I’ve downloaded the demo for Photolab 2, but it seems to be the elite version whereas I would have liked to try the essential version.
Is there an essential demo available? Or could someone confirm if the following feature is present in the essential version:
some version of the clearview filter
Otherwise, which tools are missing from the essential version compared to the elite, other than those already mentioned on the pricing web page? I don’t want any bad surprises once I buy it and I’m not willing to pay an extra 70$ just for the clearview plus filter (I’m not interested in the other elite features).
I believe only the Elite version is available as a demo download. It has several features that are indispensable to me, including Clearview Plus, PRIME noise reduction, the ability to create custom palettes and the anti moire tool, among others. The Essential version does not contain Clearview which is a major feature to my mind. PRIME noise reduction is probably the best and easiest to use noise reduction tool made by anyone, and the results are almost magical with the elimination of almost all noise with relatively few artifacts, if any, even when set close to maximum. It too is not available in the Essential version. The ability to create custom palettes allows you to make the interface your own, but custom palettes are also not available in the Essential version. Additionally, custom palettes allow you to eliminate the duplicate copies of some tools which appear in several of the built in palettes.
Obviously some people prefer the Essential version for its lower cost, but for me it would mean giving up too much. I also have DXO Viewpoint 3 and and DXO Film Pack 5 which are two standalone apps that also integrate into PhotoLab. I personally would not want to do without them as well but their inclusion with the Elite edition of PhotoLab does make the entire package fairly pricey.
Here is the list of all the differences between the Elite and Essential versions of PhotoLab. Click on the image to enlarge.
The following images are of my custom interface which could not be accomplished in the Essential version. I have created 4 custom palettes in place of the standard ones which allows me to move and reorder tools as I wish.
To my mind the essential version is only a marketing product to propose a competitive price to DxO PhotoLab.
Without Elite features PhotoLab lost its singularity.
There’s almost no point to the non-Elite version. Even if you’re willing to give up ClearView Plus and Prime Noise Reduction (I could imagine doing that), the inability to save custom palettes and presets makes the workflow so slow and clumsy you may as well use your camera’s free software instead of PhotoLab. There are a few major sales a year if money is tight enough to make it worth waiting for a small additional discount over the normal package deal. Sadly the big Christmas/New Year’s one is a long way away. I don’t know if there’s another sale like that during the year.
PS. Even if you don’t do heavy perspective correction (architecture, real estate) and can get away without ViewPoint, it’s hard to use PhotoLab to its full potential without FilmPack. Not for the film emulations but for access to Fine Microcontrast (Fine is very different than normal microcontrast, much more organic looking than cranked microcontrast). So you’ll probably want the whole package. The slicing and dicing is just marketing really. Fortunately paid updates are frequent only for the core PhotoLab and seem relatively reasonable.
The Essential version is still very usable although missing functionality that is critical to both you and me. It is probably a good tool for lighter use by those you are not fully committed to post processing.
I could not give up Clearview Plus, PRIME NR or the palette configuration functionality. I also have Viewpoint and FilmPack and the DXO Nik Collection, which together with PhotoLab 2 Elite gives me the tools and power I need. Anything less would be a step backwards.
Thanks everybody for your feedback. Everybody’s needs are different and that’s ok. I just tried Photoshop Elements and almost suffered a stroke. Tequila saved me (Cazadores if you’re curious). I’m an average enthusiast; maybe, eventually, the other DxO plugins will grow on me. Up until now, I was mostly playing with exposure, contrast, tone curve, lighting, colors, noise and touch ups. I did buy HDR Efex 2 before Google bought it, but it didn’t want to install on Photolab.
I’m coming from Lightroom 4.4 which now regularly crashes on me when updating Windows and I’m getting tired of it. After trying out Photolab Elite, I feel I would still prefer even the Essential version over Lightroom, especially for its local adjustments (either LR’s brush sucks or I’m bad at it, but with PL, it’s so easy). I could more easily get the results I wanted from Photolab (using only Essential tools, local adjustments, no ClearView, no noise reduction) than with LR4.4. I’ll probably wait for a sale to get the Elite and endure LR4.4 in the meantime.
The Essential version is still very usable although missing functionality that is critical to both you and me. It is probably a good tool for lighter use by those you are not fully committed to post processing.
I’ve got the Elite version. But I sometimes use the RAW converter, including lens corrections as a front-end for my astro stacking application (it can read raw format, too, but isn’t as good at it as PL).
Also, given the way that the non-CC Adobe apps are no longer being updated for newer cameras, and the great integration between LR and PL, the non-Elite version of PL might be attractive for someone with a non-CC version of LR.
Of course, my use of PL as a raw converter / front-end depends on a profile I created that only does lens corrections - and I don’t think you can create profiles in non-Elite.
For me, Prime noise reduction made it a no-brainer, didn’t even bother to find out what else they’d omitted from non-Elite.
Also: palettes! I’ve never used this feature but have wondered how to customize the list of functionality over there. Time to dig into the manual
With regard to custom palettes if you look at the images I posted above you can see how I modified them to speed things up (for me), and better fit my preferred workflow.
