Ready to buy DXO Photolab 9, but not ready to buy a new PC

DxO PhotoLab
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DXO Photolab 9 developers, you’ve ruined the best photo editing product since version 8.0. Add an option to disable masking features. “Weak” computers (according to the developers) won’t be able to handle your new product, and the artificial intelligence will be completely useless.

Users are buying new cameras, but not everyone can afford a new PC specifically for DxO PhotoLab 9. Version 8 works perfectly, for example: Redmi Intel(R) Core™ Ultra 5 125H, 32 GB RAM.
Give people the opportunity to buy your DxO PhotoLab 9 app without buying a new PC.

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Hi, eva. I see this is your first post here in the user forum. DxO might be reading it - but may I offer a couple of suggestions? (1) Send feedback directly to DxO via support.dxo.com. (2) When posting here, be more clear about what problems you’re experiencing (if any) and what you’ve tried in order to resolve them. I don’t understand your suggestion that DxO disable the masking features. If you choose not to use them, does PhotoLab 9 still perform badly for you? Other than what’s in the release notes pertaining to AI masking, have you been told that in order to run PhotoLab 9 you need something that PhotoLab 8 doesn’t need?

My PC is many years old and is able to run PhotoLab 9 very well - even with AI masking and all on-screen rendering options in use. I wouldn’t call it fast, but it isn’t slow either. Exports are rather quick, thanks to an nVidia RTX 3080. On the other hand, I’m finding that Analog Efex from Nik Collection 9 runs slower than a traffic light in every respect. I would need to figure out why if I were to decide that I want to buy that product. I know not everyone is having this problem.

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I take little pride in admitting I’ve been one of the more vocal frustrated users here to complain about PL 9.0’s launch.

It wasn’t handled well, communication from DxO was poor and the product didn’t feel in a ‘finished’ state for many months after launch. It felt like they charged money for something they weren’t ready to charge money for - focussing more on hitting a release date than whether the product was consumer-ready.

I have an older computer… over 10 years old in fact, with a CPU first launched in 2014. For many uses it works fine, but PL9 (especially initially) brought it to it’s knees.

However…

I’m now finding PL9 much more responsive thanks to updates at DxO’s end and my own experimentation.

I find a couple of things really tank performance.

  • Editing shots that are on an HDD, especially one separate to the OS/application install space.
  • Over-reliance on AI masks. Too many AI masks quickly slows things down, so finding other ways to mask certain areas is a good idea.
  • Weirdly - for me - changing the Lens Sharpness Optimisation value in any type of mask away from what the global photo setting is. This made PL unusable to me, but leaving it alone as “constant” and only using the global value avoids that performance drop. I instead sharpen certain areas by other means.

Ultimately though, DxO are putting more stuff into PhotoLab and it’s making older systems struggle. I agree having to upgrade an entire system is kinda ridiculous - especially when competing products work better with the same setup. It feels like DxO needs an optimisation pass on their products to reduce their needs and system footprint, or else they’re forcing customers who can’t or won’t upgrade their whole systems elsewhere.

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I agree there are so many known and asked about problems with PL that a year with a miner features but big optimisation would widen the number of potential customers. Its what the publisher of Photo Supreme has set out to this year each update over the year has been mainly improvements to what was there. Its not as if PL lacks things needing that overtime even they have said should be reprogrammed but never got round to it,

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This option already exists. All you have to do is not use the AI masking features.

That was what I did when I first upgraded to PL9 because at that time I had a really old PC (Win 10, 3rd gen i5 CPU, 8gb RAM, GTX 1050Ti 4GB VRAM). I can’t say PhotoLab 9 was quick using that 10 year old hardware, but it did run and it did not crash - providing I did not use the AI masks.

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Thanks for the advice. First, my question was directed at the developers: how can I get PhotoLab 9 without buying a new computer? To do this, they (not me!) need to remove this feature (new masks + AI) when installing PhotoLab 9. I hope this feature (disabling) will be added in future versions. Personally, I don’t need masks, especially in combination with AI. I consider PhotoLab 8!!! to be quite suitable for everyday professional work. I consider PhotoLab 9 a completely unfinished product (the program constantly crashes and closes) and expect improvements for users with simpler PCs on the level of PhotoLab 8. Nothing else to add, I’m just waiting. You have a ten-year-old computer, and your hardware is very powerful compared to what I mentioned.

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This forum is a user forum and DxO seems to read the posts somehow but rarely materialise thoughts in here. Create a ticket for DxO’s support as proposed above. Support will read your ticket and eventually send an answer. Not more, not less.

If PL8 has been doing a good job for you, stick to it. No need to buy something that doesn’t help. To find out whether a new major release will work as expected, use the 30 day trial. There’s only one trial (prepare in order to profit from the trial) unless you run another trial on a separate PC.

In general, it’s good practice to back up regularly and/or keep the installer(s) to be ready for fallback, should an update be disruptive. When needed, you should be able to re-download the installer (latest version currently available) from your store account.

Please note that upgrading removes the app from the shop account.

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As others have already written, if you have any problems, you should contact support. My main PC is a very fast desktop, but I also use Photolab on a laptop. I currently have a Lenovo Yoga with an Intel Core Ultra 256V and 16GB of RAM. PL9.7 isn’t fast, but it runs smoothly, including AI masks, without any crashes.
I had an older Lenovo with an i7 Gen 8 processor, which was very slow and couldn’t even export with DeepPrime, but PL9 ran, albeit slowly. There’s no need to disable the AI ​​features; just don’t use them.

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I wonder on this post. I not see any exact thing on the post, and i think may also some factual errors in there. May i just miss the point.

option to disable masking features

Mask usage not mandatory :wink: Local Adjustments button even separated from the others. PL8 also has masks! :wink: PL9 “just” introduced new mask type(s) (AI), and Mask “interactions”. Also, AI mask usage not mandatory…
What can i say on that.

“Weak” computers (according to the developers) won’t be able to handle your new product

Hard to decide what is the “weak” or not. Under specifications computers definitely able to run PL9. Even “Manual” AI masking can work with only 4GB GPU VRAM, etc. AFAIK basically only the AI masks tax more on the GPU VRAM amount.

and the artificial intelligence will be completely useless.

Definitely not true in PL9 AI masks. Its just works fine in PL9. Of course, may can be better (like “Sky”) - but overall AFAIK, works nice.

Users are buying new cameras, but not everyone can afford a new PC specifically for DxO PhotoLab 9.

Or may buy new lenses and not cameras, or may just buy (or upgrade) softwares or upgrade (or buy new) computers. May someone not buy and not plan to buy cameras for years, and so on. May someone just upgrade GPU card (in the case of desktop computers), etc.

Version 8 works perfectly, for example: Redmi Intel(R) Core™ Ultra 5 125H, 32 GB RAM.

So, i guess PL9 also can be run on that. May its dont have enough GPU VRAM for AI masks. However, even AI mask can works just fine in “CPU only” mode…

Give people the opportunity to buy your DxO PhotoLab 9 app without buying a new PC.

Seems definitely possible to buy (and use) PL9, without buying new PC. Trial version of PL9 can be downloaded to check exact details on the user existing PC.

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Careful about upgrades. Even on very powerful hardware (Mac M2 Studio Ultra), AI masks can quickly slow PhotoLab 9 down to a crawl. While I’m impressed with what the AI masks can do, I’ve gone back to leaning on U-point technology. It’s fast as lightning, I can make the circles as small or large as I want to avoid spillover.

DxO have cost me at least €5000 in early hardware upgrades which I would not have done except on account of PhotoLab. I’ve gone from blessing the day I discovered PhotoLab (finally good high ISO images from my Canon 5D and 5DS R at the time) to rueing the day PhotoLab slipped into my workflow (Nikon images include reasonable looking noise).

I’m good at PhotoLab and don’t have time to spend rebuilding my processes now so I pay and grumble.

If you don’t want to invest thousands in hardware, PhotoLab 8 would be a good place at which to press pause on the DxO carrousel for a few years.

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Its a worry with all software seems you may have to upgrade every 5 or 6 ones computer

With PL if your happy with version 6 7 or 8 and dont upgrade your camera in theory will work forever in theory

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Trouble is, those don’t come with AI masking, which competing products do. Stopping there means you’re already “behind”. Sure, if you don’t use that kind of thing then there’s no reason to chase after it, but it is pretty darn useful unfortunately.

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Modern computing is a perpetual race ; actual computers are at least a billion faster than first ones with graphic design but opening a menu is less reactive with my MBP M1 than with my Mac SE.

An actual web page may have more than 100000 rows of code to display a content smaller than an item of this thread.

When I bought my MBP M1, PL processing was 60 times faster than with my MBP 2012, but 5 years later, the need of power has increased the processing duration by 2 or 3.

If you don’t want to change your computer, don’t upgrade PL or other softwares.

Unlike many others, I’m not complaining about the slowness of AI masks : there are slower but I save time overall with a very efficient result.

As for processing time, I prepare my corrections and run the process when I do another thing ! With my old computer, I was obliged to process less than 5 pictures if I wanted to avoid fan panic ; with M1, I can process silently 100 pictures.

Finally, most of the issues seem to occur on PCs; I haven’t had many on a Mac.

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When I started back with photography 5 years ago though will need to upgrade computer was a 10 yr old windows PC. Still got it lots of farming stuff only works on pc.

Anyway guy at camera who is an avid film photographer actually talked me into MacBook for photography thought gawd im to old and daft to learn Mac learning curve etc glad a I did.

Then in a storm out chasing MacBook fell out of car and insurance paid for another and upgraded to M4 24 gb had to pay out a little again glad I did but if I got a different salesman in the small local store may well have had windows machine.

Like my camera gear buy from a small family owned computer store and camera gear is only family owned store in my capital city since 60s

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Meanwhile in the games industry, folks are rightly calling out awful/no optimisation by publishers who favour using DLSS, FSR, Multi-frame generation etc. instead of making efforts to ensure their software runs more efficiently, or is less demanding on the system it’s installed on.

The winners there are the games publishers, who save money, time, and resources selling us poorly optimised products… …and the hardware developers and vendors who get us to spend more and more trying to keep things running smoothly.

No thanks. Optimisation matters.

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My computer is reasonably new, but it no longer meets the “recommended hardware” criteria (MacBook Air M3, no separate GPU, only 16 Gb RAM). But I’m able to run PL 9.7.0 without any problems, including extensive use of AI masks. Some people might quibble over waiting 30s to render a JPEG from RAW, but it’s so much better than my older Intel Air. Though I can’t speak to performance on a Windows machine, you may want to give the trial edition a chance before writing it off altogether.

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Hi Eva,

I’m afraid, the new Windows 12 will be a more trouble for us. I expect a new Windows release within 12 months. What does it mean ? We have to consider a to buy a new hardware configuration anyhow. Usually, DxO used to stop the support at least one older Windows version ( probably Windows 10 ) in case of a new Windows version release.

I’m personally satisfied with my Windows 10 stability, speed and available updates. Yesterday I made a 120 images project with Nikon D850 45Mb size RAW files each. It finished the rendering within 7 minutes. It is not bad at all. Anyhow, we can not stop the hardware development - in spite of the memory and other chip component price increase. :slightly_frowning_face:

Endre

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It means you are speculating. There is no official announcement from MS about Windows 12 at this time.

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I’m surprised there was a misunderstanding on your part. (It feels like the answers were written by an Ai bot, not a living person.) 1. I specifically stated my PC configuration. 2. Version 9.8 is unstable. (Even in this mode, use only the CPU.) 3. I’m staying on version 8. PL 8 works great with large raw files while remaining stable and never failing.There’s nothing more to say.

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Your post has lot of points, like “option to disable masking features” and so on. But as others also point out you not need to use any “masking”.
Also your post leave us in some uncertainties, like: “won’t be able to handle” what means in the reality for you / in your system, and so on.

There’s nothing more to say.

May start with small steps, may still something tos say.
See below few question / point:

I specifically stated my PC configuration

GPU configuration not described, like: how many GB is there/assigned, GPU type. They also a specs for your system / configuration of your system.

Version 9.8 is unstable

So, now we know a bit better what means the “won’t be able to handle” in your case. But what the “unstable” means in your case? “unstable” is where and how? Base (global) editing? Exporting? Before export or after some export? Etc.

May also a good idea to describe, what you already try and what is enabled/disabled, etc.
Example: try with OpenCL disabled/enabled, try with Windows ML acceleration is compatibility / max perf, Deepprime rendering is disabled, try with no NR at all (disabled) and so on.

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