You‘re saying people buy stuff on an impulse? Without an iota of research? Well, that is true for some but, if you got 175£ to burn, don’t complain.
Nah, @unchdxoly is correct. If there’s a regular, predictable release cycle then the seller should make it apparent (especially in the run-up to release).
There should also be a significantly discounted upgrade price if you upgrade again within the first 6 months of purchase.
Companies should look after their customers. Customers shouldn’t have to research like this, just to buy a product.
If you update every year then you are correct PL is pricey. Which is why I’ve adopted a two year upgrade cycle.
I’m here to remind you this behavior (which I used to do with Adobe s/w) is exactly why Adobe switched to its subscription model. A regular and predictable cash flow, and in return, updates and fixes every few weeks. I’m not saying DxO would switch to this…
LRC also still works as an asset manager, which for me is a greater value than its editing capabilities. You can continue to import, tag, and cull images if you cancel your subscription.
Oh, yeah. I forgot about that, even though I still use those features.
Photolab 10, hmm i wonder what the 10 stands for…
New year,..new version.Thats it.
Doesn’t really matter what it’s called, it’s still reasonable to have the seller make upcoming updates clear to new customers, especially in the months directly running up to release.
This isn’t the first and won’t be the last time someone got burned because they spent considerable money on DxO software only to have to spend more to get an update that came out only a handful of months after their initial purchase. There should absolutely be some customer good will there from DxO.
Except they don’t have to spend anything. They can carry on using the version they’ve got, which (presumably) they were happy enough with to part with cash to obtain.
That’s true, they/we don’t have to upgrade, but it’s probably safe to say we’d all welcome the latest and most advanced feature set (having colour grading etc. is probably better than not having it) so it follows that we’d want that if we could get it (and) would resent having to pay a pretty substantial upgrade price so soon after the initial even more substantial first-purchase price!
Umm, not me. Even though I’ve had PL9 since last Black Friday I can, and will, live without PL10’s new features. Next upgrade for me will be PL11.
Mind you I’m not a professional where the latest and greatest might be the difference between making money and not making money.
Everyone needs to find an upgrade path that fits their needs.
I agree. I updated to PL 10 because in my experience the AI masking performance is smoother, faster, and more accurate than in PL9 except for AI sky masking which needs more work. The AI masking exports, especially with DeepPRIME XD3, are also quicker for me than in PL 9, and I haven’t had a single export failure since using it on my aging machine. I also find the new control mask very useful and I am very pleased that after long last PL 10 finally added a Whites slider. I also found a few other improvements to be useful. So, as a result of feature and performance improvements, PL 10 was an upgrade I was willing to spend money on.
Mark
It’s great that you can live without the latest tools.
However, I wouldn’t believe anyone here if they were presented with a choice of getting PL9 or PL10 at the same price and they still picked PL9. PL10 contains features some of us have been asking for for years.
I feel like arguing this is rather obtuse at this point. Most normal people would welcome an updated, more feature-rich product if it were available at similar price, and most normal people would resent paying a large sum for product v9 only to find product v10 comes out e.g. 3 months later and they still have to pay the full upgrade fee. It’s not a great customer experience.
And the DXO servers are online… if DXO goes bust, you are relying on someone keeping their servers alive, otherwise 37 days later your software stops working.
Oh, and of course, there is the slight matter of old versions of PL working with new hardware and operating systems, plus you don’t buy a new camera or any new lenses either…
That is no different than any other perpetual software of any type that does not offer ongoing free updates as part of the license agreement.
Mark.
DXO do support several versions back for new cameras and lenses. Eg the Canon EOS R6V released this year is supported back to V7 which is, I think, a pretty reasonable policy.
Do you ask to get free upgrades until you die ? Seriously ? Perpetual means and has always mean you get the licence you buy until you die. not an other one.
But DxO do better : I still get updates for PL8 core ! (the last one is from less than a month ago !), those are generally bug fixes and minor upgrades + all new cameras and lenses. And sometime there is a big one : 8.5 gave Deeprime XD3 !
So it’s absolutly not on this point that you can blame DxO. This is the best licence deal I ever saw since … euh … if you tell things like that I’m pretty sure you wasn’t born yet. If not, you would appreciate it.
Just say you have your camera, your lenses, your station with Photolab. Then you have a package that will work for the rest of your life without having to pay a thing more !!!
What more do you want ? Latest technologies free for the rest of your life ??? I’d like too, and I’d like that Nikon give me new lenses for free and I don’t understand why they didn’t replace my D850 with a Z9. No, do you think I’m asking for too much ?
There is still the server problem. That one is annoying.. So I have to hope that if DxO get down, they will be honest with their customer and give them a possibility to use this perpetual licence perpetually. Other companies already did that.
In matter of licence, I’m more scared of affinity new rules and new .af format ! What will happen when people will have done lot of free .af and that it will be time to pay ? Whatever the price and the conditions they’ll have to or they’ll loose everything !!! That’s a perspective when you think about it, no ?
But DxO do better : I still get updates for PL8 core ! (the last one is from less than a month ago !), those are generally bug fixes and minor upgrades + all new cameras and lenses. And sometime there is a big one : 8.5 gave Deeprime XD3 !
That’s probably appropriate (except DP XD3, that’s nice to include and they didn’t need to), but the hardware and lens support seems appropriate.
Bear in mind PL8 was released in September 2024, so only a couple of years ago now.
Consider how long Windows is supported for between new releases, generally there’s about 10+ years of support and several years between releases (with ongoing feature development during those years).
I’m not saying their situations are identical - one is an operating system - but it goes to show how support and further development can take place over years.
Furthermore, if they cut back support of new hardware and cameras to just the most current release then it makes a bit of a mockery of the perpetual license. We’d have to upgrade any time there was a change in our hardware or cameras (granted, probably not that often to make a difference, but still)…
It seems right that they sit in the middle ground and that 3-5 years of support is given.
Window is supported, and upgrades are free and updates MANDATORY as long as the CPU and hardware can handle it.
Their economic system is no more mainly based on selling licences (1 licence for the life of the station now). But it is now based on their store and other more or less visible things. That bygone era was the one when window was the more stable and microsoft still had betatesters for it - a huge number of them.
Nothing can be free. If it seems really free, then you are the product. ** This is obvious.
** Apart from some few isolated groups.