Wow- Have i missed something?

Really disappointed with PhotoLab 2 new features set and available information. Hopefully I’m missing some performance improvements or something.
I had high hopes for meaningful improvements,
Mike

2 Likes

I regret that I also at a loss as to how this can be a paid for new version. the only exports I have done looked to be much slower than the old program.

I am a Mac user and although I have only played with PhotoLab 2 for a short while I fail to see any new features worthy of the name. As for the Photo Library, only PCs seem to have gained anything. £54.99 for what appears so far to be very little? I think not.

Is the 30 day free trial on offer for PLab 2? £55 seems a pretty steep upgrade price for just a few tweaks which is all that seems to be advertised. What really needs doing and no obvious sign of, is proper integration of Local Adjustments

I am another one wondering what added value there is in the upgrade. From the information currently available I just can’t figure out if there is anything worthwhile to justify the upgrade price for me.

Yes, you can download the trial version for PL2. I just did that to evaluate the new features. That was done pretty quickly since for me the DCP profiles are irrelevant. So there is only the new picture browser and updated ClearView and now I have to decide if I want to upgrade my 3 month old PL1 already.

I just installed my update to PhotoLab 2 Elite and I too am left wondering why we spent the time and effort posting any suggestions for upgraded features.

As far as I can tell the biggest update is the Photo Library feature which I have little need for. Time and time again a number of posters here have indicated that the development focus should be ion improving and adding core features and not on asset management. I guess they weren’t listening.

The only change I can find to core functionality is the update to Clearview, now Clearview Plus. Its not clear exactly what it does differently from the previous version or how much more effective it is, but of all the things that could have been enhanced it was far from the most important.

Finally, the addition of the Color Management tool can be useful to some and less useful to others. And that’s it???. Nothing else???. Hardly what one would expect from a major version update.

At the same time ON1 is releasing an update to its software with dozens of needed enhancements. I know the PhotoLab team is probably small and the recent financial woes didn’t help, but this is not PhotoLab 2, At best its PhotoLab 1.3. Am I missing something. If so I will happily take back my comments.

Extraordinarily Disappointed and frustrated after spending $69 USD for this so called “upgrade”!!

Mark

1 Like

I think you can ask for a refund if you don’t like it (within 30 days?), I wanted to wait and read some input about this update before downloading the demo trial before buying.
Let see what the Staff says about that update.

I think the 30 day trial period is intended for new users, not for those of use who upgraded.

Mark

I really hope that this is just the first step to a fully functional Library.

  1. Disappointed that it can’t search on keywords. Windows Explorer can read those tags.
  2. Where do I manage the scope of the search? I pointed it to my Photo drive when I told it to index. The search then returns images from other networked drives plus my recycle bin which is definitely not wanted.
  3. The last search criteria are not saved so if I click away to check an image, I have to enter the criteria all over again.

So of only 3 enhancements to version 2 the one that doesn’t even improve the core functionality has very limited usability? Great! So far I haven’t noticed any performance improvements to any functionality. Curious what Clearview Plus does so profoundly differently that it warrants calling this a major upgrade.

Mark

there should be at least a 14 days refunds policy if its not the 30 days(which might be the trial date), you can always send them an email explaining to get a refund.

looking at the which edition to choose between Essential and Elite shows what’s “new” =
-SPOT WEIGHTED MODE NEW
-SELECTIVE TONE IMPROVED
-RED EYE CORRECTION NEW
-AUTO MODE FOR MICROCONTRAST NEW
-FULL SCREEN MODE NEW
-SHORTCUTS FOR RATING AND FILTERING PHOTOS IN FULL SCREEN NEW
-PRIME 2016 DENOISING (RAW) NEW

Nothing in that list looks new and were all in my PL1.2 Elite. Of course I’m not sure if any of those features were improved for version 2. The only thing that’s obvious is the file management functionality, Clearview Plus, and the new color management functionality. I would feel a lot better about all this if I knew that there were significant improvements made to existing features. So far I have not noticed anything, other than some changes with Clearview, and have not heard anything. I wonder if the question of the 4K resolution has been addressed among many other things.

Mark

At least on MacOS the last five searches appear as folder icons over the directory tree (Favorites).

Hi Everyone

@mikerofoto => This page hasn’t been updated and it’s a bug on our side indeed. We apologyze for that. It’ll be fixed soon.

@mwsilvers => We understand that you can be disapointed and that new features, among which the PhotoLibrary (which once again is a first step towards a full DAM solution) don’t fit your needs.
You should contact our support to see what they can do regarding refunding.

Best regards,
Fabrizio

Its clear the comments made on what users would like has been basically ignored, most felt dram was a nice idea but core program was more needed. What do we get dram started and a miner tinkering with a bug in Clearview that caused problems for some images. This adds up to a miner bug fix not new version and what we get is a promise to develop dram, which mainly wasn’t wanted and nothing else. I had hoped DxO had learnt form the ONE mess and refusal to listen to customers, I fear I was wrong.

2 Likes

Your only response is to suggest a refund? I don’t want a refund but you’re been asking for feedback on what to put in version two and we spent a lot of time with suggestions for not only possible new functionality but much needed updates to existing functions and the reasons for them. Was 4K monitors addressed? Was viewing sharpness at less than 75%, like every one of your competitors, addressed? Was speeding up PRIME or giving us the ability to view its effects in other than a tiny box while processing in raw addressed? Was anything with the core functionality of PhotoLab addressed other than an update to Clearview? And what does the Plus even mean? Is the use of that tool expanded? In what world are these few changes worthy of a major uograde? In what world are they worth $70 USD?

I’m guessing that something has happened and you guys realized that you could not deliver the things that you planned to and somehow had to rush the update the market as is. I’m hoping that’s the case. I’m hoping that what we got isn’t wasn’t what your team planned for all along.

Please understand my frustration. I love using Photolab Elite. I use it almost every day. I think it is superior to your competition in a number of significant ways. However, your overall tool set is also significantly lacking in core functionality, unrelated to Asset Management, compared to your competition. I had hoped with this version you would have taken a step towards filling that gap.

4 Likes

WOW, that was one Weak response from DXO ??
Nothing in this update fits my Needs… With the lack of a Dam tool in the past with PL, I signed up with IMatch . Which as a side note PL will never equal. And they shouldn’t because they were a development program, not a All in One solution. So, I wonder if development steps in regards to DAM development, will be the main feature of PL future updates.
With all the news around DXO PL this past year, I would have thought that the first Major update to Pl would be Eye Opening… Boy was I surprised!!! Maybe spending to much time on the Nik collection, no signs of that either.
If I had presented one of my projects to management after a year of development time with the same degree of advancement as PL2, I would be sweeping the streets that afternoon.
DXO has missed a opportunity to shine,
Mike

3 Likes

Have a look at the Votes list: https://forum.dxo.com/c/dxo-photolab/feature-requests/l/votes
#1 is " Digital Asset Management in PhotoLab" with 21 votes

Two topics from the initial post are delivered:

  • Fast searching by core metadata attributes
  • Maybe a grid and compare view for photos

Also I asked for being able to filter e. g. by ISO or lens. While this is not fully working (see New search feature in PhotoLab 2) it is a step in the right direction.

So I am disappointed with the content of the major release, too, and I am free to decide not to buy and keep my existing version which fits my needs.

But I think it is unfair to say that DxO doesn’t listen. Also the DCP profile feature was requested, I found a couple of forum entries from 2017 complaining about missing support for color targets.

3 Likes

Fine, but except for Clearview Plus there in not even one other update to any of the core functionality and absolutely no new features in this version except for the search functionality. How does that qualify as a major upgrade?