Yesterday I’ve installed PL9.0.1 trial on a computer with PL8+FP7+VP5 licenses. Menu item ‘Help → DxO FilmPack → Activate DxO FilmPack’ is shown, although FP7 and VP5 features work without having to enter manually license keys. Activating FP doesn’t change anything (checked also License Management), and there’s no corresponding entry in the menu for ViewPoint activation (so probably no VP upgrade soon, as expected). Sounds similar to what has happened just before VP4->VP5 upgrade (don’t remember the details now). Probably same behaviour for PL9 purchased version (?).
Sounds right to me. If DxO intends to continue releasing new versions of FilmPack and ViewPoint every other year, then FP8 can be expected to arrive before the end of 2025.
As far as I know, FP upgrades were as follows:
FP4 - June, 2013
FP5 - October, 2014
FP6 - October 20, 2021
FP7 - September 27, 2023
So it’s not exactly “every other year”, unlike yearly realeases of PhotoLab since PL1. But maybe DxO switched to “every other year” updates mode for FP and VP since about 2021.
I just wonder what new features FP8 may bring?
There are no new analog films. Fine-contrast tool should be a part of PL anyway, but I would still like some enhancements there (range and fall-off control). Speculating is a useless fun, but perhaps someone knows something about more commonly desired features in FP, which we might expect?
Given that DeepPRIME3 was added in PL8.5, it seems that Reala Ace support could/should be added in a minor FP release, if there are no copyright issues. Too minor for major release, I naively think.
They did, for both FilmPack (odd years) and ViewPoint (even years) - which is why I said “continue.” Since that’s a new trend, we haven’t known if it will change again; however, the existence of a feature in PhotoLab to activate FilmPack when one has already activated FilmPack 7 is a rather sure sign that FP8 is about to be released.
I don’t like speculating - but there are plenty of ways that FilmPack can be improved. PL9 gives me hope that DxO will satisfy some long-standing feature requests, which are largely improvements to frames, textures, grain, filters… I struggle to imagine what entirely new features might arrive. Can’t wait to find out.
