In strong agreement there. Similar issue with Nik 4 cutting off Photoshop CS6 plugin format. While Photoshop CS6 is old enough to abandon, due to Adobe’s cancellation of perpetual licenses, CS6 is still in widespread use among photographers. At the same time, built-in support for Photosh plugin format in CS6 allowed many other photo programs like CaptureOne to call Nik plugins. I’m mystified why DxO would want to decrease compatibility as it 1. cuts off potential customers 2. creates an atmosphere of distrust among existing users. What compatibility or what OS support will go next, we ask ourselves.
I am a Mac user. While Apple has been working hard at persuading users since Steve Jobs’ death in 2011 and OS 10.7 that annual OS upgrades – for free! no less – are a wonderful idea, most long term users know better. A two year cycle with extensive testing was far better for users and developers. The endless beta train of broken software and incompatibility only ever stops to careen occasionally off the rails. IT productivity is plummeting due to a toxic combination of these endless “upgrades” and ubiquitous social media on smart phones.
U-Point sliders in a side panel or on screen: when I began reading this thread I had a fairly neutral point of view. On serious reflection, it’s become apparent that the arguments in favour of the unique and powerful interface on top of the image carry the day for me. This interface is innovative and advanced, even futuristic. It reminds me of the transparent computer in Minority Report which Tom Cruise uses to track pre-crime.
In the hands of an expert user the original U-point interface as in Photolab is much faster and in the hands of new user, more intuitive. The intermediate user might find the dull paradigm of a side panel easier as it’s like everything else and there’s lots of space to read the controls.
What older U-point was missing was auto-fade out of the controls and the U-points when the mouse isn’t moving. That way the photographer can almost paint on the image. When the mouse moves, the controls dissolve in quickly and smoothly.
Hopefully U-points in Photolab 5 will not go the same way as in Nik 4.
There is a very significant difference between PhotoLab and the Nik Collection. Palettes in PhotoLab can be made to float whereas the Nik Collection palettes can only be collapsed and expanded. As a result, if DXO were to move Local Adjustment sliders to the LA Palette at some point, the palette can be moved onto the preview screen to any location and collapsed if necessary to unblock portions of the image. That would allow users of Local Adjustments in PhotoLab to have the best of both worlds.
@constie
I agree entirely with everything you said in this whole thread. The NIK collection is pretty much the only thing I use in the DxO catalog since I shoot mainly Fujifilm these days, and my camera’s sensor is not supported by PL4. I’ve been using the NIK collection since I acquired each plug-in separately (and for a great deal of money, I might add) from the original developers. Google did nothing with the collection.and DxO improved many things with it, most notably stability.
This time,though, they completely ripped out the very personality of the product, and to me, that’s definitely not a good thing.
I far prefer to work with the older UI, yet after spending some time with the evaluation version of the software, I chose to upgrade anyway. Why? Mostly because my dislike of the new UI, strong though it may be, was not a complete showstopper for me the way it was for you. Which begs the question: did you try the evaluation version of v4 before buying it? If yes, why did you still buy it? If no,why not?
I have not purchased Nik 4 (first DxO release in a long time I have not purchased). The stability, compatibility (won’t work in PS6, won’t work in CaptureOne, etc) and performance issues (Silver Efex performance significantly worse under v4 than v3) along with the inability to easily maintain a parallel Nik 3 installation have driven me off updating. I would have preferred to have seen wider compatibility and more stability and better performance and would most certainly have updated in that case.
The interface switch is a question on which I was originally agnostic. After reading through this thread with great interest, I’ve come around to the view expressed above. Interface on top of image is a huge innovation which DxO very intelligently acquired but is now in the process of throwing away.
Every once in a while a great technical innovation is not properly appreciated and goes on to make another company a great fortune. One can categorise Steve Jobs’ acquisition of the Xerox Park GUI interface which turned into first Lisa (failure) and then Mac OS. Xerox did nothing with the technology the creation of which they had financed. I can easily imagine Adobe circling back with an on image interface in four or five years, touting it as a great innovation, during which DxO will have wholly adopted the mediocre and stagnant side panel interface.
To answer you question the reason was Trust. My experience with DXO has been positive, and because I don’t create the image in the computer, they offered me a one stop shop and a great work flow. As a result when I saw the web links with new upgrades the Adjustors are shown in full view ( I have the screen grabs) so it never occurred to me that they would remove them. Then came the issue of delay between adjustments and on screen results… The new software with the DXO PHOTO LAB ELITE and ON1 are the only applications on a brand new Mac Book Pro with 64 Ram and the whole thing is significantly slower that the previous version on a 2015 Mac Book Pro with only 8 Ram and a stack of applications the dilemma now is can I get them to provide me with a link to download the old version and wait for future updates or ask for my money back and move on to something like ON1 which at least works on the new hardware
I second that. Trust. I purchased v4 for the same reasons (and, yeah, the product has gotten less responsive - I have 32GB of RAM on my 27" iMac). Had I wanted sliders in the sidebar and slower performance I could have stuck with On1 or Skylum - both of which I now seem to have a bit less reason to ignore.
Performance is important. Developers should spend RAM and processor resources frugally and not count on users buying supercomputers to run new versions. In fairness, some new processes like DeepPrime have every right to take advantage of advances in GPU technology. Photographers can always choose to continue to use HQ NR or classic Prime with existing performance on legacy hardware.
What shouldn’t happen though is a general slowdown or a huge additional demand for resources for the same performance with existing functionality.
There’s nothing worse than a slow image processor. Photolab 4 seems an improvement to me (bravo DxO developers!) and Nik 3 is bearable. Haven’t tried Nik 4 yet due to the reports of performance issues and the handstands one has to go through to revert back to Nik 3.
I have finally got a link to revert…. But they deleted all the past account times invoices and passkeys… and the one I got for the new version is not accepted. So I am now in trial mode for a product I have paid for several times …. This business was good I have no idea what has happened to them internally but they are truly shambolic … someone needs to get a grip …
I tend to agree with you Silver Efex and Viveza have lost the simple and quick functionality that they once had. I think it’s a pain having to scroll down a long side panel to reach the adjustments now and the fact the controls seem quite ‘sticky’ on my M1 Mac and are a fiddle to adjust. I would prefer to go back to the previous interface, and only add the new functions to the side menu. Also the U point implementation is different again in DXO photolab!
You sound like me. I started my photography in the late 50s, with an Agfa Supersilete and enjoyed my darkroom work as much as taking the pictures.
After trying most of the raw data photo programs. I finally settled on Lightroom classic which obviously comes with photoshop and other stuff that you don’t need. I also settled on DxO’s Optix Pro now PhotoLab and the Nik collection. The reason for the DxO programs was that for developing the whole picture. The side panels kept the picture clear and made adjusting easy, but when it came to developing small areas, that’s where the U points come in. This makes adjusting that particular area so quick and easy.
The thing that brought this home to me was watching Marc Silber and his last webinar using silver efex pro. It was virtually impossible to see what he was trying to do. His side panel was jumping up and down where he was trying to find the control to make the adjustment he required and at one time it looked like he gave up trying.
I sincerely hope that DxO listens to their customers. Some require all the controls to be in the side panel and others require the controls to be in the U points. That goes for both , the Nik collection and PhotoLab. In my last post, I suggested double-clicking the U points to remove them for those that do not want them there, but it would also be just as easy for the choices to be in the preferences.
If DxO do not listen to their customers by giving them a choice. I for one will be going back to On1 and I haven’t updated that since 2020.
I upgraded to Nik 4 back in the summer while traveling. I looked forward to trying out the new features on my 27" iMac when I returned home in late Autumn. Yesterday, I tried Viveza 3 for the first time, and on the iMac. Two problems. As others have shared here going back/forth across the monitor to make adjustments is counter-productive to work flow, especially on a large screen.
Second: once I establish a control point, it is near impossible to change the control area. Even clicking on/holding the white button across the control point does nothing but make the control point size slider disappear. That button needs to be larger for a 27" monitor. Also, the panel verbiage is too small for a monitor that size. So disappointed about this and the lack of a drop down panel below the control point. I’ve used Nik for years. In my estimation this has all the makings of a significant downgrade.