I haven’t gotten my mind around all of the possibilities yet.
Even with third-party plug-ins, AfterShot Pro keeps the edits non-destructive. I watched him edit an image with a black and white plug-in, then go back to the primary editing panel (like the Develop module in Lightroom) and make additional non-destructive changes to the RAW image. And then, AfterShot Pro updated the plugin edit settings to take effect after the primary edits.
It also includes a light version of Noise Ninja as its native noise reduction tool. You can purchase an add-on of the full Noise Ninja for a larger complement of noise reduction controls.
Stephens tells me that Corel is giving third-party plugin developers the choice of where to put their plugins in the editing pipeline. Note to developers: keep them non-destructive.
You can also choose to send RAW images out to other programs like Photoshop (you can set the default external editor in the preferences panel).
Oh, and here’s a big one, AfterShot Pro lets you search across multiple catalogs! This was one of the first questions I asked the Adobe reps about Lightroom 4 beta when I spoke with them. Better yet, in AfterShot Pro, you can edit images without importing them into a catalog at all. Your choice.
AfterShot Pro is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Best of all, the price of AfterShot Pro is only $99. Are you kidding me? Compared to the $299 that Adobe is after for Lightroom? Corel just got serious about the RAW-editing workflow for enthusiast and pro photographers.
You can find AfterShot Pro at Amazon.
Check out the video below for some cool RAW workflow tools found in AfterShot Pro. Eat your heart out Lightroom.
Apologies for the audio distortion. It wasn’t clipping, but rather failing preamps on the camera, which we later remedied by recording to the Zoom H4n instead.
Brandon Price says
I’m using the trial version now. Though I’m liking what I see, there are some performance questions I’m having. I have well beyond the recommended system requirements, but I see a lag anytime I adjust any slider. It takes a good second to see what I’ve done, and the image itself “shakes” as it makes the change.
Do you know what could be going on, or who I could contact about questions? Since they are touting the speed, I’m assuming I’m missing something here. I love what this could be, but currently it’s just a bit laggy for me.
Running on Mac OS
Mark says
I’ve been trying it out, very impressed. If I hadn’t invested so much time learning LR this would have been a great alternative. Also tried RAW Therapee as a free alternative but to be honest it’s crap.
I’d have to trouble recommending this to anyone just starting out editing RAW files.
Mark says
That should have read “I’d have NO trouble” :D
Stve says
Wow very impressed with the video I’m downloading now really hope the image quality matches Lightroom 4.
James says
AfterShot Pro doesn’t support DNG files so its a non-starter.
Aaron says
According to the product page ( http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4670071#tab4 ) it does support DNG, look at the first bullet point under Formats Supported
United By Photography says
I do wonder how much faster is the AfterShot Pro quicker than Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom.
Stefan says
Sadly it lists Samsung RAW files as PEFs, but they are SRW and cannot be opened
thougrey says
This is just a clone of open source based software, “Bibble 5 Pro.”
Corel haven’t done a thing to this software, other than change the branding.
Corel are even trying to market this rubbish as their own dev.
If you honestly believe this is new stuff, then what can I say.
The only competition out there for “lightroom” is “Darktable.”
And it doesn’t cost 99 dollars, it’s free
ZEPsikoapt says
Actually it’s not a clone, it is the same engine as Bibble. Corel bought bibblelabs last year.
Bibble running on Linux doesn’t mean it is open source. It uses an open source framework, QT, but the main engine is proprietary. Anyway, for all the bibble users it is good news as Corel will add more support to this product than bibblelabs used to (remember old 2009 bugs never acknowledged by blabs guys)
ZEPsikopat says
Actually it’s not a clone, it is the same engine as Bibble. Corel bought bibblelabs last year.
Bibble running on Linux doesn’t mean it is open source. It uses an open source framework, QT, but the main engine is proprietary. Anyway, for all the bibble users it is good news as Corel will add more support to this product than bibblelabs used to (remember old 2009 bugs never acknowledged by blabs guys)
Haydn Allbutt says
I am about to start getting into photography more seriously and so am looking into photomanagement software. I have always been a corel draw man through and through over adobe illustrator as it is so much easier to use. But from what I could tell Lightroom is the start and finish of photo management software for professionals as far as I have been able to tell. I like what I see with this After Shot Pro but unlike for Lightroom which has a massive user base and hundreds of tutorials on it, there is nothing at all for After shot Pro. Plus Lightroom will likely stay the software of choice for professionals so will always be the more advanced software I suspect eg Adobe’s Photoshop vs Corel’s photo paint, Adobe’s premiere Pro Vs Core’s Video Studio Pro and now Adobe’s Lightroom vs Corel’s After Shot Pro. While Corel has always been very good, Adobe has always been accepted as the professional tools, while Corel tends to be for enthusiasts who can’t justify spending the full amount for the professional Adobe software. Is that what others find?