You are absolutely right. In fact the prices now for Photoshop is a fraction of what it was when it was bought as a perpetual license and now even Lightroom is included. By the way we never by any software to own. We just buy a license. The reason to use cracked software have never been harder to motivate than today. I say this as a person that really dislikes Adobe but there are few offers thart can match Adobes today.
I have a completely different reason to stay away from Adobe and I do it because I will never trust my businesscard data with them. When they got their servers hacked earlier I left them for good.
Subscriptions is where the whole industry seem to be heading and I don’t think it will be a fruitful stance for Milan to be forced to use inferior software just because a principle. Then both he and nany others have to say goodbye to their beloved Photoshop at a time when it seems to have gotten really interesting. A few years ago I did’t think Adobes R&D would have what it took to take them where they are today - but I was wrong. There is for sure a great risk to minimize costs and maximize the profits in the short run from a lot of subscription money but Adobe seems to have avoided that trap. Instead they seems to stay stronger than ever - how about DXO??
Who talks about the once popular Pirate Bay today? It was a Swedish group behind it and I haven’t heard or read about them for many years now. Of course there will be others popping up in countries with a weak official control but it’s not like it was before. The best gift to pirates are a sloppy control of their behavior. I don’t think it is so easy these days, at least not in the common market of EU.
Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
23
Some of the most problematic limitations in DXO is the ones their camera profiles impose as they are implemented in Photolab. In my case I was unable to open my Sony A7IV files for 6 months without replacing the model codes in them with the codes for A7III. Six months. That is one example of a really hard limitation.
If we change these codes and get in there is nothing preventing me from using both Nikon and Canon profiles with my A7IV files. So why is there a file opening stop logic there at all?
Whether we like it or not companies own some tech exclusively that they have patented. Even a color system can be proprietary as can camera communication protocols e.t.c. We might dislike it and even hate it but doing so won’t take us all that long. The digital camera world is stiil very young and immature and haven’t even been able to standardize on a common RAW-file format yet. Adobe have tried with DNG with limited success since all the major manufacturers obstructs a standardization an as long as the consumers just adapt nothing is likely to happen.
For better or worse, DXO decided to invest in lens correction process by complex manual measurement. I don’t know if this is related to the fact that there was one a link between DXO and DXO Mark , a website that specializes in this sort of measurement Originally created by DXO labs. So it seems that lens measurements was core to their business and direction for many years and it made sense to include .those measurements into software such as PhotoLab. It also made sense to use it on a website like DXO Mark and they probably try to sell the analyzer type tool as well.
So these types of corrections are part of the DXO since its beginning, its their unique proposition. Obviously focusing on quality means they are slow to release support for all camera lenses and brands. I agree this was a particular problem at one point. If I’m not mistaken there was internal problems in the company and split of DXO Labs and DXO Mark seems to correspond to about that era. To their credit they have rebranded, refocused and are more consistent with support for many optical modules now.
Here is some more info from Wikipedia:
DXOMARK is a commercial website described as “an independent benchmark that scientifically assesses smartphones, lenses and cameras”.[2][3] Founded in 2008, DxOMark was originally owned by DxO Labs,[4] a French engineering and consulting company, which is headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France.[1][4][2][5] DXOMARK Image Labs was separated from DxO Labs in September 2017, and was later re-branded to DXOMARK in 2019.[6][7] DXOMARK is now a wholly independent privately-owned company.[6]
DxO Labs (formerly DO Labs) is a privately owned photography software company. It was founded in 2003 by Jérôme Ménière,[1] former CEO of Vision-IQ.[2] The company’s headquarters are in Paris, France.
It sells DxO PhotoLab, DxO PureRaw,[3] DxO ViewPoint, DxO FilmPack,[4] and Nik Collection[5] image processing software packages.
DxO Labs created DxOMark.com, which provides image quality ratings for standalone cameras, lenses, and mobile devices that include cameras.[6] However it has spun off from them, DxOMark Image Labs.[7][8] On October 25, 2017, DxO announced the acquisition of the Nik Collection assets from Google.[9]
DxO PhotoLab
First released as DxO Optics Pro in 2004,[10] DxO PhotoLab is digital image editing software package designed for professional photographers.[11] It offers automatic corrections for optical aberrations and image distortions for popular camera-lens combinations, as well as a range of other tools. It can be used in conjunction with other software such as Adobe Lightroom.
Discontinued Products
DxO Analyzer was a suite of software tools[16] and equipment to test sensors, lenses, and standalone cameras, as well as mobile devices with cameras.[17][18] Originally introduced by DxO Labs, DxO Analyzer is now a product of DxOMark Image Labs.[19]
The DxO ONE was a phone-connected-camera.[20] It was a small 20-megapixel, 1-inch-sensor, f/1.8 camera which plugs into a Lightning connector of an iPhone or iPad and uses the display to frame and shoot an image. The camera was discontinued in 2018.[21]
DxOMark splits from DxO Labs, is now an independent privately-owned company
Published Jan 8, 2018 | Brittany Hillen
Are you reading raw data and properly correcting optical flaws, or only reading raw data when you do that?
Because you can read raw data in terms of color and tone in many programs. You can demosic them in many programs but results will vary. However the kind of lens corrections offered in DXO only is available because they do that test in the way they do. Downside is limited support and long waiting periods on some cases. It would be great if they could keep the quality, but speed up the process.
I think Adobe had hope DNG would replace prosperity RAW formats in its own way, but that was more a hope than stated goal. My understanding is that DNG was originally intended as archival format, which still is. Ability to be able to open raw files at some point in the future when there is no more support for propitiatory technology. Lets say Olympus goes out of camera business and raw files shot with it are 50 years old. Without access to data we might not be able to read them easily. But with DNG would could archive the original and open it with open source DNG much later. Providing they are archived properly.
I remember when David Fincher the movie director was talking about the problems od digital technology and format. And how commercials he shot in the late 80’s and 90’s he cannot even read them from the kind of cossets and disks they used back than. So some stuff he had to not only archive it with a cassets or disk of that era, but also a device to read it with.
They talked baout how many digital formats came and went in just few decades. Unlike with analog film, this can be real tricky to preserve digital stuff. So its good someone tried to create archival format like DNG.
But I think other than few less known brands , most camera brands had their own raw formats and don’t produce dng out of the camera. But as I’ve mentioned before, DNG format is not always RAW and Raw is not always linear and even when it is, in the case of some smartphones and cameras, there needs to be DXO interest in obtaining the camera and lens, measuring it, and developing optical module for it. Otherwise even if they support reading reading of just tone and color information , lot of the unique value propositions of DXO would be missing. Also there was talk of access to code. While DNG is open source, and all cameras shoot raw, not all cameras (smartphone) allow for recording of RAW. And some do, and open the access to third party developers of camera apps. How well is smartphone optimized for raw photography I don’t know, since I’ve seen various results. From good to really bad. I don’t know enough about every smartphone and how raw data is stored to comment for every brand, though.