I purchased NIK Collection 4 on Jan 21, 2022 after the 30 day free trial. Today, only 5 months after purchasing NIK Collection 4, I get an email that NIK Collection 5 is out, and I would have to purchase it if I want the upgrade!!! Really??? What’s the deal DXO? I have only been a customer for 5 months, and you want me to pony up more money? I am seriously starting to wonder if I made the right decision in going with DXO Photolab Elite 5 and NIK Collection over Adobe Lightroom
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DxO software isn’t a subscription - it’s a one-time purchase that doesn’t expire. You don’t have to upgrade right away to get an upgrade discount. You can do that any time in the next two years or so.
For some time now, DxO software has been on an annual release cycle. You bought Nik Collection 4 when it had already been out for seven months. I had the same experience when I bought OpticsPro 9 and OP10 came out a few months later. I had to think it over and felt better when I realized I was getting the option to upgrade at a discount. I’ve never regretted going with DxO - but the saying “buyer beware” does apply. You have to know what you’re buying, and that requires due diligence.
No one who purchased v4 should have to pay any more than those who can now upgrade from v3 to v5 for $79. v4 was NEVER completely upgraded IMO if only 3 plugins out of the entire collection saw version-worthy upgrades. I paid $70 to upgrade to v4 when it was new (hoping and trusting they’d make the entire package a “true” upgrade… they didn’t), and now I’m being expected to pay $80 to upgrade to v5 when folks who went from v3 to v5 only have to pay $80??? I’m not great at math but I know when a company is screwing me. I no longer trust DxO and will think twice before I recommend their products in the future. In all honesty, if those of us who upgraded to v4 should be paying anything to upgrade to v5 it should be in the neighborhood of $10.
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Without getting into a discussion of DxO’s pricing model have you looked into what has been upgraded in Nik Collection 5 to see if there is anything new which will be of value to you? I understand your frustration, but if you won’t be using many of the new features then perhaps waiting for Nik 6 is the best option regardless of the cost.
Mark
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I don’t see that as a solution to a problem… DxO’s unfair treatment of its customers. If customers simply suck it up and purchase the products without expressing their frustration and displeasure, DxO is never going to improve on these substandard practices.
I’m not ready to give up hope that DxO will do the right thing, but, if they choose to continue to have such a sad, non-customer-supportive business model I’ll be looking at one of the other companies out there that do show responsiveness and care toward their customers. On1 and Skylum are two that are developing great products while going above and beyond in developing fair relationships with their customers – and Skylum continues to do it in spite of a stinking war!
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DxO could use the model which Iridient Developer uses which is all updates for 18 months are free. After that one has to pay for whatever the new version is to continue to update (I don’t use upgrade as not every update is an upgrade, Nik v4 as a poster child).
Such a system would end the poor consumer experience where a new purchaser buys PhotoLab and two or three months later is expected to pay for an upgrade.
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I purchased it on April 25, 2022, just over seven weeks ago. This is three weeks prior to the cut-off date of May 16.
I just contacted support and hope that they see sense. What is a terrible way to treat loyal customers!
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If by do the right thing you mean lowering the cost to you for Nik 5, that is highly unlikely to happen. I intended my suggestion as a possible short term alternative to spending $80 at this time. As I said, If there is nothing in Nik 5 which will be any value to you, there is no reason to upgrade at all. I have had issues with some aspects of DxO’s pricing model in the past and I really do understand your concerns. Most aspects of their pricing model have not changed very much over the last several years and are unlikely to do so in the near term, but I suppose that anything is possible.
Mark
Some positive change to DxO’s pricing model would be welcomed by all.
Mark
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I do appreciate your suggestion of waiting as an option. Doing the right thing? Yeah, giving v4 owners an even greater discount than those who have v3 would have been the right thing to do. But, I don’t expect they will backpedal on a clearly bad/shortsighted decision either. It seems their decision-makers are either clueless about developing/maintaining a relationship with their customers or they simply don’t care.
It’s even worst for me. I only bought Nik V4 on May 1. Maybe we should consider it a donation so that DxO can survive.
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I used to feel that way until DxO moved to supporting only the latest OS -1 (on launch PhotoLab 5 supported only Big Sur and Catalina).
DxO’s games with minimal OS support cost me dozens of hours fiddling with difficult installs of recent OS on my hardware for both PhotoLab 4 and PhotoLab 5 and finally thousands of dollars buying a MBP M1 Pro with 32 GB of memory which (until the recent Apple Silicon upgrade) performed worse than my Mac Pros with PhotoLab 5 (not export actual processing) and which I only needed for PhotoLab 5.
Sadly DxO doesn’t have much respect for its users. So I’m less inclined to “donate” moving forward. DxO can earn our money. Or not. Nik v4 didn’t earn mine (first DxO upgrade I had not bought in years).
Might buy Nik v5 if the reports are good and at least Silver FX will run natively on M1 Macs.
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True. I tested v4 on an Intel iMac, and I bought the upgrade from v3. What I didn’t realize then is that not all plug-ins had been recompiled to run natively on Apple silicon. Perspective Efex would therefore not even show up in Photoshop on my 14" October 2021 M1 Max MacBook Pro. When I contacted DxO Support about this, they told me this (after a very long wait) and recommended that I run Photoshop under Rosetta. This is obviously not an acceptable workaround. I tested v5 of the Nik plugins when they came out, and I could confirm that they all ran within Photoshop without having to run Photoshop under Rosetta. so I bit the bullet and paid for the upgrade. In this case, it’s worth it (for me!), but I agree that DxO is not transparent enough about what has been added (or not) to older versions. For what it’s worth, I also upgraded to FilmPack 6 when it came out; it doesn’t run natively on Apple silicon, either. DxO might want users to upgrade to FilmPack 7 to get that “feature”, but if so, I don’t think I’ll follow.
In general, I think DxO needs to publish a roadmap that shows existing and prospective customers how they plan to evolve their product line. Many film simulations are now available in Color Efex Pro, which begs the question of what the future of FilmPack is. The same can be said for Perspective Efex and ViewPoint 3. In the absence of such information, I will definitely be a bit more conservative when it comes to using my credit card in the DxO shop.
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Current state of “universality”:
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Within 1 or 2 months after my purchase there was a new version so DXO offered a free upgrade which I accepted. It’s still not apple native blah blah blah, so I consider it incomplete, but still it was my decision to buy it. If I need a 4WD but the only version available is an AWD that I do buy, then I’m not going to expect Toyota to ship me the new 4WD model when it’s released.
As far as free upgrades go, they should be free if the basic functionality is the same. A large scale bug fix with a few UI improvements still isn’t a VERSION upgrade, it’s like a recall and repair of a faulty Toyota. Honestly, I don’t see any improvement in the NIK software since I started using it well over 10 years ago. So you’re probably going to be less disappointed sticking with your original purchase.
And as others write above, DXO have fallen far short of of “earning” our money for any recent upgrades. I definitely won’t be paying for anything that isn’t 100% apple sillycone native.
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I agree. Only 6 months for me. Most software gives you upgrades for a year after purchase. If I had known I would have waited!
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Well said - I agree 100%