Enable Adobe DNG Support in Corel AfterShot Pro 3

aftershot3_enable_dng_support.md

Enable DNG Support for Your Camera in Corel AfterShot Pro 3

AfterShot 3 does not support DNG files well, despite their claims to the contrary.

What if we need to use DNG files in our photo collection? There are valid reasons to need this, for example if you use Magic Lantern Dualiso raw files on your Canon camera and you need to use the DNG format to store the raw image after blending the exposures.

AfterShot does open DNG files if certain conditions are met. If you have specific supported cameras, AfterShot will open DNG files, but only if it has the right compression settings and metadata. The DNG file has to be uncompressed, and it must contain the Exif.Image.Model metadata matching a "known" camera.

Hack Your Own Camera Profile

1. On the Aftershot Downloads Page there are AfterShot Pro Camera Profiles available for download.
2. Find the profile that is most similar to your camera and download it. For example, I have a Canon 5D Mark III so I downloaded the Canon 5D Mark IV profile.
3. Take the .afzcam file and rename the file extension to .zip.
4. Extract the zip file.
5. Go inside and find the Info.afpxml file. We will change a few lines to make a new camera profile that will work with DNG files shot with our camera.
6. Change the modelName="" line to read the exact model name of your camera from the exif data. You can find this string if you view the metadata of a raw image from your camera. You can use exiftool or exiv2 to do this. For example exiftool -Make <image> or exiv2 -K Make -pt <image>. My Model name reads Canon EOS 5D Mark III.
7. Change qualName to qualName="DngReader".
8. Add extension2=".DNG"
9. Add *.dng *.DNG to the fileFilter field.
10. Either zip the file back up, and rename it back to .afzcam and use the file -> install camera command on your hacked camera profile. Or just copy the folder in to the Cameras (64-bit) folder in your AfterShot config directory.
11. AfterShot should now load uncompressed DNG files from your camera.

This is really great, thanks a lot! Worked like a charm for Adobe DNG converted Fuji RAWs.