There are no improvements over version 8 except for this AI feature, which doesn’t work on Windows or Apple.
DXO is making money at the expense of quality and its loyal customers.
Pathetic!
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Hello and welcome back.
There’s a lot of changes for the better in PL9 and AI masking is not the only new feature. But it’s not for everyone.
Fortunately they offer a 30 day trial version of the Elite version with all functionality there are, so everyone can take it for a test drive, evaluate properly before they decide if it’s for them or not.
DxO don’t force or trick anyone into buying something.
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I’m not sure how you define improvements, but for me there’s a couple of dozen really useful ones some of which are also major upgrades. I have to assume you really don’t use many of the features in PhotoLab or you wouldn’t say that.
PL 9 is by far the biggest single release that PhotoLab has ever had. I don’t know what your computer is like or whether or not you have a good graphics card that’s up to the job, but when 9.02 was released the other day It was a major fix to a lot of the initial performance issues that we were having, mostly with the AI masks.
Even now using the AI mask presets is somewhat problematic in that it is slow. But if you select your own masks rather than use the presets there are now very few issues at all that I can see.
DxO has a generous a 30-day free trial available. They are not taking advantage of their users. If you don’t like it or somehow can’t get it to work than don’t buy it. If you bought it without testing it first to see if it works on your computer or has features that you want, then that is on you. There’s a reason that most software companies provide a free trial prior to purchase.
Mark
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It’s worth checking the system requirements. Min. requirements have been raised for new denoising and AI masking. Using PhotoLab with hardware that doesn’t provide those min. req. can be possible, but not joy - if one uses the new features.
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Notably, even with hardware far beyond the minimum specs, the AI features in 9.02 error out 100% of the time e.g. for ‘select subject’. Example: Win 11, AMD 32-core Threadripper (128 GB RAM), Nvidia RTX 3090 (24GB GPU RAM), 4x4TB NVMe 4 SSD. Latest Win11 patches, most recent Nvidia Studio drivers.
No Joy.
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I worked in IT support a few years when I was young and discovered that there are mainly two types of users of computer programs. One who will always go on protruding corners simply because they are programmed that way. Then there are the others who can handle slightly wider turns and are happy to take them out to try to avoid getting bruises on their thighs.
There are known work arounds now around many of Photolab´s recent “corners” that works very well. Its up to you to use them. If you do, you will find like many others now that there is practically nothing we can´t do with a single picture that these AI-features were designed to do, since there are two different ways of doing things with AI in Photolab. What might be a problem still for many are the use of the AI-presets but that doesn´t prevent us from editing the pictures the way we want. Basically the presets are indespensable only of one reason and that is when we want to batch AI-mask and update a selection of pictures. That is basically the limitation some of us still is facing.
I respect if some people see that as a deal breaker and show stopper and of course they should go somewhere else for a RAW-converter that suits them better or postpone sending DXO their money until even these problems are solved. I also can tell you that even Capture One needed a couple of years or three before they managed to get their user AI-mask presets to work as expected.
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Yes, according even to DXO that is a known problem and they recommend you to downgrade the driver until the known problems are solved.
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- release notes for 9.02 seemed to indicate problems with AI solved
- release notes do not acknowledge remaining 100% reproducible issues
- DXO setup specifically advises to always install latest graphics card drivers
- we are all wasting time trying to figure out if our individual PCs are the issue - amplified by well intended posts in this forum along the lines ‘make sure that you meet the new higher minimum HW requirements’
- DXO does not communicate appropriately - at a minimum I would have expected an email ‘we noticed you downloaded the Windows version of PL 9. Here are known issues and workarounds’. Crickets.
What can be debated is if they should or should not have shipped defective software. IMHO, leaving the AI features that don’t work out of 9.0 and delivering them in 9.1 would have been one out of several superior choices, compared to the current negative experience??
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We can agree on the fact that they could have handled this a lot better BUT they DID after all publish a page which has even been propagated to this DXO Forums that recommend people to downgrade to an earlier driver version. It is up to the users to do that or abort the grace period after the 30 days without losing a single cent if they please. Nobody has fooled anybody so far what I can see.
I´m fine paying because I don´t have any problems using it fully out after downgrading with the exception of the premade AI-presets that I feel I can live without for now since I think the freehand-hoovering-selection-method anyway is far more effective when working with single pictures. I have no problem at all doing whatever I need to do using the AI-functions that way.
I respect if that is not enough for others but it really works very well for me as it is. I´m using it in my production now and it is as stable and even better in some respects than the version 8 was. As I told you earlier, I had problems with PictureLibrary in version 8 that sometimes did not refresh the thumbnails that was just grey rectangles. No such problems in version 9 and the preview quality is just stunning since it displays even the effects of Deep Prime 3, without the need to activate the loupe tool any more. I love that.
I just feel a little sorry for those who are so completely stuck in some mental block that they miss out on using these new amazing features that actually work and make our lives as photo editors so much easier and more efficient.
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Excuse me, but it’s not a mental block, but a software blockage. The number of dissatisfied customers on the forum attests to this, even with recent configurations. Reverting to the old drivers doesn’t change anything for me. The graphics card’s memory becomes full and doesn’t reset when you change images; there’s a memory management problem. It’s not normal to have to close the software to do so.
We just have to wait for improvements from DXO, which I’m otherwise a huge fan of.
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Ok, MacMini M4 here and no single issue. Great update for me, with many improvements that I haven’t had enough time to explore fully yet. And as I said, I’m only speaking for myself. I don’t doubt the problems mentioned here.
It’s just that the voices of those who have problems are always louder than those who don’t.
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I would considered myself being mentally blocked if I of some reason would REFUSE to use a perfectly fine simple work-around that has been proven to work 100% by just downgrading of a driver. A downgrade that in one simple step together with this now well known freehand-hoovering-clicking-masking-method has proven to be so much quicker and more effective than having to, all the time, being forced to open menues and scrolling a list of predefined AI-masks. Scrolling drop down menues looking for suitable presets are for beginners or people with all the time in the world or for all the rest infantilized by graphical user interfaces. The others are using their keyboards and predefined short cuts of key combinations that are way more effective.
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This is nonsense for me. No matter what I do, I get errors with the AI without using the menus. The AI detects what you’re looking for really well. It’s after that that it crashes.
Everything else works great for what I’m using.
We’ll have to wait for the next upgrades. It’s not essential.
The choice is yours as are the now very well-known consequences of those choices.
I understand if this is hard to grasp, but:
- Just because something doesn’t work for YOU, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for others.
- Just because YOU see “no improvements” doesn’t mean others don’t.
(And Apple is not an operating system.)
You are welcome to take your money and your self-entitled rage anywhere and elsewhere, but don’t pretend like you are speaking for others.
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The “others” speak for themselves, just read this forum, they don’t need me.
Apparently not everyone has the luxury of time, the knowledge, or the patience for sorting this out. Early adopters should know that there might be problems. Fair enough. But, this time DxO seems to have crossed a line of sorts. They could have delayed things a bit or released PL9 as a public beta. A belated recommendation to downgrade NVIDIA drivers is hardly a great way to launch a big upgrade. Hiding behind, in effect, “it’s a NVIDIA problem” seems doubtful when other AI-intensive programs are running just fine, new drivers or old.
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I agree with this. While the information that AI masking is touchy is now available, it’s only thanks to “us” as beta testers.
I own PL8 elite with all the add on bits. I’m glad I didn’t jump straight to upgrade to 9, but tried the trial and found it had problems before that. In fact, I’m lucky that I did - many might go straight for an upgrade to something as awesome as AI masking (or at least the promise of it).
Also to address the comments above “DXO/nobody forced you to upgrade”… …well sure, that’s true, but it’s not helpful and it places blame/responsibility - I think equally unhelpfully - on the end consumer rather than the company charged with making and releasing a stable, working product.
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I fully agree for that. Thanks a lot !
Where is this DxO’s recommendation published by them?