This whole thread ia about changing DxOās marketing decisions. Anything is possible, but based on the history of DxO products that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
That actually leaves users with three choices. One is to abandon DxO for competitive products, and some posters have threatened to do just that. The second option is to use a crippled PhotoLab Elite without the Viewpoint and Filmpack licenses and functionality. The third option is to acquire the full PhotoLab experience with licenses for Filmpack and Viewpoint at a much greater cost than for PhotoLab alone . Those are the current choices.
When I moved to PhotoLab 1 in 2017 I chose the entire suite and have been happily using it ever since. I have never regretted the purchase.
no, users ( current and former ) can voice their concerns here, on other forums, on FB, on every youtube channel for each video that market DxO products, etc, etc ā¦ now DxO can ignore that - it their call ā¦
You seem to be exerting a lot of energy in this thread trying to convince people to change their opinion. Iād say that was a fruitless waste of time and effort on your part
I guess this is the main issue:
Why should an Elite version, already heavily priced, be artificially crippled, so you must purchase add-ons, related to totally different functions than core raw editing (film simulations, sophisticated image correction (not just image flipping for another huge supplement to benefit from basic raw editing functionalities ?
Unfortunately, Iām afraid apologists live in another world where any naughty marketing tactics will be eagerly swallowed.
Once again, I think DxO offers one of the best (if not the best) raw processing and denoising tools with Deep Prime, which is why I have been supporting them for years, and I would hope they could build on this excellence, for example by real integration of Nik Software since they bought it (see this 6 years old post ), so I am disappointed to witness this move towards shady tactics and less and less real updates, costing more and more under increasingly limited conditions.
Feel free to continue to be milked if things donāt change for fair and transparent practices.
Maybe I was not being obvious enough captain. The choices I was referring to were in regard to deciding whether to stick with DxO products or move on to their competitors products. That has nothing to do with using various platforms to post complaints. Those are not options unless the ultimate goal is to complain rather than edit images.
The reason is actually simple. The package is broken down into three pieces to make it more cost effective for those not willing or able to shell out the high cost of the entire suite. It has been that way for many years, Some people even opt for the Essential version of PhotoLab for less money which lacks some very important features of the Elite version.
Historically some users were happy to sacrifice Viewpoint and FimPack functionality and just get PhotoLab to save money. Frankly, I have always believed that there should only be one version of PhotoLab with all of the Viewpoint and FilmPack features unhidden so there would only be the need for a single license. But then the cost of PhotoLab would be much higher than it is now and many people would complain about that rather than about missing features and the need for multiple licenses. There is no satisfying everyone.
DxO owns these three products. They decide which features go into each one and the prices for them. As consumers we can decide that we are willing to spend the money to acquire these products or we can pass on them and move on to their competitors products.
you mean price , the cost is not known ā¦ and then price is for DxO to decide - may be it will be higher but then people do pay that price for 3 products and suddled w/ 3 licensesā¦ so how about just have PL version with one license call it PL Elite Super and be doneā¦ and have a clear table PL vs PL Elite vs PL SuperElite ā¦ but no, that will be too much an issue when people see that they need SuperElite to flip the image (OMG !!!) or god forbid they find out it takes super elite to have 3 sliders to fine tune middle freq contrast application ā¦ now that will be a no go because there are NO commercial raw converters with 3 tiers like this ( top tier to flip an image ? seriously ? ) ā¦ that price gauging will be too much in the open
You are just being contrary. I was specifically referring to options regarding the decision to keep on using PhotoLab vs using other software. Your other āoptionsā are irrelevant to that end unless, of course, you believe that expressing your personal dissatisfaction with DxO will somehow magically get your images edited. In the end, the complaint fest that is this topic will eventually die and nothing will have changed. By all means, continue to vent your frustration. I have wasted far too much time on this topic it already.
some people take your point as if there are no other options and some people disagree w/ that ā¦ both sides entitled to their personal opinionsā¦ yes, options of course do include pay and shut up or leave and shut upā¦ but they also include pay and be vocal and leave and be vocal ā¦
You can complain all you want but at the end of the day see where it gets you. You will still have three choices, and sooner or later you will probably decide on one of them. Move to other software, stay with a crippled version of PhotoLab without Viewpoint and FilmPack, or buy into the whole PhotoLab suite. It is only a question of time. This is my last comment on this fruitless thread.
I am not trying to quell discontent. I couldnāt care less about all this complaining. But I do think itās a waste of time and will not reap anything beneficial. .
I have been on this site daily for over six years. This thread is nothing new. I have seen many groups of similar angry malcontents come and go over the years. Whatever you think the objectives of this thread are they will not pan out and sooner or later you will realize that and grow tired of posting negative rants that go nowhere. Eventually you will simply stop. In the meantime I will remain on the sidelines and reserve the right to occasionally put in my two cents .
The obvious way out of the annoying gold digger arrangements is to learn to use Darktable.
I paid for Adobe for years and found out that this free raw editor actually outperforms most features in ACR and Lightroom regarding pure raw management. And you can still have a free version of the latest Bridge installed together with an eternal license for Affinity Photo 2 for pixel extensions. Darktable promises that AI never will interfere with your personal editing. Darktable is not hard to learn - it just looks and works different, but for good reasons.
DxO is providing PureRAW 3 to manage noise and sharpness, probably the best app for that job at the moment, and the output DNGs are easily edited in Darktable. I consider the combination described to be perfect. And the constant drain from your money tank stops.
I am the accidental owner of Photolab 7, and I have not so far been able to make a raw file look better than it can be done with Darktable. And I would not hesitate to admit such a success in PL7 - as the end result of my editing remains the primary parameter, no matter which editor.
surely not ā¦ PL7 is much better at controlling output before running conversion to DNG to use further ā¦ also I take it that you do not use optical corrections ? which for Fuji cameras and certain Sony cameras requires you for certain lenses ( mostly on wide end of focal distances ) to select focusing distance manually per shot to achieve best results - can you do this in PR ?
for another huge supplement to benefit from basic raw editing functionalities ?