Wow- Have i missed something?

Thanks to everyone for the feedback

Mike

Update to Luminar:

Luminar will soon release a “Plugin Only” version for existing editors and a DAM version. It seems that too many users complained about the lack of feature fixes and more attention to DAM fixes. Many received refunds because the DAM in Windows is just not working.
Perhaps DXO will consider this in the next update. Also, I still suggest that DXO find a way to replace ACR in PS the way that PhotoNinja did or even MetaRaw plugin. Perhaps the two version method would work for DXO.

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That’s not quite true. Luminar 2018 users were looking forward to the DAM and Luminar 3 was being sold as a viable alternative to Lr. In the event the DAM has, by and large, zero functionality and the database was/is so unreliable users are losing their edits. It is poor on Windows and Mac. The first release of Luminar 3 was more like a pre beta and the subsequent update never went near solving the issue. Luminar already works as a stable plugin to Lr and always has so this update/release is probably not all it might appear. The uproar has been due to poor support and the lack of fixes to get the dam working - the next update/bug fix is not expected until late spring!

For all that Luminar manages to support Fuji X!

I’ve waited a long time for Luminar to mature to the point early promises pointed to.
I was disappointed in what Luminar had done so far, so I got a refund this week for Luminar and upgraded from PL to PL2 & bought the DXO Nik Collection. I’ve been happy with the speed and ease in getting the results I like.
I have LR & PS that I will keep but am also quitting my C1 subscription when it ends. C1 gives very nice results, but not my thing.
I’m hoping PL keeps improving, as I like the results I get from it.

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I have PL and Nik. Nik has been a disappointment to me as nothing much has happened that I can see since DxO bought it. Luminar as a plugin to Lr is probably better to be honest. PL is also now a lost cause for me as I have moved to Fuji for some of my work and I can see little point in converting the raw outside of PL and then bringing it in. Others might think I am wrong and that there is a way to make it worthwhile. If so I would welcome feedback. In the meantime I am quite happy in Lr/Ps. Like you I have taken a refund on Luminar, one of the main reasons being Skylum’s way of doing business. There are things in PL though that I find lacking when compared to Capture 1 or Adobe. Maybe that is because PL is a raw editor (a good one) whilst Adobe and Phase One do go further.

I’m not sure what I said is “not quite true”?
Here’s a snip from the blog announcement:


"Luminar is for Everyone

Since Luminar can make any photo better, we want to make our AI and creative tools easily accessible. That’s why Luminar now comes in two distinct versions.

Luminar 3 – An all-in-one photography platform for organizing and editing images.
Luminar Plugin – A new addition for most photo editing tools that works as a plugin, extension, or external editor.

Luminar Plugin means that if you choose to stick with your current workflow, you can still use Luminar’s AI tech and creative image editing tools."


My point being that they tried incorporating a DAM into their product and have had many issues in doing so, similar to the direction DXO has gone. It is not my intention to promote another companies product. DXO products are my preferred applications for several tasks. The complaints on this forum pales in comparison to the FAQ WIN forum at Skylum.

I purchased PL2, NIK, VP and FP products and will continue to use them. I hope DXO will take notice of what is going on in the industry and stay committed to what they have done best with raw development and plugins. The feature requests in this forum provides a good roadmap.

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Yes the dam is the issue. People in the main are not walking because of anything else and a lot have just reverted to 2018 which is stable. The fight has been and remains about the quality of the release and the hype rather than about progress on any other front, which has always been abysmal. A very large number of Luminar users wanted the dam which was promised in 2017.

It appears DxO have made their minds up about a dam - I guess this forum is but a small proportion of users. This anti subscription thing is behind it all I guess.

“This anti subscription thing is behind it all I guess”

Certainly part of it, for me anyway. I’m fine being in the minority of those who don’t want to rent software. Since I don’t make my living taking pictures, PL has been meeting my needs.

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This whole “renting” idea is getting out of hand. How does it differ from monthly payments for the internet, or your smartphone, or cable/ satellite TV, etc. Further, you don’t really “own” any software you purchase. You only have a licence giving you limited rights to use it. Yes, there may be a one time payment, but it does not give you updates into perpetuity. For those that don’t care about up to date functionality, and keep their software for a number of years that may be a better option.

For others who want the latest and greatest features and are happy with Adobe products, $10 USD per month for Lightroom and PhotoShop is a bargain. Consider that the last stand-alone versions of both LR and PS together cost more than $600 USD and did not include any updates after a newer version of both was released, and there was a hefty charge to upgrade to a newer version. I no longer use Adobe products, but for reasons other than the pricing model, however, for those who love using it, it’s a great deal.

Mark

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PL does an amazing job with Fuji X jpegs if a photographer tunes his taste in jpegs (lots of options in Fuji X, I prefer Classic Chrome, Chrome effect weak) and exposes accurately.

That said, I would love to see PhotoLab support the demosaiced Iridient Transformer Fuji X RAW files. Iridient Transformer removes the need for PhotoLab to work with X-Trans mosaicing at all. When I work with Fuji X RAW I usually use Iridient Developer as it does a good job and I like the controls. It’s slow though (much slower with X-Trans than Canon RAW files) and not as capable as PhotoLab.

@mwsilvers

This whole “renting” idea is getting out of hand. How does it differ from monthly payments for the internet, or your smartphone, or cable/ satellite TV, etc.

My conclusion is the opposite of yours. Since one is compelled to rent so many things, frankly I’ve had enough and software is one of the places I draw the line.

I don’t rent software, I’ve given up my mobile phone (there’s so much freedom there is in not having incoming calls when in nature or to have to check one’s emails every time one is in transit), I’ve never had cable and buy whatever I buy outright - never on credit.

Privacy

An even bigger issue than subscription with Adobe is privacy. For those of you not monitoring outbound connections with Adobe CC (I recently did a Canon free trial to compare CS6 with CC2019), every single action and image you ingest is sent to Adobe. It’s a full time surveillance program. There’s no way I’d ever allow any company that much information about what I do on my computer.

I imagine that Adobe is in close contact with the alphabet soup agencies and CC is a very easy vector from which to pull all the data from your computer as CC 1. has to have root permissions to function 2. normally does a lot of uploading and downloading so it would be easy to hide data extraction within the streams of encrypted media files.

PS. It took two hours of hard work for a pro IT admin to get all the traces of CC off of the single computer where I had it installed. This is a no-no and dirty play from Adobe. I don’t expect any kind of decent behaviour from that company any more. For the last fifteen years, Adobe are out only for your wallet and run by sharks not artists, programmers or anyone else who cares about their users. It’s a pity as Adobe had a great legacy of amazing minds in the development of creative tools. Part of the financialization of the entire world, including the latest - digital sharecropping or to go a step further, digital serfdom.

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It comes down to a personal choice, and you’ve made yours. Some people own their cars, some lease their cars, and others choose to not have a car at all. There are also people who are happiest living completely off the grid. There is certainly no right or wrong about any of it.

Mark

Believe it or not almost all software leaves some remnants of itself on a computer when it is uninstalled, even if it’s no more than empty folders. Some software is worse than others in that regard. As a retired IT person, I periodically go in and delete those remnants. After I did a comparative test of 8 different trial versions of PP software last year, I uninstalled most of them and found over 7 GB of files that remained. Of course, with my experience I was able to delete all those files within an hour or so.

Mark

Certainly true, Mark. On the commercial front, related to DxO, Adobe has created a huge opportunity in the market for companies who do sell photo software outright as there are many people in my group (who won’t rent software) and even more people in the group who would strongly prefer to own software than to rent software.

Adobe had so carefully bought out and starved out all possible competition (see purchase of Macromedia, price undercutting Apple Aperture) that Adobe was in a unique position as an almost exclusive provider in many markets when they decided to enforce subscription only.

The subscription only policy has been a godsend for potential competitors like Affinity (with Photo and Designer) or Apple with Final Cut Pro X (FCPX had alienated a lot of users but over time 1. it improved 2. it wasn’t subscription) or Blackmagic Design’s Resolve.

I believe Phase One offers a choice that allows you to either subscribe to Capture One Pro or purchase a license out right. I guess that’s the best of both worlds and gives consumers a choice.

Mark

To be honest, even seeing the subscription option over at C1 makes me nervous. It suggests to me PhaseOne wants to follow Adobe’s lead and get rid of owned licenses. The issue with a RAW developer moving to subscription is that it means that any future cameras will not be supported with owned software.

Having followed PhaseOne and owned various of their products over the years (never had very good ROI on a PhaseOne investment - either the software underperformed or updates were too expensive or versions were EOL’s or software was abandoned), it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see them spring subscription only on their relatively captive audience.

DxO PhotoLab’s quality of output and presence on the market is probably one of the few things holding PhaseOne back from going subscription only.

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I’m a bit confused by this statement. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the intent. New camera raw files and new lenses have never been supported by most software companies for their older versions once a new version of the software is released. This predates subscriptions. Or are you suggesting that non-subscription versions of software might not be updated at all once you’ve bought it and installed it?

Mark

I have a Sigma 150-600 with Sigma 1.4xTC . It was a kit. I’m using these (Canon TC)

There is really a lack of comparison of two different images.
When I need to fine-tune two different images, I can see them next to each other. Without it, this software is useless and I regret buying it …

That’s very easy to achieve, Marian … Simply use this option;
DxO_Preview - you could also press F11 - and use the side-by-side OR split-screen option for a full-screen review.

As you will find when you properly explore PhotoLab, it’s far from “useless”.

Regards, John M

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Hello Marian - I can only highly recommend to:

Sigi

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