DXO Photolab

[Hinfrance]

And right on the back of the free version 11 Optics Pro comes the replacement and upgraded product, now called Photolab. Even though the latest version of Optics Pro I had paid for was 9 there was a launch upgrade offer on this for me at £55 which I took advantage of.

The launch price without upgrade is £99.

Just in case anyone is interested. It looks like this is where a few of the Nik effects have ended up. I'll report back when I have had a chance to play with it a bit.

http://www.dxo.com/us/photography/photo-software/dxo-photolab

[jinky]

What I don`t get is - having the Nik Software collection added to my PS CS6 version from a paid for (that failed) and then free replacement - will it continue to work? can it be switched off or whatever. I know DxO have said it will be free "for now" through them but for how long? If they have added features to a paid for programme maybe not for long!

[Alfonso_Frisk]

As I said in a previous post, I have the DXO pro 11 elite installed and paid for in March.
Im getting suspicious of their motives now with the ammount of upgrades, offers, trials and now new suites on sale.
In 18 month ive seen a lot of this and gone from vers 10> 11> pro and elite and now they want to sell me the next big upgrade.
I suspect a CC system will be next with monthly fees.
They are sort of doing this now via the back door with all these recent versions.

[Hinfrance]

It's possible Alf, but annual upgrades were always part of DXO's MO and there were always two versions of Optics Pro.

Adobe have now gone full on monthly subscription, with even LR no longer being available as a one off licence purchase.

As for the future of Nik, I, like Paul bought a licence before it became free, but that was two owners ago, so probably not worth the little heaps of magnetism it is stored in. What DXO will do with it I don't know. And I don't suppose they have decided either - it is a French company, after all.

[Alfonso_Frisk]

Im a paying customer and subscribe to their newsletters and check the update link in the programme often, yet I find out about the "new" version from here.
I then go into my account and have a limited time to buy this "new" version at a cost of 55gbp.
Im not liking how they operate at the moment.

Rant and whinge over 

[Hinfrance]

Ranting is definitely therapeutic.

I've played with it a bit today and it's got a few really impressive new bits. The Nik part seems to be the addition of control points, which appear to be rather Viveza like in operation and there is a new tool called Clearview which is very much like Perfectly Clear (which was feature of Bibble which became AfterShot Pro from Corel before being abandoned). It works very well, I like it a lot, a bit of that and some micro-contrast and most pictures look very good.

So all in all I'm quite pleased with it so far.

[Alfonso_Frisk]

Clearview and the contrast tools are in the elite package I have.
Now theres a name from the past "bibble" I remember that one and how amazed I was with the perfectly clear function.
IIRC it came to me via a torrent site which were also popular some 10+ yrs ago along with hysteria surrounding HDR programmes.