or for loosing users !
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Not sure I’d move to another solution entirely just because I don’t get luminosity masking bundled with Photolab but… it is pretty disappointing to see it in FilmPack, which as a pack has no exclusive relevance to luminance masking.
It’s depressingly clear that it was placed in that pack to push sales of that pack. It’s the only reason I now need to consider upgrading that pack.
Food for thought…
Photolab is currently £99 to upgrade from PL6-Elite to PL7-Elite here in the UK, and I upgraded to PL6 around exactly 1 year ago. That doesn’t include extra costs for the other packs.
Last year, on Black Friday, I paid £72 for a year’s subscription to Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop w/ 20GB cloud storage and that comes with all their upgrades and updates throughout the year.
Right now, a full DXO suite is more expensive than a full Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop suite for a year’s usage, if you upgrade yearly to take advantage of the latest advancements.
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Photolab COMPLETE (since all the SUITE has to be bought to get basic functionnalities too) is one fo the most expensive photography softwares. That’s obvious.
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I’d honestly rather there was one product with all the features included. It’s inexplicable, but boxing them off then purposefully shoving one valuable feature in a product that’s otherwise not the Star Attraction leaves bad taste as a customer.
It’s like if Mercedes started selling a software update for their cars but also including control of the fog lamps in it. You can probably get by without them… but really you need that update to have decent functionality where BMW are putting fog lamp control in as standard.
At least we are able to pick and choose one or several of the components and the main one in Essential or Elite selection. Based on what our workflow needs or demands.
We don’t need and are not forced to pay for more than we wish to have.
Only DxO use this kind of method.
Since a long time this mask has been requested for photolab.
They release their new version and put it in gray in front of our face without being able to use it without buying an OTHER software !
Everything has limits !!!
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Yes they do.
It’s their prerogative to do so. The software industry is filled with tens of thousands of apps utilising premium/unlocking/upgrading/add-ons/20-free/monthly/yearly/lifetime fees in pretty much every shape and form you can think of.
This is DxOs way. We can love it, hate it, accept it or simply ignore it.
We are the customers. We can do as we like 
I choose to buy some as it support me and my creativity. I also buy other applications as they offer me other but much needed components.
Indeed they can do what they want. Even using sneaky methods.
But if they run on this slope (the sneaky one), difference between them and adobe becomes less obvious.
And adobe products are very efficient.
DxO is offering substantial price reductions, if you get one of the bundles that are currently on offer.
Note that reductions depend your geographical location and the currency you use.
Yeah there are people who buy the whole package every year (or every time there is something to update).
DxO should offer a complete bundle with a great discount price every year for their returning customers… instead of leaving us to wait and hope for the black friday.
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If I click into the ‘upgrade’ page, I’m only shown separate products, no bundles at a discounted price.
I’m definitely waiting for Black Friday. I’d like PL7 but also the luminosity mask but don’t really want to pay for the whole of Filmpack at ‘full’ upgrade price when I only really want one feature that didn’t need to be locked into that pack in the first place.
£99 for PL7-elite upgrade, £55 ViewPoint 4 upgrade, £69 Filmpack 7 upgrade.
That’s £223 to upgrade the software. That’s not cheap.
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Unfortunately, that is as expected, as it would depend on which parts you already have and they could have been purchased at different times.
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In french :
A la tête du client.
I had an email exchange with DXO about this. To rub salt in the wound they have a limited time deal that essentially gives FilmPack7 away for free with PhotoLab7 to new purchasers, but no deals that look after their existing owners. 
Pretty poor show, really. 
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My thought here is that DXO should release a fully functional version of FilmPack7 as an add-on to PhotoLab7, that will only open in PhotoLab (no standalone, no other plugins). This could be priced very competitively ($50?) and would not undercut their own sales of the full version. Users would then have the choice, and I’m sure there are many PhotoLab users just like myself, who would be persuaded to add it at that price, but not at the full price. (Viewpoint too, I’m sure.)
Andy
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Pretty common practice, unfortunately. From a business perspective, you want new customers. Existing customers are already hooked/you have their money.
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The last time I upgraded, I just purchased the Black Friday discounted PL FP bundle which was cheaper than the upgrade pricing for each product.
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That’s the way to go. It helps to avoid frustrations because our expectations of how cheap things should be aren’t met by the folks delivering fairly decent products.
Nevertheless, I’m no friend of DxO’s splitting of products, all while putting features of app A into app B in order to make us buy the whole lot. If we based our buying decisions on price alone, nobody would buy DxO apps.
Waiting to get the lowest price possible is a bet on the future…and a decision that is ours alone.
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Adding my voice to that, and it’s a dangerous game for DxO to be playing, since other developers aren’t standing still.
Control Points was fantastic but Lightroom’s masking offering now arguably matches it.
DxO’s de-noise and sharpening tools are amongst the best on the market, but that gap’s closed significantly now too (and again Adobe has come up with something pretty potent there).
In other words if the price isn’t competitive and the upgrades frustrate users by making us buy more than we need to unlock one feature, they do risk people jumping ship.
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Those numbers match the ones offered to me so like you I’ll wait to see what Black Friday brings. I’m not hopeful it will be any cheaper then though. If not, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but sticking with what I’ve got (PL5, FP5 & VP3) and using PL5 for denoise & optical corrections and working on the DNG that gives in Affinity 2, plus FP5 & VP3 as a stand alones, is an attractive alternative, for me, as it involves zero additional cost, for me.
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