It seems that they have invented the wheel and want to make it pay the price of gold. It is senseless!
Welcome back.
The good thing with DxOs products is that they are not making you buy an upgrade or to continue paying for something you dont want or need.
They offer an upgrade and you decide if you want to invest in it.
If you dont like the new features, it’s as simple as just ignore it and wait to see what might come further down the line.
No cost - and you can go on continuing using your installed and payed for version.
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Thank you very much, I don’t know why I had not noticed!
Are you kidding me?
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This + I picture individual teams with only limited access to some APIs to make the products work together.
As far as licensing is concerned - I see PhotoLab as part of my photography gear. So if for example I’m a photographer struggling to make a living or a hobbyist having to save for the gear, it’s perfect. I find it upgrades my lenses and body, saving me quite a lot of money - the shots from my kit lens would likely not look as good without PhotoLab.
Still unsure if I’ll upgrade to 7. Also still on 6.8 because I haven’t noticed a reason to update and judging by the number of people downgrading their version 6 updates…
Is it safe to update to the latest version of PhotoLab 6 at present?
I am sharing with you a video that I find very relevant about current DxO software. This allows you to understand a lot of things, and to answer certain questions that many people ask on this forum.
https://www.youtube.com/live/APNpgfW1Rmk?si=8-NmEDKMxsQtNnEH
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A video with some things about the intrahistory of the company that may be interesting only for those who are curious about such insignificant matters.
The rest is pure self-serving propaganda, zero relevant information and of course zero self-criticism.
Sorry to be so nasty, I like Photolab but I don’t forgive you for the dirty maneuver you’ve committed with the luminosity masks.
Don’t you realize that Adobe has already put you in a bind with their new AI noise reduction? DeepPrime and the camera/lens profiles were DXO’s strong points, now that there is only one left you give us this trick that I would even call naive…
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Umm, you do realise that this is a user forum so when you post here you’re not actually talking to DxO?
Some members, not me, think they do read the posts here
Of course, Dxo team read this forum…
It was a response to an EA member. I don’t know who the EA members are. My experience is that many of them try to dissolve the frequent criticisms of DXO.
If they are just common users and have nothing to do with the company, I gladly present my apologies to them and change the second person singular and plural to third person. They or them instead of you.
I find it more depressing to think they do read here and ignore nearly everything than that mainly they just ignore the form now. Yes there are those who are more positive towards DXOs weakness than other’s
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early access
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EA members are not employees of DxO. They are customers and users of DxO products.
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EA are Early Acces members who are involved in the testing and try to give a honest opinion about the things DxO developers throws at them in order to have a good/better “Next Version”. For others and themselfs.
1 No they don’t have any directive say or vote in what DxO decides it’s like being a sparring partner to see if things are as suppose to work.
2 Do we like DxO Photolab? yes many of us are involved as in use it as main developer app and use it frequently for our own work/hobby or to help out on questions from forum posters - for free no charge or reward. we spent our free time on this forum because we like it.
3 Does listen the Staff members more to us then regulair forum members? (i hope so if we have a solid point wile testing 
)But i think every poster has the same vote and level of influence. It’s about What you have to say not Who it say’s.
So now that’s cleared up.
Well i think it’s more gray. EA members have often more knowledge of the application trick’s and hidden features due the fact they had to test firmly the new version of DXO PL and often against former version or even a other application if they have that on there home pc bought by them selfs. So then we can point out how it can be more suited to your demand. Help out to see if the problem can be resolved.
Criticisms about there choices? Many of us have questions about the way things are done. Out our personal point of view. And we speak only from our personal perspective.
So yes FilmPack was and is still today a mixed feeling.
above, few posts up, i wrote about the choices they offer and the optional use of those, standalone and as plug in for other applications as Adobe’s for example.
The title “FilmPack Elite” would suggest it’s a special package of presets/tastes and some extra tools to mimic old analoque films. which it is basicly.
The only "problem"is they placed some tools inside this package which we can and will use wile having a default setting on rendering and colortaste.( non film emulation related i mean) Advanged contrast for instance. and fine contrast.
“style tool” is also one of them.
artificial blur, vignetting/softfocus. and more creative one’s as frame and filter texture grain light leak.
same go’s for Viewpoint.
i can’t recall which things are grayed out when you only chose PL elite and i believe they offer the full (PL elite plus FPeilte plus VP) package for 30 day’s trail which can be a confusing and even deseptive in a way of "What do i get when i buy PLV7 elite?
(it would be fair or better if they use in the trail a highlight and info which tool is from PL or FP or VP )
or have the possibility to turn off FP and VP one by one in order to see what’s remaining.
Edit: i did on v1.2 a full feature investigation and asked around how i could see what featured what.
there site, this forum, reviews. so i decided to get the suite version for some discount on the VP and FP.
NIC? I have the dxo NIC free version. works fine for my useage.
And on personal point of view i would even go further:
Make FilmPack exactly what the title suggest: a Pack of Film emulations and extra presets for creative users. Stack all “general tools for every usage” in the main application and call that Elite…
have Viewpoint default added to the main application. ( so it still can be sold as standalone)
Make Essential more like PureRAW. some essential tools for pre-editing a DNG/Tiff in order to finish in a different application. (essential is now more a Jpeg editor in my eye’s)
But that’s my point of view not the one from DXO aperently.
Peter
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When I have been a DxO Optics Pro / Photolab beta tester, I never paid for the product’s license. I find this was fair because I spent time testing the product and making documented suggestions (as a former developer). When my contribution became very weak, I retired from the program. So, I’m now paying for my DPL license and I find it also fair to freely express my disagreement with such oddities like the “must-have-a-Filmpack-license” (to get luminosity masks in DPL) or the absence of fine tuning options for denoising in DxO Pure RAW.
Has anything changed in the beta testing agreement ?
Hi patrick,
The quote is about our engagement on the open forum.
In the closed section, beta testing area, you don’t have a right to get a beta licence when you work/test. DxO decide who gets a single install reward. Which is fair because only be one on paper means nothing, the engagement is for them the key factor.
Even when you not paying for a licence your free to express your thoughts and disagreements. We live in a free world and it’s a open forum so no licence is needed to login.
Aslong as it isn’t bashing for the bashing DxO isn’t a company who is complaining about critics. They maybe don’t react on it or disagree but they don’t use the ban hammer.
So please keep on posting your thoughts.
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illusion … select few decide what you are allowed and what is the truth
But yes your right and those few are hidden in the dark and pull strings anonymously.
I appreciate your honest and detailed answer.
No programme is perfect, I think we all accept that, there is always some function missing that we would like to have. Over time I have given up on the idea of not being able to compare two photographs to see which one to discard, some people reply that it doesn’t matter, just use another programme for that.
Also that it is not possible to flip an image.
What I find unacceptable is that they implement such a common and necessary function as luminosity masks and then use the shameless trick of making us pay 70% more by upgrading to Filmpack 7.
It sounds a bit miserable, to be honest.
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by using the highlight, black shadow, sliders etc… in a mask you can generally achieve the same thing.
for my part it is clear that I will not switch to filmpack simply for that