Those who don’t need the new features may grumble, but those who do will cheer. I’m cheering. As an event pro who relies heavily on noise reduction, PRIME has been a godsend, and DeepPRIME alone is well worth the upgrade price. Watermarking, the simplified UI, and history are yummy icing on the cake.
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I respectfully could not disagree more - the new color adjustments, selective pasting of adjustments and UI overhaul are all very well implemented, and I find a lot of value in the new tools. Also - if you want a developer to succeed over time, you support them if you find the program headed in the right direction. For me, PL4 easily passes that bar.
Finally, unlike Adobe, PL3 will continue to work just fine.
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I agree I can still use my current version but if I buy a new Camera like a Canon R 6 for example I have to pay £70 to upgrade to use photo lab with that camera.
Plus you have to upgrade everytime a new upgrade becomes available, you can’t skip Photolab 4 and upgrade on Photolab 6.
It’s a money making racket with hardly any worthy upgrades.
Affinity photo costs less than a Photolab 4 upgrade and it has HDR merge, Panorama stitching, Focus stacking etc plus its upgrades are not every year and are free.
How does that different from any other option you have beside open-source applications? Capture One, Adobe, Luminar etc. all lock lens upgrades to new versions. And with Adobe you pay monthly.
Too many photographers have this attitude of “I want every software to offer everything single feature that Lightroom offers, because I don’t want to pay Adobe for a subscription”. So there you have your answer… software development costs money and takes time… you have to pay for it in any case: upfront, monthly or with mandatory upgrades if you decided to update your camera and/or lenses along the way.
If you buy/upgrade at the right time, you pay between $70 to $120 a year on average for either DxO, Capture One, Lightroom, Alien Skin Xposure, Luminar, ACD See or ON1.
Only option that is much cheaper is Affinity Photo since they have a very low entry price and provide free upgrades since forever.
So go for/enjoy it and be happy. The fact that you’re here complaining suggest that Affinity Photo alone doesn’t cut it for you.
I mainly use Fast Raw Viewer, PhotoLab and Affinity Photo in my workflow personally. And I also use Capture One for some projects. Choice is good!
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Hi Peter,
No, you can upgrade to the new version from any of previous PhotoLab or DxO Optics Pro version at the single cost of this last upgrade, so you choose when the upgrade step is money valuable for you.
For instance, in my DxO account, I can see the following from Optics Pro v8:
So the same price than from PhotoLab v3.
9 Likes
I have Affinity Photo and love it. For stacking, pano’s etc and as a pixel editor
I don’t use it for Raw development as it is simply no where near as good as PL3/4 in that respect.
10 Likes
I also have a license for Affinity Photo. I only use it when I can’t accomplish what I need to in PhotoLab and the Nik Collection. Affinity’s raw processor, the Develop persona, is way too basic and limited for any serious raw file development.
Mark
4 Likes
As already indicated by @Joanna, what you seem to want is all the functionality of a pixel editor in a raw converter / processor. That is something that a raw processor like ON1 is attempting to do. I hope Photolab never follows that course. It would be like asking Lightroom to become Photoshop.
Having owned several recent versions of ON1, I’m reminded of the phrase, “a jack of all trades and a master of none” I stopped using ON1 precisely because of a clutter of so many features and the resulting lack of focus on improving the quality of it’s core functionality…raw conversions and the basic tools to enhance them.
Whether PL4 is enough of an upgrade to be worth the cost is of course a very personal thing. If none of the new features appeal to you then it is obviously not worth it to you.
What I love most about Photolab in general is the simplicity of the interface, the quality of the tool implementation, ease of use, and the quality of the output. Photolab, especially in PL4, is focused on limiting clutter and simplifying the editing process in a logical and consistent way with a refreshed interface. They are not where they want to be yet, it is a work in progress, but you can see the direction they’re going to in PL4. I support those efforts with my dollars.
You mention only a couple of features in PhotoLab 4 as if there is nothing else in that release, and seem to trivialize DeepPRIME which is a game changer. There are in fact a number of significant enhancements to PL4. Perhaps they are not significant to you but they are to me and I take advantage of all of them.
Here is the list of what’s in PhotoLab 4
- New - Deep PRIME with GPU support
- New - History palette
- New - HSL Color picker
- New - DNG input/output support
- New - Paste Selected Corrections
- New - Clone/Repair Expand/Collapse
- New - Batch rename
- New - Watermark editor
- New -Filter tool bar
- Improved Keyword support
- First phase of the interface refresh
Mark
9 Likes
Greetings,
We see these posts every year after a new release. If you don’t think the feature set in PL4 is worth purchasing, DON’T BUY IT. No one is forcing you to purchase or upgrade.
DxO staff work hard.… while I haven’t agreed with every marketing decision, the software overall is top notch.
For those unsatisfied with PL4’s feature set, you are welcome to continue using your current version, or can go to Capture One, Topaz, Affinity, LR or whatever else you think is the “best” software and use it.
The rest of us, who know how truly powerful and great DxO is will be here happily using PL4.
Having options is great, but I prefer DxO. They have consistently delivered.
13 Likes
The right tool for the right job. There have been many conversations on this site before about if DxO should become a Lightroom/Photoshop replacement or not. In my view it should continue to do what it is great at which is performing outstanding raw processing.
I would be in the cheer category Jacques. I think there is a lot of change for the better. DeepPrime will get used, the user interface changes make PL easier to use, the Advanced History is something I will use a lot and the colour picker is very useful to me. All of these I have already used in my workflow. I don’t use watermarking so much or renaming for that matter, but it may be useful at some point. Considering the price of other software updates I have had to pay out in recent times (it is the season for updates :)) and the sometimes crummy amount of updates provided, I would say the the £55 I paid (after discount) for the upgrade is a bargain. I say good work DxO.
3 Likes
Hi Peter
The upgrade price, if you log into your account, when I looked was £55 and I certainly thought that was very reasonable. Everyone will have their own opinion of course 
If an upgrade doesn’t do anything for you simply skip it, that’s the normal process for perpetual license software, and save money, if it does happily upgrade:-) Win-Win…
The new UI is certainly a huge benefit for me. You spend hours in software and the UI is where you live.
DeepPrime has been received with almost universal praise, improved performance and reduced process times, what’s not to like
We are lucky at the moment that we have a vast array of software choices and there will be something that fits your needs. Panos etc really come in to the pixel editing area but there are all in one packages such as ON1, LR, ACDSee etc which meet your needs. Personally I prefer to use PTGui for panos, but again it’s a personal choice. I primarily use C1 but I don’t see any positive value in going on the ON1 or ACDSee forums to say their software isn’t for me, but it’s an open forum and users can post as they wish.
With the availability of Affinity Photo for pixel editing at £25-50 which gives you pixel editing like object removal, cloning, sky replacement etc, plus panos, HDR, focus stacking etc.that covers many people. Obviously DXO is not the software for you, but for many it is.
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I am not agree with you. As others wrote dxo PL isn’t a pixel editor, creative magicbox, it’s a raw developing application which can be used to create a finished jpeg in one go without destruction of the source.
If the V4 isn’t give you satisfaction enough to update keep using v3.3 and wait if it’s meats your desired standards later.
May i ask what kind of brand you use to make image’s?
Nothing is. (And Affinity Photo is pretty basic indeed.)
I had serious performance issues with PL3 (which hopefully seem to have been addressed in PL4) but I stuck with it because nothing I tried could match it for my photos. I still have workflow issues with PL4 but again I will stick with it because DeepPRIME pushes its core advantage even further.
And on that, I know some people won’t have a need for serious noise reduction, but I’ve found photos that didn’t need much in the way of noise reduction are still clearer with DeepPRIME than they were with Prime. I’m finding high contrast, small details are a lot better defined.
Yeah.
Complainers, haters, …
Maybe best thing is not to “feed them” anymore because if they really want a tool they love they should be participating as beta tester or at least understand before complaining.
And beta testers too and also common users who help with a smile.
Congratulations to everybody making this new PL version and bringing our tool forward, slowly, but forward.
2 Likes
I am not a hater or complainer I just think £70 for an upgrade is not worth it for whats on offer.
I do like Photolab but if want to do meta data titles keywords etc I have to use Lightroom if want to do a Panorama I have to use Lightroom or Affinity photo.
If I want to do HDR merge I have to use Lightroom if I want to use Focus stacking I have to use Affinity photo.
If I want to clone out subjects I have to use Affinity photo.
Some people here might think its great having to use different programes for simple tasks I don’t.
With the amount of money DXO Photolab charges for Upgrades I would expect all those things available in Photolab 4.
Affinty photo has got all those things costing less than an upgrade of Photolab 4.
I hate to use Affinty photo that supports ( upsplash) giving pictures away for free, I hate to use Adobe who also support the parasite and cancer ( micostock) giving pictures away for 25 cents each and who also give pictures away for free.
I would just love to use Photolab instead of using these other softwares who undermine photographers trying to sell their images for sensible prices not giving them away.
Dear Peter,
I don’t know if I will be amused or distraughted.
Sometimes it’s better to walk in time and with future and like Bob Dylan said " the times they are a changin "
DPL will and can not be a software with all functions, and if it must be 3 to 5 times more expansive as it is at the moment.
Some features we can put to an wishlist and I also have had some requests that are not fulfilled, but I decided to update for some minor changes. But I still use the free Nik Collection because the price of the NIK 3 it’s too high for me to buy, because I don’t need it.
And all the other stuff you qoute like microstock and free pictures is a sign of time like digital photography instead of analog, e-cars instead of diesel cars and so on.
So let us put realistic request to the feature list to feed the developers.
I hope my english was good enough (with the help of google translator I can’t use 10 years ago 
) to explain what I mean.
In german we have the word “Eierlegenden Wollmilchsau” which is a synonym for an animal that includes Chicken, Sheep, Cow and Pig…which is not possible at the moment…but the time will come.
Always good light and stay healthy and optimistic
Best regards
Guenter
1 Like
And i would not be complaining so if DXO allowed you to skip upgrades like for example go from Photolab 3 to Photolab 7 and only charge for the cost of an upgrade.
And still put new Camera profiles in old software without having to Upgrade everything you buy a new Camera.
If Photolab did this no complaints from me.
As a consumer i think most are every 2 years inclined to upgrade unless there new camera needs to be supported. as a company you could see it as a small investment.(unless your hardware is in need of replacement by that decision.)
Your specific types of tools are mostly “pixel” driven tools. bitmaps who you line out on top of each other and create layers where the specific parts of one image is “glued” into an other.
technical speaking they should create x amount of tiff files where demosiacing and deepprime is done keep those internally in the application and auto center those as a stack before it become a jpeg to export. AKA pixel editor part of development.
ofcoars there are “raw” engines who offers this kind of tools are they have the goody’s which DxO offers in deepprime and such? that’s the question.
Personally if i need such a tool it’s not very often and i don’t mind to have a different tool for this steps. (free and very old CombineZP does stil what it needs to to.
Helicon is not free but i heard it does it’s job well.