Thank you for the response. However as a long time user of Lightroom I was well aware that its import only catalogs the images. It was a pain in my rear end to have to wait for the import to run on several hundred images before I could begin editing. It was one of many reasons I looked for an alternatives. to it.
Since I want everything in my picture folders to be available for editing in PhotoLab I don’t see DxO’s approach as having less control. In my opinion, nothing is being stuffed, as you suggested. Everything is just available when I need it without the need for a time consuming extra import step…
Mark & Mark, if we understand DPL’s database as a dumb cache and delete it regularly, PhotoLab is, and hopefully will always be, an easy to use “digital darkroom” that provides very good results - if your gear is supported.
If “grow or die” is still a valid business theorem, DxO will have to stay afloat in a fairly busy RAW processor market…and probably also need to try to get more customers, possibly by drawing them from other products. Not sure if the current “best raw developer and nothing else” approach will suffice for that. We might need to focus und what DxO achieves (functionality that we can use) rather than on how they do it.
I certainly understand and appreciate your thoughts regarding competition in a tight market.
Ultimately any small company competing in a market like this is at risk. What it sounds like you’re suggesting is that in order for DxO to survive and compete they would have to adopt a similar development approach as some of their more mediocre competition like ON1. Perhaps you are correct.
ON1, as an example, is unfortunately bloated with unnecessary “user friendly” features so end users do not have to spend much time learning how to use the software. There is certainly something to be said for making software user-friendly, but the unfortunate downside is the core functionality will generally suffer as a result. ON1 is a perfect example of that.
To complete in this tight market DxO needs to offer features that no one else does. DeepPRIME is one such feature. I think that is what DxO needs to do to survive. In addition other features, similar to those available in competing software, simply need to be better then their competition. What I’m suggesting is that DxO’s niche and what will allow it to survive, are the differences that make it superior rather than making it look and work like the rest of their competition.
However, with regard to the need for an import feature in PhotoLab, I do not believe it is necessary. The very popular Affinity Photo does not have this feature, and doesn’t seem to be suffering as a result. I don’t believe that Luminar has one either. Perhaps the file manager in Photo Library could be enhanced a bit to better meet everyone’s requirements, but I do not think any sort of specific import feature is necessary. As @uncoy pointed out it could potentially open the door to a whole lot of unnecessary issues.
…true. Who is going to define “necessary”? Usually, it’s the company’s responsibility and I feel confident that some of the things that come up in this forum will find a way into a future feature set.
I’ll go further and say that PhotoLab would do better without any visible file manager database at all.
The only database which should exist is one to accelerate certain actions via caching and should be completely invisible to users, who would know that their photos and their corrections and their metadata are reliably stored in portable .xmp and .dop files.
Exactly as you said, what draws photographers to PhotoLab are:
the straightforward user interface, which is single screen like Apple Aperture, with all the functionality in a single mode, and leads to a smoother more pleasurable workflow.
the wonderful Prime and now even better DeepPrime which makes high ISO photos look between one and two stops better than they are. It upgrades every camera one owns, Canon most of all.
not having to fight an import process and a database. At its core, PhotoLab and before PhotoLab DxO Optics Pro were simply focused on RAW development and not attempting to replace the operating system or a dedicated cataloguing app.
That said, some ventures of which I was sceptical have started to bear fruit. Local adjustments have steadily become amazing with the new mask controls and mask shapes in PhotoLab 5. The metadata feature (if DxO can resist the temptation to hoard the metadata away in the .dop or database instead of a standards compliant XMP file) is simple and powerful and can remove the need for an additional metadata editor for simpler use (large volume pros will still be better off with PhotoMechanic but I would be delighted to use the PhotoLab tools instead if I can just be sure my data won’t be stolen, hidden or lost in proprietary formats/locations).
Everything related to file management though has been a disaster, with the image browser still barely functional. Based on that track record, I’d hate to have DxO mixed up in my import process. The few times I’ve lost images in the last fifteen years, most have been while using third-party import tools, whose main goal is to make importing photos safer.
I’ve been using teracopy for ages on my SD card work. Scriptable, verifies files are copied correctly, etc.
Also does a very very good job on damaged media. It’s the first thing I grab if I suspect that my (or usually a friends) cards are bad. It’s a lifesaver for those old CF cards too.
Neither do most cameras, which is where Image Capture comes in so useful.
Heheheh
Amen to that brother
Added to which, with macOS, you get a free metadata indexing that supports the Spotlight search mechanism. It’s a bit clunky but I can search for files by all sorts of criteria, including aperture, shutter speed, ISO, keywords, etc, without having to use any other app at all.
My biggest beef about the browser is that the metadata tools, amongst others, are crammed into an extremely narrow column making it impossible to read any text that has any significant length. Personally, I would rather see either a popup dialog or, at least, a resizable column.
Have you tried dragging a keyword to add it to a hierarchy with anything more than the 12 items the list seems limited to? Once the mouse hits the top/bottom limit, the scrolling happens so fast it is fairly much uncontrollable.
