said it before…
DxO would really benefit from a study on the (very) old Kodak PhotoDesk software that supported the very first ‘real’ DSLRs. Very Good Stuff from a capabilities and from a workflow/ergonomics POV.
I have to agree, curves is a powerful editing tool and deserves fixing. For people comparing software it seems as unnecessary own goal to have such a poor implementation of such a powerful tool.
Recent ON1 changes to their curve tool include histogram, image “picker” adjustment tool, and helpful colour gradients on the colour channels, perhaps can provide improvement ideas.
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That would be excellent!
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I would say this is a MUST HAVE.
With ability to draw very precise curve added !
No doubt about it.
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Just wanted to add that DxO already has wonderful Level/Curve adjustments - but unfortunately they are only in Nik Color Efex. If they could just make the Tone Curve tool in PL6 (or PL7) the same as the Level/Curve tool in Nik then it would be a huge improvement to their program. Don’t think it would be too difficult to do.
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I think so far the best curves adjustment, control and implementation I’ve seen is in Davinci Resolve. Anyone who worked with it, will probably find it both powerful and intuitive with some unique features. Having something like that in DXO would be great. That being said. I think with all the sliders offered in DXO as it is today, its not critical or necessary to use curves anymore, but for those who prefer it and find current implementation inadequate, I vote for Davinci Resolve style curves.
Different Color Curves DaVinci Resolve 18 Tutorial
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You’re talking about a real interface here.
Would be nice. Indeed. But sounds far away from photolab …
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Yeah, probably a bit too ambitious, but if I was doing it, that is the route I would take. I worked as colorist with resolve, and even compare to Photoshop or pretty much all the photo editing apps, the video world, I guess because of bigger budgets are far ahead in color grading technology and refinement.
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I think they’d have to rethink the entire interface.
Now that adobe enter AI game, photolab needs to find a way to be more efficient.
Allow us grade precisely our images.
Allow us attach, detach, resize windows and compose worspace as needed.
Allow us to compare images and different applied settings easily.
And so on …
But yes, a lot to do … Probably out of budget.
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It seems they only focus on very small points when a global strategy is needed.
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Well I don’t think they can or really should compete with Adobe. Adobe is a giant that cares not of creatives or artists and wants everyone on subscription… that leaves room for companies like DXO to be what Adobe once was and cater to artists and not activists. To cater to main street not wall street.
Adobe seems to be now using their Firefly and generative AI as a Trojan horse, once they acquired and merged with every competitor and stock website they trained the AI models with user data as well, and now they will offer it to big companies (enterprise) for licensing fee and subscription. they have no interest in actual artists. I hope DXO and similar smaller companies see the operunity in that to be more humane and personal and less cooperative and don’t even try to play the game head to head with the likes of Adobe giants, since its a war they cannot win.
Adobe is Making its Firefly Generative AI Available to Big Businesses
Jun 08, 2023 via PetaPixels
Adobe has announced that it is making its Firefly generative artificial intelligence (AI) available to enterprise customers to allow brands to deploy it across their organizations and custom train it with their own assets.
“The new company-wide offering enables every employee across an organization, at any creative skill level, to use Firefly as a standalone service, as well as with Express and Creative Cloud applications to generate, edit and share standout, on brand content quickly and easily,” Adobe says.
Also woke death cult of degeneracy promoted by Adobe with their rainbow logo, feminist movie poster as a splash screen in Photoshop etc. Not good. As long as smaller companies don’t go the woke path they can attract the sane and normal people based on principle as well. As we have seen with Bud Light, Nike, Target etc all that ESG and DEI programs are backfiring. Building a brand is hard as it is, but these companies have pissed it away so quickly because they weer chasing profit and ideology.
“The road to business success is wherever people need another road.”
― Robert Brault
The market is driven by; Narratives and emotions in the short run, Fundamentals and truth in the long run. Use this to your advantage.
Business 101: You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you create in your chosen marketplace niche.
Branding started in Scandinavia in the middle ages. It was an action of burning a symbol on to the flesh of cattle in order to signify ownership of the animal. It was also a way to offer a guarantee or “promise” of quality and source. In other words; “If you buy cattle from us, we will deliver meat of exceptional quality. We always deliver on time and that’s a guarantee (promise).”
Branding represents ownership. But ownership is not valuable to the potential client, it is valuable to you. It is a way to protect yourself from others using your hard work. Unfortunately clients don’t hire you for protecting yourself. They hire you for something else. They hire you for the promise, that stands behind the authenticity of the source. Because they believe it represents certain standards of quality valuable to them.
A brand is ultimately an experience that lives at the intersection of promise and expectation.
A brand is a promise.
A good brand is a promise kept.
But a truly remarkable brand is the one that surpasses the expectations on consistent basis. Wow!!! Every time.
Branding is the message you put out in the world through the choices and actions within your control. While the reputation of the brand is how other people interpret your brand. When you make a promise, you can convince a person one time. When you deliver on the promise you can can convince them another time. But when you deliver more than expected, than they deliver for you. …they become brand ambassadors.
Brand expression (branding by advertising, what you say about yourself) vs. Brand Image (branding by reputation, what others say about you)
A brand is just a symbol. And a symbol on it’s own does not mean much without the proper reputation. The symbol is simply a way to avoid having to prove your credibility all over again. Because that would not be very economical. But reputation alone would not mean much, unless there was a way to identify it. And we do that by branding. We essentially brand our reputation.
Ultimately the brand advertises reputation, and the reputation is what ultimately sells your the brand.
Your reputation preceded you. It will open or close the doors of opportunity before you every reach them. It is one of your most valuable assets. Act accordingly.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
- Warren Buffett
If people are indifferent about your brand, they won’t care about your brand. If they don’t care about your brand, they won’t tell their friends. And if they don’t tell their friends, you will have to do it yourself. Convincing someone else’s friend, is much harder than convincing your own.
Don’t put your brand name on everything, it is the easiest way to weaken it’s influence. Because the more general it is, the less likely your potential clients will think it’s for them. Specialize in just several areas and master them.
“If you think having the lowest price in your industry is a good strategy, remember that someone is always willing to go broke faster than you.”
~ John Morgan, Brand Against the Machine: How to Build Your Brand, Cut Through the Marketing Noise, and Stand Out from the Competition
CLIENT AWARENESS is when potential clients know you exist and can correctly associate you with the services you are offering.
CLIENT PREFERENCE is when they prefer you over your competitors under the assumption that you can deliver the service you offer and that it can meet their needs at that particular time.
CLIENT LOYALTY is when clients want to do business with you for years. They insist on doing business with you no matter what and they will tell everyone how awesome you are.
A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept. But a truly remarkable brand is the one that surpasses the expectations on consistent basis.
“You have a great name. He must kill your name before he kills you”
~ Juba, to Maximus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000)
There is a lot of room left behind for people who don’t want to be part of that and this is where companies that are smaller but sane, like DXO can benefit if you are smart.
Also don’t do any suicidal stuff like do you remember when Adobe threaten to sue users for owning Adobe software, lol?
Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers who haven’t updated their apps in a while may want to check their inboxes. The software company has sent out emails to customers warning them of being “at risk of potential claims of infringement by third parties” if they continue using outdated versions of CC apps, including Photoshop and Lightroom. From a report:
These emails even list the old applications installed on the subscribers’ systems, and in some cases, they mention what the newest available versions are. In a response to a customer complaint on Twitter, the AdobeCare account said users can only download the two most recent variants of CC apps going forward.
A spokesperson said in a statement, “Adobe recently discontinued certain older versions of Creative Cloud applications. Customers using those versions have been notified that they are no longer licensed to use them and were provided guidance on how to upgrade to the latest authorized versions.” However, the spokesperson said Adobe can’t comment on claims of third-party infringement, as it concerns ongoing litigation.
Or this Pantone/Adobe insanity to piss of a lot of users.
I Have to Pirate COLOURS Now?? - Pantone Connect + Adobe split
I think there is opportunity for smaller companies to compete for users that were betrayed by the big soulless corporations and as there is a lot of value in relationship building that respects the users. Loyalty is profitable but requires human touch and integrity, and not excel spread sheets where lawyers and accountants are making decisions for the company and have nothing to do with what users wants or need.
Anyway, just my 2 cents [end rant]
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And I thought I am member of a photo forum 
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It’s not thinking about compete with adobe. That’s not realistic.
But one of the 3 key feature which leads people to photolab is their Ai denoising.
(The others are their lens/camera analyse and they don’t hold users hostage).
Now adobe play this game, and obviously they will play it well.
So I think photolab needs to show more muscles for the future.
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I agree. Also I would add, lack of subscription mandate is important advantage of DXO.
Yes, when it comes to AI they simply have much more resources. But there are smaller companies that have shown AI is not just about data, but also implementation and other clever tricks.
DeepL the auto translation service using AI was smaller German company and could offer better results than big tech like Microsoft or Google. Similar to how DXO did it with DeepPrime and later DeepPrimeXD.
Also Blackmagic design in resolve uses really cool AI solutions all over their applications and they are not big headline features but they make the overall application more powerful and user experience is improved. They also have attracted users with great value for affordable prices, and no subscription mandate. Many are switching from Adobe apps to Resolve.
I think DXO could do something similar. With cleverly implemented solutions that play to their strengths, innovation and good relations with user base they could offer value that companies like Adobe cannot or will not.
This is in part what I meant talking about adobe hostage-taking.
Good point.
I think black magic has a very stronger base than dxo. They don’t only do Da vinci.
Yes. Cleverly implemented, fluid interface is part of the solution.
You have to like opening your software and know you will be able to use its functionnality easily, fluidly, precisely.
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I agree.Yes. Sometime big companies have so much users and so much capital they get lazy. Smaller companies could do more with less by being more focused and innovative. So there is opportunity… and hope. Cheers!
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was it a joke ? unlike this forum, hosted by DxO , Adobe stuff is a much more constant presence in their forums, hosted by Adobe …
or they be run out of business ( best case scenario purchased and continue to live for a while as a name only )
But if you ever spend any length of time on Adobe forums
a) you will know that people there don’t run the company and unless the requests and bugs align with whatever goals are from higher up they don’t get fixed. There are tones of nasty bugs on Adobe forums being constantly reported for years and while some low level, low paid guy that Adobe can afford might give a generic answer on forums, they won’t get fixed. Adobe forums are a joke. Been there long enough to know.
b) Adobe is anti user pro whatever shareholder and more and more stakeholder company. DXO still is not. If you don’t know what I mean by stakeholder company, ESG, DEI etc. than it does not matter.
c) Adobe has a track record of deliberate being anti user company in their decisions, as I’ve listed just some of many examples in my previous replies, which is why many users, who could leave, did. There was a trend of “life after Adobe” because it became clear that Adobe that was from the era of Thomas and John Knoll is no where to be found.
d) You can look at the earnings and investment of Adobe and you will see that creative apps, something like Photoshop or Lightroom are very low on their list of priorities. They make most of their earnings with cloud services aimed more at marketing to enterprise and B2B packages than creative tools for artists. And more and more because ESG and DEI they are becoming like so many companies a company full of activists, diversity hires and not neutral company that makes products it supposed to be making. Thank God DXO is not there… and I hope they will not end up there.
Sounds like you are advocating for monopoly, since its a rigged market anyway. Big tech for example and this goes for all of them big pharma, big banks etc. collectively known as big business is in the bed with the governments and FED, hence they don’t play by the same rules. Unless you want to live under dystopian hellhole. I suggest you show a bit more respect and support for small business, which are the backbone of healthy middle class, meaning healthy sociaty. Big business company don’t make money from value they create anymore but from connections they have with governments and with mergers and acquisitions and other underhanded methods. Something that hurts everyone but few.
Adobe XD is described as ‘(Experience Design) is a vector-based tool developed and published by Adobe Inc for designing and prototyping user experience for web and mobile apps’ and is a popular UI Design tool in the photos & graphics category. There are more than 50 alternatives to Adobe XD for a variety of platforms, including Mac, Windows, Online / Web-based, Linux and iPad.
Digital UI and UX design firm Figma is being acquired by Adobe, which has competed in the same space with its Adobe XD software. Adobe has announced that it is begun what it calls a “definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma,” for approximately $20 billion in stock and cash.Sep 15, 2022.
Is Adobe XD being discontinued?
In conclusion, Adobe XD is not discontinued, and Adobe continues to support and develop the software. While the acquisition of Figma may have caused some confusion and speculation, Adobe has made it clear that they have no plans to discontinue Adobe XD.May 14, 2023
What is the future of Adobe XD after Figma acquisition?
Adobe has been reducing its investment in XD. It seems like Adobe may have a plan to sunset XD once the Figma deal has completely closed in 2023. However, if you prefer using Adobe XD, there’s really no rush to migrate to Figma yet since Adobe will likely continue to support it in the near future.
Just recently, Adobe announced they would spend $20 billion to acquire Figma, four times the price of their next highest purchase. History tells us that Adobe will adopt Figma as one of its own and that Figma fans have nothing to worry about in regards to the product being shut down. Or, does it?
There’s divided opinion about whether the Figma multi-billion acquisition is good for the SaaS industry. Lack of competition means Adobe continues to dominate the industry, and Figma will now have to succeed in concert with Adobe, not in spite of Adobe. Whether this acquisition will have a PhotoShop outcome or a FreeHand outcome, remains to be seen.
Experts warn, however, that if the current generation of SaaS startups keep entering into mergers and acquisitions with the same legacy companies, they’ll never be able to break the hold that entrenched platform companies have over the enterprise software market.
We have seen Google, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and many other hedge funds and banks etc. Acquire and merge smaller business strangling competition or absorbing it and than holding hostage the users and discouraging actual innovation while encouraging startups-… all fun and games when stock market is pumped with fiat from the FED. This had far reaching social end economic consequences and we are heading in another great depression now, or greater depression as will be called in retrospective. So I would suggest you give a bit more support and respect to the small business as long as they respect the users.
If lock-downs and COVID situation didn’t teach you about the dangers of wealth effect, I suggest you look into it. But we are truly getting off the track now. so lets stick to curves implementation for now.
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hope, I didn’t miss anything ( tldr )