The issue is not merely the “bundle” and thus the savings afforded by licensing the bundle for fee. The fundamental issue to me is that Film Pack and Viewpoint – unlike the Nik collection – do not require an export from Photolab to a file (e.g., X.nef must be exported as, say, X.tiff that actually exists on the “hard” drive of a machine) but actually integrate into the internal image processing pipeline of PL. I “save money”, for example, when I bundle the various Topaz workflow applications – but these work upon an external file and do NOT (at present) share any internal pipeline. Thus, when I first attempted to experiment with Viewpoint as a “tilt and shift” and de-fisheye application instead of Imadio Fisheye-Hemi (that is a plugin for the Adobe workflow suite, thereby using the internal Adobe image processing pipeline), I was instructed (by DxO) to download Viewpoint and use it as a standalone application – it was not explained the Viewpoint already exists in Photolab with only activation (no MS Win installer and installation package file) required.
As for your suggestion how DxO should bundle PL, given that DxO will not allow PL to have real plugins (the Nik collection is a real plugin to the Adobe workflow suite, but not to DxO own PL) – and not allow may mean that the cost of re-engineering and testing a true plugin using version of PL, preferably adopting the Adobe linkage to which DxO already does provide some plugins, would be excessive to the business management of DxO – suggests to me to have two “new” PL “releases”, PL non-elite Complete and PL Elite Complete. The license fee for each Complete should be at or below the current bundle fee. Most working photographers who use PL would opt for PL Elite Complete provided the cost was no more, and preferably less, than the bundle cost. If DxO ever decides to go the Adobe rental route, then I and others I know would look elsewhere. Otherwise, given the superiority of DxO DeepPRIME to anything Adobe has (let alone Serif, etc.), and provided DxO continues to allow the use of “new” raw formats as these arrive, DxO will increase market penetration that in most business models increases profitability, etc., and the other monetized measures used by the financial sector. I have compared the amount of work I have to do with DeepPrime (particularly with my own custom presets) to that using several other competitor workflows – DeepPrime produces results liked by clients with much less effort on my part (but long processing times on the computer – machine time, not my time).
I generally concur. With fine contrast enabled in PL5E, I redid some of my NEF to JPEG exports, despite the fact that clients accepted the previous exports. Fine contrast made a significant difference in some images (all of which were processed with DeepPrime), particularly in feather detail, avian eyering detail, reptile scale detail, and in several macro images both of insects and flowers. I also use fisheye lenses, sometime for scenics, but often for tall trees and for under tree canopies (such as with Moreton Bay figs) – and then de-fish to produce a rectilinear image. Unless I use a tilt and shift lens (or a large format view camera that I do NOT use), a rectilinear wide angle will not get tall trees to be vertical, requiring “tilt and shift” in workflow.=
Given the options in VP and FP
they must devided in two sections:
1: technical options
2: creative options.
Adjustable vignetting correction: two way slider. is technical but a reversed vignetting and roundness and changing midpoint is creative.
Filmpack’s special tastes in film(old containers with a role of film) emulations is creative but monochrome and B&W in normal silver effex kind is more technical.
(when i want B&W i convert in NIK’s silverefex pro 2 of the old and free NIC good enough for me.)
I bought and use FP soly for the contrast sliders and vignetting control. (which in my eye’s is a optical tool)
The channelmixer can be usefull if you have a image which is a bit off converted but if you correct in color and send that to B&W convertion you don’t need it often.
Contrast as fine and high and low and such is technical.
hightone and lowtone also technical filtering.
channel mixer: technical convertion tool.
grain is creative same as frame and texture and light leak.
Point is most buyers of VP and FP are in for the technical stuff not the creative stuff.
What DxO should do with the both and the main developer i don’t know in terms of commercial influence .
if it was pure technical decision:
Split it in technical and creative tools of both and stuff the technical tools inside dxo pl elite.
If DxO moved all the “technical” functionality of FP (and VP) to PhotoLab to make its feature set comparable to most other apps, the remaining “creative” functionality might still be good enough for FilmPack, but ViewPoint would be left with not much to justify a separate/sellable product.
I wonder, where DxO will take us, and how its portfolio of applications might change (or not) in view of the current number of products vs number of employees. I feel that DxO must do something sensible. We’ll see.
