That “work around” is a joke Mark. Use the Global Color Picker when working with the Local Color Wheel is a very odd solution. Not all that obvious for most people I have to say. In fact one of the less educational examples I’ve ever seen in terms of interface work and a very inefficient one.
If that case had been with a function in PhotoMechanic or XnView it had been addressed in the first service release possible.
Once I complained about a clear bug in the integration between PhotoMechanic Plus and Photolab when selecting images to open them in Photolab with the “Edit”-function in PM Plus.
Just a day or two after I got a reply where Kirk Baker asked me deeper about the problem. He downloaded a trial of Photolab and solved the problem in a few days and asked me to test a new version he had made especially for me and this case. After testing and approving the fix he promised to add the new code in the next service release and make it a permanent part of the package for the future and he kept his promises. That openminded, flexible and swift responsiveness is one reason many users really love the Camera Bits support and after 20 years + of tight interaction with their professional customers they have managed to develop a product that is extremely efficient.
I have worked many years with many American software companies in the nineteen nineties when I was working for a Nordic IT-distributor and I can say I can´t remember any other company that have been so uninteresting of getting feedback and help to develop their products and iron out bugs and design flaws as DXO. … and it is also a little sad that we spend so much time here barking up a tree that doesn´t even have any ears.
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A (desperate / critical) need for cash??
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it is French for a start … so no parallels !
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If it works it is not a joke and I find works well most of the time. A workaround is not a replacement for good functionality it is just a means to an end when something is not working properly. This workaround requires unnecessary extra steps which is both annoying and unintuitive. Of course It should be replaced with an actual LA color picker. But, until then it can provide some value to Windows users. If you are on Windows and don’t see any value in it then don’t use it. It certainly has value for me.
Mark
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No, there is no reliable workaround. I’ve copied this from another thread. It was this I waited for and hoped for with version 7 - but didn´t get
Strangely, this is not quite accurate in my experience. Whatever is picked with the global picker is slightly off in the local HSL wheel. Rotated clockwise by a few degrees. Noticeable with any colour but here is a yellow example:
I pick from the yellow panel at top left but when I go to the local HSL tool, it is more orange:
Here are those same colour wheels overlayed:
Some colours can be even further adrift. There needs to be a local picker. If I select an area for local adjustments, how am I supposed to select a colour within that area?
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When PL 7 was first released, and even prior to it, it was much more exact. I hadn’t used it in a while and now see that it so longer syncs up like it used to. I suspect there was a change. introduced since its release. That is unfortunate. However, while it is now far from perfect it may still more useful than having no picker at all.
Mark.
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Because they need money for next year development. And they development is based on this : new year, new income to continue.
Anyway, better than renting a software that one can’t use if not paying monthly. And for which one have to pay even if there is no real substancial improvment.
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I really hope you’re wrong and DxO didn’t thought a second this kind of workaround can replace a well designed and finished tool. And I hope they understand what they do and what is a finished and usable tool.
Waiting for v8 to see what happens.
Oh, they might have tried to fix it and made it worse instead of fixing it?? Do we really believe that?? Maybe you just did not pay attention when you last used it… or just didn´t use it all that much?
In fact I just don´t understand really why we need anything else than a Local Color Picker. Why two? This is a very good example of the mess DXO now have created for themselves and us users by splitting the tools that often are the same in two. That doesn´t go just for the Color Wheels but for all the tools possible to use in the Local Adjustments.
Just take a look of how it ought to have been designed in Capture One. In CO everything is layers even the picture itself since even the Background is a layer. With a design like that all relevant tools works in all layers. No need for global and local sides. No need for strange and confusing work arounds from one side to another. Any color pick can also be turned into a layer of its own if you please for further refinement in a single process.
No wonder an R&D-team like DXO:s gets exhausted having to clean up the mess after bolting on the Control Point System to the old Optics Pro in order to give Photolab a set of “Local Adjustment”-tools in one “quick and messy” blow. First they cut some corners with Optics Pro and now they still have to face the consequences of that move efter pretty many versions in Photolab … and it doesn´t work all that good I´m afraid I have to conclude. Here we now seem to be stuck with these really inefficient work around solutions, instead of designing an effective and productive workflow they pretty easily could have given us from the start.
We have an old proverb saying something like: “If the head is weak, the body suffers”
I knew a very good 3d software
Photolab software architecture seems very hard to manage (for devs) …
And this smells bad.
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Why should that be the only option??
We have lived for many decades now with companies producing all sorts of software without having to jeopardizing the quality. Sometimes there have been problems and that we are used to but not so when these design flaws are neglected despite the users have given them all the feedback needed to fix it.
If DXO shall survive they have to deliver and if they can´t with the fundings they rely on selling “single copies” once a year they will have to do like everybody else. This business model of theirs is very dependent on that they really succeed in delivering new versions with new attractice productivity tools that will make people upgrade. If they fail to do that it will be the end of it. Version 7 is not a success it is a failure so far. DXO have to remake it and make it right before people will upgrade to any greater extent.
Indeed. A poor architecture is costly to maintain and more than one IT-software product have been redesigned pretty much from scratch when it gets to inefficient and costly to just go on as is.
I would hope for some fixes before then as I’ve bought v7 already and if there isn’t anything substantial, I’ll be very hesitant to give them any more money.
Back in the old days when I was starting out with DxO Optics Pro 8, the software was perhaps more basic but everything worked as it should. Incrementally, more functions were added and they were gratefully received.
Already though, I was hoping for attention to the basic feature set - grid settings, keyboard shortcuts and so on. Still waiting and now there are extra hopes like having local adjustment curves.
However, it seems that DxO have bitten off more than they can chew and engaging with the community 's issues with local adjustment functionality is beyond them. Perhaps I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Go on DxO, surprise me!
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Actually, I used it extensively before and right after it was released. I just haven’t used very much since then. But I can tell you as an absolute fact that at an earlier time adjustments to the global HSL wheel using the color picker resulted in a virtually identical selection. I discussed it at length at the time which is how we discovered that the behavior of the Mac version was different.
Mark
one for main adjustment and the other is in the local adjustment for where it’s needed, just sad they haven’t thought of the picker for the local adjustment. hopefully on the work now coming in next update… before christmas?
yes, that should had been the way to go, but they went the old way of Nik went, Control Point System.
things are getting harder as time goes, nothing is cheap anymore, nothing is fully perfect when launch (that i can think of, in many domain), and probably why everyone wants to go subscription.
How could they not have thought of it ?
It is a basic feature when it comes to select any hue, value or color.
And this already exists in the global HSL wheel.
Hard to not think about it.
I’m more inclined to think they didn’t have time to finish this tool because they really have rewritten part of the software in order to be more efficient, and that they need time to write every tool at this new “standard”. It’s my optimistic side.
Knowing what a dead line means, I understand sometime some shortcuts must be taken.
well… there was a lot from DxO this year, PL7, Nik 6, FP7, pureRAW 3. all with major updates… so people post on this forum with what’s wrong and not working with their new release.
No defence of DxO but they did worked a lot on cleaning up the old Nik code which Google didn’t care about.
Let’s hope they can pick up the pace with a few more FTEs and push both fixes and features on PL.
…specially considering that PhotoLab was/is/might still be DxO’s key application.
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