But I use layers all the time. Photolab does not have layers, if it did I would probably use that. Not sure it has all the features I use either.
Photolab7 is a RAW editor, it will not replace Photoshop. If I buy Photolab I will still need to use another software such as Photoshop to do the rest of my editing.
To complicate things further, Capture One is 1/2 price for Black Friday
Depends on what you are using the layers for?
In a pixel editor once you are out of camera raw basically all adjustments, masks etc are layer based.
Photolab has a layer based local adjustment system.
If you are doing composites, extensive cloning etc then you need a pixel editor, which you already have so CS6 would compliment Photolab Elite.
In this case I would have considered buying Pureraw
A very tempting offer! Any idea what their annual “upgrade” pricing during black friday is for perpetual licences?
They offer a 40% discount for upgrading within the first year – I assume that doesn’t stack with their black friday discount for a further reduction?
Edit: It looks like it doesn’t stack - Either way, similar price to the annual upgrade of PL+FP but no additional cost if you skip a year (assuming they’ll do ~50% discount every year).
Competing for my money this year: DxO (Was planning to upgrade, but price increases every year and new features become less and less), FastRawViewer (-25%), Affinity Suite (-40%) (Plus additional discount for already owning Photo), Photo Mechanic and now Capture One…I’m not convinced DxO has got their pricing/benefit ratio right this year; and seems a lot of others feel the same way
Yes PureRaw3 is looking like the best option at the moment.
Not doing composites or lots of cloning but I have used Photoshop for 15 years or so. I like layers you can do so much with them, turn off and on, change opacity, blending modes, selective areas of adjustment etc. All non destructive.
DxO’s pricing policy has unfortunately become “sad”…
We are slowly moving towards a subscription solution…
This is already the case with one version per year, for a price that is less and less attractive…
And the possibility of updating at a reduced price for only the two previous versions!
For the moment I update every two years, to return to a reasonable update price of around €50 / year.
But I think I’m going to stop and stick with version 7…
With regret because I like to support DxO which I really like! But alas, the cost of living pushes me to make choices…
Yes cost of living.
I just spent $180, for four people at a not fancy restaurant.
So $89 for V7 doesn’t seem so extravagant.
I think iI saw (I don’t remember where for sure) this is not the case anymore - for filmpack at least.
Can anyone confirm or infirm this ?
For my part, for Photolab in any case, I was able to update from PL 5 to PL 7 at the price of the update (€89)…
Like a lot of software, there are diminishing returns as the product matures. Photoshop was pretty mature around 12 years, not felt the need to upgrade since. DxO is probably getting that way also. Yes each year, they will add a few new features, but is it really worth the extra money to upgrade?
I haven’t tried PureRaw 3 since last spring, but in my trial then, it was not quite as effective as a Raw converter IMO as PhotoLab 6. If I recall correctly, the difference is that PL is more adjustable in noise reduction and sharpening.
Lots of comments here about the Adobe software and subscription model. I held out at LR6 and Photoshop CS5 for five or six years to avoid paying Adobe the $10 monthly subscription, which I saw as a dead-end for software innovation and improvement and a teaser rate for steady price escalation. It seemed that way at the time comparing the photo subscription prices to other Adobe software.
While still using PhotoLab, I finally abandoned ship on LR6 and CS5 and joined the Adobe subscription party several years ago when I replaced my DSLR gear with mirrorless gear, needing a subscription to use the original camera Raw files from the new body.
By holding out on subscribing, I saw that I’d only hurt myself. Lightroom had improved a great deal since I’d left. And since I started subscribing several years ago, both LR and PS have added valuable new features (cough luminance masking included, no upcharge/add-on needed) and become easier to use. And the subscription price, $10 a month for LR, PS, Camera Raw, Bridge, mobile LR, and some Cloud storage, has not changed while the included software has expanded; I’m sure the Adobe Photo Plan price will increase sooner than later, because it’s been over a decade and inflation and all. But consider that in that same period of time since Adobe went to subscription, DxO’s prices have more than doubled.
DxO, despite improving noise reduction in recent years (which I do truly appreciate and get the benefit of almost daily) overall in my opinion has not over the past decade matched Adobe in innovation, improvement, and value.
Interesting points. Depends what you are doing with your images. CS6 does most of what I want, with a few plugins and I have skipped 12 years of subscriptions. Only $10 there, think it is £10 here. I don’t know about DxO, have only just started to try it out.
You can get Black Friday deals on Photoshop, 1 year on Amazon is quite cheap, £69, in UK.
I may go down that route in the future. But if you stop subscribing then you can’t use it. With a non cloud based software, you can always use it.
Also you need to download all your images, otherwise you won’t be able to access them. Not that keen on internet based software, internet here is not that good. No internet then no photos.
I’d get PhotoLab.
PureRaw is a stripped down, condensed extract of a few of PhotoLab’s features and allows minimal adjustments only. It’s basically a pre-processor for any other app.
It’s unfortunate I have not had a chance to try Photolab 7 out.
I store all my images on local hard drives and work locally with both Lightroom Classic and PhotoLab 6. Editing with Lightroom Classic doesn’t have to be done in the cloud. And the can’t-use-it idea when you quit an Adobe subscription is only mostly/partly true. What you can’t do is use Lightroom’s Develop module to edit new images or re-edit old images unless you continue your Adobe subscription. You can still use the Library module (which even has some crude develop sliders) and make metadata changes there even without an Adobe subscription. Using Library module with no subscription, you can export any edited image from your Lightroom catalog in whatever format you want and work on it in other software. Your images are not held hostage to an Adobe subscription… unless you only store them in the Adobe cloud.
New computer now coming today, was expecting it Monday, so I should have time to try PL7, as BF deal ends on Tuesday.
I bought the PL + FP Elite upgrade. Perhaps next year I will decide to upgrade after the two-year cycle. For now, I will keep up to date with the feature set and continue to learn how to use it on the current UI. I remember a year ago I was hesitant to buy an upgrade to PL6, but six months later, in July 2023 I was happy with the decision. I was able to use Deep PRIME XD and not get upset that after putting time, effort and cost into the entire production flow of the photo, the lack of an upgrade worth about 100 euros negatively affects the result. That’s a cost at a fraction of the cost of the cheapest lens (one).
I suppose it will be more expensive in a year. I suppose that slowly DxO is preparing bigger AI-based functionalities and that they will cost a lot. So I’ll be able to decide in a year’s time that I’m staying with a pretty mature product, which is the PL7 FP7 kit.
Of course, I must honestly add that I am annoyed and worried by DxO’s policy, which suggests that it will get more and more expensive and slower with annual expansions, which may drive users like me up the wall. This will mean, to some extent, wasting the time, effort and cost incurred over the years to buy more licences and to learn and become proficient with the software. Proficiency is more than theoretical knowledge of what can be done. It is acquired slowly.
Trying PL7 now but a few problems. Why does it bring every image in the folder into the workspace, I only want one image not 1,000s. Just doing DeepPrimeXD on a selected image but it is taking ages, over 5 minutes so far. Even on my previous computer on PureRaw3, it only took about 1 minute. It is only a 20mp file as well.
It is running on the gpu card, RTX 4060, which should be a lot faster than my previous computer.
Another issue is if my hd goes to sleep then I lose everything. Never had that happen before.
Still running, over 40 mins now. Or is it doing every image in the folder?