Photolab 5 Today?

Supersaff · October 21, 2021, 5:15pm

This feels like a 4.4 update. The only significant addition for current users is the Chroma and Luma sliders taken from Nik Collection Silver Efex and Vivenza. I expect the next Nik Collection update to add these tools to the rest of the collection.

If they’re going to charge for minor updates, they should both offer a far more generious discount, while also extending discounts to users of Photolab 2 and earlier. If you’ve spent a small fortune on Photolab, Film Pack, View Point, Nik Collection, you shouldn’t feel racked into a 2 year upgrade cycle, particularly if updates are as minor as this one.

uncoy · October 21, 2021, 11:25pm

It’s not twelve months but for the last couple of years every September CaptureOne starts to sell the current version with the next version (usually drops in February the following year) bundled. So six months. Which would have covered the purchaser above.

spamxyz · October 22, 2021, 11:12am

New C1 versions are released in November or December, C1 22 is announced for December. A free update is usually possible from the date of purchase in July or September - so about 3 months.

As a C1 Fuji user, I can tell you that PhaseOne is not as customer oriented as you think.

uncoy · October 22, 2021, 11:16am

Announcement from what I remember is not release (very strange behaviour btw, announcing new releases and selling them without a feature list and without software to deliver) and actual release comes in February or March.

As a C1 Fuji user, I can tell you that PhaseOne is not as customer oriented as you think.

I agree. DxO is driving me off with a stick. The new control over U-point masks is exactly what I need to be able to continue with PhotoLab and not have to go over to C1 for anything. But I’m not going to be forced to update my OS every year to the latest version or latest version minus one to continue to use PhotoLab.

DxO has shortened product support to the point it’s laughable. Current -1 is not what professional applications do.

uncoy · October 22, 2021, 11:18am

BTW, there is a path back for DxO. Release PhotoLab 5 with Mojave support and commit to supporting current OS -2 going forward. @StevenL Real men recognise their mistakes and correct them.

Joanna · October 22, 2021, 12:17pm

But this will mean load of conditional code to cope with having to support both M1 and Intel for things like DeepPRIME.

As it is, Mojave is the last version to run 32-bit code and that has meant, up until now, DxO has had to write conditional code in some places where necessary, just to cope with a non-64 bit platform.

And this has been the breakpoint for a lot of software, not just PhotoLab - the need to continue to support conditional code, going forwards, is an unnecessary burden.

Don’t forget, Apple signalled the move to 64 bit as far back as 2014 (to the best of my memory); when I was working on an app for macOS and iOS. We were warned that, if we didn’t provide 64 bit apps, they would not be approved for the App Store. This is in 2014!

So we have had 7 years to plan for that inevitable day. I just tried to run the iPad app that I created back then in Xcode on Catalina and it wouldn’t even compile. Why? Not because my code was incapable but because it relied on a cross-platform external library, written in a 32 bit only language that we couldn’t recompile.

In order to revive that app, we would have had to rewrite, from scratch, several thousand lines of code, translating from one language to another. Our choice was to either do that or fold the project before it even go to see the light of day. Unfortunately, not being a megalithic company like Adobe or such, we ended up folding it with the loss of over two years effort and money.

So, my question to you is, what do think DxO should do? Spend enormous resources on supporting legacy 32 bit code, or move on with the majority?

Not to mention the market share of Catalina over Mojave…

Lucas · October 22, 2021, 1:45pm

Hello @uncoy,
At DxO we know your point of view (and from other users who voted on the related thread) on macOS support for a long time. Based on the cost of supporting more macOS versions and the number of PL4 users on macOS Mojave, we still decided to drop macOS Mojave support, even if it means losing some customers.

We apologize for the frustration brought by this change but we still believe that this is the right decision so that most users can enjoy more and better features in the future.
There is no plan to go back on this decision.

Lucas

Scribe · October 22, 2021, 1:47pm

Strangely enough, brand new FilmPack 6 is Mojave-compatible…

Lucas · October 22, 2021, 1:52pm

DxO FilmPack 6 - Shop is not listing macOS Mojave in supported system requirements.

This means that:

We may drop macOS Mojave compatibility anytime even in a minor update
You will not get support from DxO if you have an issue with FP6 while on macOS Mojave

“supported” precisely means that we provide support. Unsupported may work by luck or break anytime.

Scribe · October 22, 2021, 1:53pm

OK, goodbye

spamxyz · October 22, 2021, 2:33pm

Announcement from what I remember is not release (very strange behaviour btw, announcing new releases and selling them without a feature list and without software to deliver) and actual release comes in February or March.

It was announced in August and is scheduled to be available in December. The iPad app is scheduled for release in early 2022, but exclusively for iPad Pro with M1 processors.

uncoy · October 22, 2021, 10:09pm

Thank you for taking the time to directly address my complaint.

This is a very poor calculation, as you are not just losing revenue you are losing goodwill and turning your advocates into detractors.

It’s a very poor and primitive decision. MBA’s are not known for their ability to run a company properly. Generally great companies are created by engineers, boosted by talented marketers and then run into the ground by modern MBA style thinking. Hélas, it appears DxO has gone through the brilliant engineers phase, unfortunately missed the talented marketers stage and gone straight to the short-sighted MBA phase.

As for counting the numbers on Mojave, I for one have disabled and blocked most of your telemetry and I’ll bet many of the others on Mojave take similar care of unsolicited outbound communication from their computer.

Many, many photographers and creative people will see DxO’s lack of support for anything but the latest OS and will now run for the hills. What artist wants to buy into software which requires immediate OS updates and forces its users to buy new computers?

It’s no wonder that the DxO community has the lowest percentage of first rate photographers (sorry to all of us, I’m one of that community too) among all the major photo tools, far less than the quality of the software would normally command.

Strangely enough, brand new FilmPack 6 is Mojave-compatible…

Funny about that @scribe. I spent about forty minutes trying to get PhotoLab 5 to open on Mojave with no luck today (expecting it to crash even if I got it to run but interested in where it would crash). I’ll give FilmPack 6 a try.

@Lucas You wrote to @Scribe

You will not get support from DxO if you have an issue with FP6 while on macOS Mojave. “supported” precisely means that we provide support. Unsupported may work by luck or break anytime

Strange, DxO does something right for a change and now tries to make sure doing the right thing doesn’t pay off (by declaring no Mojave compatibility in the specs and now in your person publicly announcing that there are developers in DxO keen to break that compatibility).

I would be fine living with partial support for PhotoLab 5 on Mojave. I.e. Mojave users will miss out on some new library features for instance or some speed increases (DeepPrime is plenty fast in PhotoLab 4) but would get:

the improved U-point technology with the ability to control U-point luma and chroma sensitivity for each mask. This is breakthrough technology for PhotoLab users, allowing us to enjoy real mask selection with much less hassle and trouble than either Lightroom or CaptureOne users.
Fuji X-Trans support. I have a bunch of files shot on Fuji X-Trans which I’d love to process in PhotoLab and would consider adding a Fuji camera as a carry camera again. I’ve already given up Fuji cameras for the sake of PhotoLab.¹

Neither of those changes require any features from the new OS.

Yes, there may be a small amount of hassle to maintain a Mojave version (and to make PhotoLab current OS -2, which was what was promised but is not currently being delivered) but reasonable OS support ² would certainly make PhotoLab a far more attractive product to artists and photographers. DxO should be there to help its customers, not help itself, whatever the selfish, miserable US educated MBA’s may say.

If DxO helps us, we will help DxO.

DxO is now asking too much, demanding I throw away computers with 96 GB of memory and 100 TB of internal storage, PCIe cards, upgradeable graphic cards (with my RX580 and Radeon VII, I’m now on generation four of reasonably priced graphic card upgrades which is impossible with any other Mac).
Let’s be very clear about what I’m asking for. I’m asking for current OS -2 (Apple unreleased beta versions do not count), not “forever support” for Mojave. By the time the next PhotoLab rolls around in a year I will be ready to move on to a new OS.

Generally to minimise update hassle, I move two to three OS versions at a time. I moved my computers from 10.6.8 to 10.8 Mountain Lion. From 10.8 I moved to 10.11 El Capitan (tried 10.10 but it was a disaster with broken networking and troubled graphic drivers). Then I went from 10.11 to 10.13 High Sierra.

The only reason Mojave is on my computers already is PhotoLab 4. Otherwise, I would still be running 10.13 this year. I would then move from 10.13 to either the final version of 11 Big Sur or 12 Monterrey but not for another year or two. Which I would choose would depend on stability and compatibility and general low-hassle factor. As in this more reasonable alternative scenario, PhotoLab 6 would remove support for Mojave (Catalina would support would remain) I’d have to make a decision next fall about to which OS I would move. OS -2 gives me the flexibility to plan and manage my IT decisions. OS -1 is quite simply customer-hostile, inflexible and unreasonable.

Is that the kind of image DxO is trying to build for itself? Ask your marketing department how much they like this characterisation your hardline developers are creating for the company and how much advertising money will have to be spent to counteract such impressions. The marginal development costs for support OS -2 will look cheap in comparison.

uncoy · October 22, 2021, 10:46pm

This whole section is complete nonsense, Joanna. Mojave is entirely 64-bit but can run some 32-bit applications. There’s absolutely no reason that DxO has to put a single 32-bit piece of code in their applications to support Mojave. If you are talking about external plugins, it’s very easy for DxO to announce “PhotoLab 5 no longer supports 32-bit plugins.” And that would be a much more reasonable position to take than just throwing all the Mojave users off the pier with cement boots on.

Speaking of which, let’s move on to your OS share numbers. You don’t give your source.

It’s probably based on internet numbers which undercount creative studio computers, some of which are not even online.
what they don’t take into account are the number of creatives running MacPro 4,1 and 5,1 with Mojave as the last OS they can accept.
Many pro creatives deliberately stay a version or two behind for the purposes of stability and productivity. Those pro creatives are exactly the people who are not using DxO products en masse. There’s almost no pro endorsements of DxO for anything except emergency noise reduction or Silver Efex.

Dealing directly with the numbers, what I’m seeing is that Mojave users make up over a third of the Mac users who are not on latest OS (Catalina). I would guess that the those running 10.11 El Capitan or 10.10 Yosemite are secondary computers which are not kept up with latest software and are used mainly as internet appliances and office computers (I have just such an El Capitan MBP which came in handy for testing SSL compatibility this week, and is still a great macOS experience). Counting this way Mojave users are close to half of the Mac users not on Catalina.

In short, if DxO would support OS -2, DxO would be pissing on half as many of their customers. OS -2 makes users comfortable. OS -1 turns DxO into a dictatorial ogre, pushing their customers around.

Please don’t project your issues as a one-man band trying to support multiple OS onto a full development team. My team currently supports 11 WordPress releases with complex video software. Occasionally we have to remove support for 3.7 to jump to 4.5 minimum version or remove support from PHP 5.6 to jump to 7.2. But we try to support our publishers as long as possible. We are not actively looking to force upgrades on them or bully them.

And frankly I couldn’t imagine doing so or why we would or why DxO has decided to do so. It’s one of the stupidest marketing or “cost-cutting” decisions I have ever seen in my life. It’s a great pity as the engineering is first rate and deserves better executive decisions.

StevenL · October 23, 2021, 10:35am

@uncoy
I don’t understand…

What you’re asking, I quote “I’m asking for current OS -2”, is already the case

Next week = Monterey
Monterey -1 = Big Sur
Monterey -2 = Catalina

Unless the issue is all about the ‘one week difference’ between PL5’s release and the new macOS’s release, we already offer exactly what you’re asking for…

I quote “OS -2 makes users comfortable”.
So, why all the fuss??

Steven.

uncoy · October 23, 2021, 11:27am

Thank you for your note @StevenL

According to your post, DxO now considers OS X versions which are unreleased as released. Nice. Released or not, a brand new OS is not even close to production ready.

OS -2 means OS -2 which is Mojave (issues resolved, good version running well) - Catalina (a dog) - Big Sur (still has issues but has potential). Monterey doesn’t even enter the picture. The sophism of your answer is shocking as PhotoLab does not run reliably on Monterey.

If you don’t see the problem yet, you will see the problem very clearly eventually. I’ve invested a lot of time and money in DxO, supporting DxO even when you held loyal customers hostage to buy a second copy of PhotoLab to be able to buy Nik 2 or Nik 3. With these Nik releases there really should have been an initial version and one update, not three. v4 is a travesty which makes Nik run worse and reduces compatibility. Loyal customers have been paying for DxO to steadily make the software worse. There may be good intentions behind Nik v4 (trying to rebuild the core code for a different future) but in its current state it’s not release quality software.

I mention the slow burn Nik fiasco just to be clear about how DxO is bilking its most loyal customers now and building a lot of ill will where there was good will before. Good will gets good word of mouth and makes customers advocates for DxO. Ill will creates bad word of mouth or silence.

Cutting off users because your development team is too lazy to maintain a Mojave build (OS -2) is really very stupid. But I’ve explained that above. I’ve provided the internal feedback I can at this point on DxO’s short-sighted customer-hostile policies. Future feedback will mostly be external.

The irony is hilarious. Impecunious DxO has put me (and dozens of others of their keenest users) in the position of not celebrating a new PhotoLab release but being extremely angry that we cannot give DxO our money again. In particular the new local adjustment features are exactly what I need to push my post-processing/photography forward. Instead I’ll have to go to CaptureOne as C1 support OS -2 (or even OS -3).¹

Way to score an own goal, DxO. You’ve alienated one of your top ten advocates and are in the process of driving him to the competition.²

I’m not going to throw out two ideally configured computers which perform superbly with PhotoLab, FCPX and even DaVinci Resolve. To replace these computers with like for like in terms of graphics cards and storage would cost over €20,000. There are a lot of pros out there still happily running Mac Pros. But in general the whole issue of pushing users on to new OS before they are ready is customer hostile.
There’s a huge community of pro users on C1 who share amazing tutorials on how to get the most out of layer masks, its superior colour tools and its new healing tools to create astonishing professional work. With OS -1, DxO will never built the same kind of pro photo community around the product and will always be forced to heavily advertise to acquire new users. You guys just don’t get it (your unwillingness to properly partner with existing DAM solutions and Affinity Photo and other HDR and Panorama tool builders is also inexplicable).

m9k · October 23, 2021, 1:36pm

There’s a huge community of pro users on C1 who share amazing tutorials on how to get the most out of layer masks, its superior colour tools and its new healing tools to create astonishing professional work. <<

Alec; I agree on that.
A lot of professionals are using C1 Pro and as far as I can see they get great results. So; If they can, there is no reason you can’t.
Well; I do have latest version of Capture One 21 Pro and I started with Capture One Pro 8 but I still don’t understand all the hype about it. I don’t like it much so I don’t use it much.

I also don’t understand Mojave and other ‘desert’ operating systems because I don’t use and I newer will use Apple computers. If you want to run Photolab 5 you need to upgrade OS from Mojave to something else. But you can’t upgrade because you would need to buy new computer to upgrade. What the hell? Do you need to buy a new Mac each time to upgrade OS?

I sure would not blame DxO. I would say there is something wrong with Apple. They are forcing users to buy new comps if they want to upgrade.

I’m running 8 years old PC and I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10 with no issues (without buying new PC) and I run Photolab 5 as I write this on 8 years old Win 10 PC with no issues and without buying a new PC. Looks like Win 10 will be supported till 2025 but I thing I will upgrade my old PC sooner and also update to Win 11.

So, if Photolab does not run on Mojave desert OS (or whatever desert is there on Mac comps) looks like you have 3 options:
-buy new comp, upgrade OS and run Photolab 5
-do not buy anything new and run Photolab 4
-do not buy anything new and run something else like C1 Pro

You could also write some emails to Apple like….
I use Mac comps forever and I’m a loyal customer and now you are forcing me to buy new comp to upgrade OS …. etc. If you don’t fix this I will tell everybody not to buy Apple and I will switch to Windows and I will never buy Apple again.

Joanna · October 23, 2021, 2:05pm

Alec, The only reason that DxO start counting backwards from Monterey is that, within a week or two of their planned release for PL5, that is what the current OS was going to be and they had to plan for that and PL5 had to be made ready for it as if it were the current release.

It might not have been the 32 bit issue (I was guessing) but, certainly, catering for the new architecture and having to support older versions and maintain conditional code, that can sometimes amount to a second code base, is definitely not a place any smaller software house wants to be in.

It’s always painful to have to throw out perfectly serviceable hardware, just because the latest OS will not run on it. I had to ditch a perfectly good MacBook Pro 17", bought in April 2007 and finally replaced in December 2019 when I had to move to Catalina for development work. I reckon 12 years is not a bad life.

The main thing I really don’t like about Apple’s newer machines is the fact that you can no longer upgrade the disks or memory, which they sell at eye-watering prices.

By the way, anyone interested in an old aluminium tower Mac Pro?

Joanna · October 23, 2021, 2:09pm

Now that sounds like a much better idea. It would also take the pressure off smaller software houses. It has taken me around two years to write my app and now I’m having to go through testing the whole thing again because Apple decided to change the UI/UX of macOS with Big Sur - a look I hate, system sounds I detest and a different UI, designed to look more like iOS, that I think looks a little Fisher-Price

asvensson · October 23, 2021, 5:38pm

You can run 8 year old Macs with the latest macOS as well, which is quite reasonable hardware support I think.

The problem is that DxO has worse support for older versions of macOS compared to competitors like C1 and Exposure. DxO is the only software I use that would require a hardware upgrade for me to continue with PL5. The consequence is just that I won’t be upgrading to PL5 and may well just drop PhotoLab and stick with software that lets me get more life out of my otherwise usable hardware.

Unless you’re a die hard Apple user that needs to run the latest versions of all of their window dressing, there’s little (I would say nothing) in these yearly releases that necessitates an upgrade. They’re more like Windows service releases than anything of real substance for the user, and much software runs just fine on older releases. (I’m writing this on a 2010 MacBook Pro running current - 4, aka Sierra.) DxO is just dropping support more aggressively than others.

spamxyz · October 23, 2021, 6:32pm

You can run 8 year old Macs with the latest macOS as well, which is quite reasonable hardware support I think.

No, you can’t. If this statement were true, you could install Big Sur or soon Monterey on your device. But Apple decided after Mojave to stop providing updates for your 8 year old machine. They haven’t made a statement about it, but it looks like Mojave won’t get security updates anymore either.

Why aren’t you on the Apple forum demanding the new OS updates for your hardware? You would have a current, secure operating system with which you could also use the new version of Photolab.