I’d prefer this was achieved by delivering a functioning, efficient product… rather than critical bugs, zero customer care (indeed; monetised customer care!), and poor optimisation that means people who can run competitor’s software can’t run yours.
Not perfection, just functional and fit for professionals (which, given its price point vs. competitors, is where it’s aimed).
If there’s any significant price hike for PL10, I’ll go elsewhere and they can have 100% of nothing, rather than 100% of what I’ve spent before, year on year.
You’ve got the cart before the horse here. Deliver a fantastic product and I’ll pay for it. Deliver a non-functional product and I won’t. Deliver a mediocre product and I’ll pay less than I would for competitors, or will go to competitors if the situation persists.
As much as I want Photolab to be a superb suite that I can depend on and love using… we don’t owe them our money for nothing.*
Point of interest; I could sign on with Adobe right now and get Lightroom for desktop and a mobile application, more advanced AI functionality that works, better performance, (in some cases) more functionality (full colour grading rather than just highlights/lowlights), cloud storage, access to a whole bunch of fonts… and I’d pay roughly the same, maybe even slightly less, than I paid to upgrade (not purchase new) to PL9.
Sorry for what’s becoming an essay but hopefully you can see we’re actually being bloody reasonable in hoping for a product that works. We’re paying for it.
Perhaps but when you fail to check that your flagship feature (modules tailor for each camera/lens combination) is functional in a new release it looks a bit silly.
One would think that that would be test #0001
If it was some obscure bug that only happens in some weird edge cases I could understand it - but this was pretty much across the board, which does raise the question about what sort of testing gets performed on new releases ?
I am sure there are plenty in the community who would volunteer to be beta testers for DxO - they used to have such a program.
Oh well - ciao until next time - won’t be long I am sure!
DxO still runs a beta testing program with volunteers from this community. But it isn’t in the forum and isn’t often used for point releases. As far as I know, it’s focused on new features only. Once the software is released, it’s no longer beta.
So they fix the MACs first? Let’s say they are 25% of the customer base (I know, but let’s say). So the business decision is to fix 25% of the problem and leave 75% til later.
Sorry…………………… you don’t run a business like that. If I am an investor, I am running for the hills.
Another thread I’m going to mute. I’ve worked in businesses that use software, businesses that customise software and businesses that sell software. Ive personally witnessed how many ways things can go wrong. The only guarantee of utmost quality is buckets of money and buckets of time. You don’t get that in a company the size of DxO. You don’t get that in most companies.
Or people who are thorough and diligent. Who don’t forget that the lens correction needs to go through to render not just for show. Seriously, the f*ck-up that is PL9.3 is not down to money, it’s down to incompetence.
Imagine that you’ve just bought a car off DxO and your driving down the road and the engine management system crashes. So do you. That why the people involved with aircraft and car software are the best. They invest in people and deliver time after time (not including Boeing of course). They don’t selling their software in a half-baked fashion because it would be dangerous but it would also make them look amateurish.
And then buy up a load of affiliates to ignore all the problems. It would be interesting to see how much their affiliate scheme costs compared to their QC. I think I can guess.
Thanks for the hotfix DXO. It fixed the problem on my Mac. You acted fast and that matters.
Hope you will finally implement Tone Curve in local adjustments.
And optimisation tweaks across the board, and sort out crashing when cropping, and proper colour grading with mid-tones, and controllable circular masking, and more controllable preview generation so that the program doesn’t take 5-10 seconds to generate a preview between changes, and, and, and…
I could add more, but they have won, I am tired of bark at the moon.
This is what they do, they just wait it out and pretend it’s all fixed. Sadly I think they have fudged it. I really can’t see anyway back for them. It’s a shame because I always like DxO from the moment I used it.
I can see that I will probably still use PL7 from time to time but I am pretty sure this isn’t the DxO that I got involved with at the beginning. It’s like realising that your gf just isn’t travelling in the same direction as you.
I can see a way back - but it involves a lot of effort on their part - both in software improvement and in business approach.
I’d be very happy for the next iteration to be a thorough optimisation and quality-of-life pass. I don’t need AI generation like Adobe has. I can even cope without controllable circular masking, despite it being something competitors have had for years and would be supremely useful. Just… take some time to get the software in a good place from the ground up - optimised, fast, and capable of running on all manner of systems without slow-down or crashing. Create a good foundation for the future.
Then there’s the business. From poor communication (leaving us in the dark to beta-test PL9 since launch) to unclear decision making (releasing a new hotfix version on Mac without any indication in the version number structure)… it simply has to improve. Monetising support is not the way forward… providing solid, rapid, user-focussed support to your existing customers is. I’ve been a paying DxO user since 2021. Over £800 spent (!) - and I’m far from the longest adopter or user here. I’m not special. But we all deserve to be treated better than we have been.
None of this is beyond a decent software company. We are not asking for the moon, or a rocket to send us there. We’re not demanding new features and innovation that no competitor has managed.
I still want to believe DxO can deliver, but if we’re still forced to sign the same old tune come the next big release (presumably PL10) then I’ll be out too; sunken investment or not.
Just put it down to experience. ON1 is really steep for me. I am looking elsewhere though. The worst scenario is that I will run with PL7 and bin the upgrade.
Even the X-Trans DP isn’t that much better than the old PL7 DP. I’ll probably make sure that PL7 can’t be updated and that will run for many years without needing to do anything with it.
Found a potential issue with new Laptop. Having already exhausted all Nvidia, Windows, and anything else I could think of, I didn’t think about Intel graphics, because I was thinking Nvidia was where is was processing from. However, in Checking all drivers for Intel on their site for my Ultra 9 275HX, the “ARC graphics driver” on this Predator Helios NEO 16 Ai was never downloaded. I was hesitant, but I thought couldn’t hurt. I downloaded the driver and since I have not had a crash since. Not doing too many images, but more than I would get before. So check all you’re Intel drivers as well as the Nvidia Graphics Card for VRAM possibility needing a tweek. Maybe it’s nothing, but not sure why it wasn’t even on the laptop. Not sure how the Intel GPU works in tandem with Nvidia, or independantly, but it’s been working at least for now.
Issue - Ver. 9.3.0 (558)” - Hover over” multiple masks not working properly. Erratic changes on sliders no mater how slow you try. It “bounces” around in change. At times, mask makes change globally. Not just over the mask. This seems to happen on anything more than 1 mask. Still playing around. But I did a mask on the sky, it worked fine. Did a 2nd mask on the water, and changes were happening globally.
Yep. I am keeping mine safe. The Luminar Neo trial is going very well. Incredibly easy user interface. Some things are a little problematic but I have just edited a RAW and it came out really good with a crop and 3 clicks. Quite weird really but I have compared it with the DxO produce jpeg and it’s just as good, literally nothing between them.
Rendering time, 3.5 seconds on a 4gb GPU and Ryzen 5300.
For those that find export soft with 9.3, you need to know that DXO published a first build 33 that had an issue where optic modules were not applied. It pushed a second build 35, but still called it 9.3, that fixed the issue. So depending when you updated to 9.3 you may have the good or the bad build. Check the About for your install and make sure you have 9.3 build 35, and if you don’t update again.
- won’t be long I am sure!