I use all sorts of software. I use for example Cubase Pro an audio program. It comes in different versions too. I opted for the Pro version their top version. It costs more to upgrade it just as the Elite version does here. It is common that the top version of a particular app will have with it a premium price to upgrade. The true upgrade price for Photolab 3 Elite is $89 not $69 which will expire Nov 24. Also, I look at it as its the top version that pays the bills for the developer.
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Alles in allem, was ich lese hier und in anderen Beiträgen lese, es ist kein großer Wurf der mit PL3 vorgenommen wurde!
All in all, what I read here and read in other posts, it is not a big litter made with PL3!
I will not spend any money on it.
Your point of view is interesting, L4P. In a more perfect world, we could pay for features and not whole products - but software is complex and what we pay for isn’t just new features inserted into an otherwise unchanging system of application code and dependencies. We’re also paying for licenses, for fixes and tweaks that aren’t new features, and for support.
There is another way to look at this, for what it’s worth. Elite upgrade costs $20 more, but is on sale for $20 off. So it’s like paying regular price for an upgrade to Essentials. 
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Risk appetite varies from person to person. If my income depended on using DPL, I’d be slow to upgrade.
On the other hand, it is possible to fun DPL2 and DPL3 side by side. This could help find a decision based on your environment and files… Don’t forget to disable auto-export of sidecars and export them only in DPL2 until you are sure of your next step.
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Your’e right about the snip, got carried away, had to pay Adobe tax 25 euro/month, and 120 euro upfront, to get rid of this subscription. I’m not an Adobe Fanboy. PS is top of the bill, but they mumble and mumble about PS for the iPad Pro, while i’ve already got Affinity Photo and Procreate on this system. Fastrawviewer for culling, and then PL (now 3) to get sharp, clear raw/images, and post editing. It does the best job.
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In my view PhotoLab is the absolute best RAW processor but an average image editor. You can get amazing results but the editing is not intuitive and the application is very slow due to the fact that you work with RAW images so results are never instant and you lose seconds with every action. Also if you only use DxO you can’t edit metadata, can’t batch rename, can’t have advanced export settings, cannot proof edit, no watermarks etc. so there is still a need for 1-3 other applications in workflow.
So the question is: (1) does DxO add all these things or (2) do they focus on staying the absolute best RAW editor with the fastest camera updates and best integration with 3rd party software packages that do all the other things well? My advice would be route (2) but it seems like they chose to go down route (1).
This is also why I am in doubt about update to 3. The RAW processing part is practically unchanged, workflow integrations haven’t progressed and new features added since PL2 are essentialy all incomplete or still lacking behind competition. I have some fundamental disagreement which some choices made and the best way to vote is with your wallet.
I still recommend PL to everyone though who asks to find a good RAW processor. Just basic processing between Lightroom and PhotoLab is night and day difference in quality.
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‘Garbage in, Garbage out’
It is my ‘to go’ PRE-processor.
I’m on a budget, shoot MFT4.
Noise can be a problem.
PL handles this extremely well…
It give’s me a clean, sharp image to post-process in NIK or FLEX/Aurora19/Affinty Photo/Procreate
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if I could have Prime noise reduction, clearview and optical corrections inside Capture One, I would be very happy. That would simplify the workflow considerably.
Yes those 3 features alone are what makes DxO unique and worth paying for for me (but not every release if these 3 algorithms do not change between versions). And of course the U-Point technology and NIK collection output quality of some effects (but they need to be properly integrated) Everything else still can be done better and/or faster elsewhere for now.
Thank you for your feedback.
Thank you for your feedback.
You are right. My income do not depend on PL today. I just do not want to replace PL2 with PL3 if something big is preventing us to do the migration.
Since the release of PL3 that activity on the forum has exploded and I feared I missed something important. That’s it.
Its your choice. You are just going to miss out on what is in my opinion three great improvements in PhotoLab 3 Elite that are not in PhotoLab 2 Elite because you are not willing to spend the extra $20 for the upgrade. Its your money, I certainly won’t tell you how to spend it.
Mark
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Yes, I’ve read the details (though a full list of fixes and enhancements would have made it easier) and watched the videos, and those are certainly features that will appeal to other users - hopefully many of them. It’s just that the items that were addressed this time around don’t address my personal priorities (and the introduction of Master + secondary versions - which is a feature do I regularly use - seems to have gone in the wrong direction, even if there is a workaround).
I certainly would never try to convince anyone to upgrade if they see no value it. For how I use PhotoLab I see significant value in all the new and updated features.
Mark
Hi Jérémy - Welcome to the forum …
As someone who has never seriously used any of the Adobe tools, I’d be (genuinely) interested in understanding which features you believe are missing in PL3 (?).
Regards, John M
Lightroom is broken down into several distinct modules that are individually selected from the top of the screen. Lightroom does have a lot of features that Photolab lacks, but the majority of those features are not in the Develop module which is functionally similar to Photolab. And since it’s been a couple of years since I’ve used Lightroom I can no longer speak to the specifics, but even the Develop module has some nice to have features that are not in Photolab.
That being said, when I stopped using Lightroom 6.14 in favor of Photolab, I realized that the importance of the features I would no longer have access to paled in comparison to the quality and ease of the results I was now getting in PhotoLab. I think my favorite single PhotoLab tool is the micro contrast slider. Lightroom had nothing like it until the recent introduction of their Texture adjustment which seems to give somewhat similar results.
The fact is, I got faster, easier, and better results in just a couple of days after starting my Photolab trial in November 2017 then I got from over 5 years experience using Lightroom regularly. The decision to move to Photolab was therefore a no-brainer. Within 3 months of purchasing Photolab I uninstalled Lightroom and have never regretted it.
Mark
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Thank you, Mark.
Such as what, for example ?
John
Are you sure ?
Look at the problem the other way.
You pay the real price of this software: 70 € / $ (50£) a year is cheap.
Some have a discounted price at the price of missing features.
Between us, PL essential is not interesting
Pascal
They should drop Essential, waisting time working to install restriction while they could use those same people working on backlog. PL is the only one I can see having a cheap restricted version of their main software.
- Snapshots so you can save work in progress and return to it (Affinity Photo has this too)
- Superior keyword management with hierarchical keywords, quick sets, detailed settings which keywords to export and which not etc.
- Stacks for grouping similar pictures, also auto based on capture time
- HDR / Focus stacking tools
- Radial masks
- Superior heal/clone tool
- Face recognition (don’t care about it myself that much)
- Plug-in architecture
- Superior export options and settings
- Batch renaming of files (e.g. import files from camera in YYYYMMDD format for filename)
- Color labels
- Smart collections (collections/projects based on keywords)
- Publish manager (keeps your photos in sync with Smugmug automatically)
- Geotagging / map module
- Book and print module (I don’t use it)
- Compare / survey mode to quickly select the best picture in a batch e.g. 10 portraits of the same group shot in quick succession
These are some of the things that are top of mind.
But I am of the opinion that DxO shouldn’t become a full-blown DAM but just offer the most essential elements for better interoperability and workflow management.