Photolab Instant Watermarking bad after Nik Upgrade

Since upgrading to the new Nik Collection the instant watermarking in PhotoLab has been subpar for me. Not sure what’s causing the issue but most of the time when I apply a watermark to an image that has been edited in Nik, it’s nearly illegible due to noise, whereas before it was crystal clear; I’m not doing anything differently than in the past. I’ve also found some images I’ve edited in Nik to be noisy upon returning to Photolab, and the only way I have found to clear up these annoyances is to exit and restart Photolab,

Hoping DxO can get these things straightened out sooner rather than later as the software worked flawlessly for me up until the upgrade of the Nik Collection. DxO’s software working so well is why I decided to make ON1 my backup and not my primary photo editing software.

BTW, I am using a 27” 2015 iMac with 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB HD running Big Sur.

I have also now had a chance to confirm this same behavior on an M1 Macbook Pro running Big Sur with 16 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD. The Photolab 4 watermark live view is illegible after being applied to photos edited in a Nik plugin. Quitting and restarting Photolab 4 and reapplying the watermark renders a clear watermark in live view for the previously Nik edited image.

This is a good start on reporting your system but when troubleshooting performance issues it would be better to include a model number and the exact version of Big Sur. It’s not clear what your processor is or your GPU. If you are truly using a 1 TB HD and not an SSD that is probably the issue right there. I suspect the HD is really an SSD though.

Your performance issues sound severe and unusual, as if there is a drive or kext conflict with the new software.

I am using Big Sur 11.4. However, the fact it worked flawlessly before upgrading Nik and an update for Photolab that was pushed out after that (the only two updates/changes that occurred), I’m not sure why there would suddenly be conflicts.

iMac Retinat 5K, 27", late 2015
3.2 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
32 GB 1967 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M380 2 GB
1 TB Fusion Drive

It might have something to do with the Fusion Drive. I know Photolab likes SSD. I haven’t run a Fusion Drive so I’m not personally familiar with their limitations but have heard they do cause trouble with multimedia type work.

I’d buy that were it not for the fact it worked perfectly before the last software upgrade. Worked fantastically before, not after. This is not what I would call a performance issue as, most of the time the image that has traveled to Nik and back is fine. Only heavily edited images sometimes have spots of digital noise.

However, the watermark overlay applied to an image that has been exported to Nik and back looks awful in live view nearly all the time and that was never the case in the past. That seems to point to Photolab’s handling of the returned tiff to me.

Yes, sorry. I’m mixing the performance issues you’ve reported up with the specific watermarking bug you are reporting here. I hope there is a resolution soon.

No problem. Performance has declined, noticeably (now more along the lines of what I get from of On1) but not unbearably.

I have now had a chance to confirm this same behavior on an M1 Macbook Pro with Big Sur, 16 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD. The Photolab 4 watermark live view is illegible after being applied to photos edited in a Nik plugin. Quitting and restarting Photolab 4 and reapplying the watermark renders a clear watermark in live view for the previously Nik edited image.