Getting started with DxO

The advantage of DNG is a manufacturer / vendor agnostic raw specification, which should decouple you from constant demands for upgrade costs. Whether that's a subscription or other.

DXO are particularly bad at these upgrade charges, particularly for their Nik tools. When the products don't work they make it implausibly difficult to get a refund - they demand to remotely take control of your machine with admin rights. When they cant produce functioning s/w who would let them do that.
 
ian_s said:
The advantage of DNG is a manufacturer / vendor agnostic raw specification, which should decouple you from constant demands for upgrade costs. Whether that's a subscription or other
Click to expand...

DNG is only a true RAW format if it is generated by the camera. When it is generated from some software, it is usually a simple wrapper around a TIFF file, although it may retain some RAW characteristics.

In addition to which, generating a DNG from a RAW original means having to maintain another file, somewhat larger than the original, in addition to the original.

Nikon D850 NEF - 76.6MB
DNG export from PL - 139.6MB
TIFF export from PL - 217.0MB

Whereas, if I stay with the original RAW file, I can create any number of different virtual copies and the only extra file I need is the DOP sidecar which, with a couple of different versions ends up being around 25KB.

Given the RAW and the DOP, I can export to any file format, at the point of need, without having to keep hold of the exported file, because I can re-export at any time.

With DxO, there are no "constant demands for upgrade costs". It is not sold on a subscription model and you are free to continue using the version you have purchased for as long as you have a computer and OS which supports it.

ian_s said:
DXO are particularly bad at these upgrade charges, particularly for their Nik tools
Click to expand...

So, don't buy the Nik tools. I bought them to help support others who might have problems but I have never needed to use any of them. Fairly much everything they do is part of PhotoLab and are not necessary in addition.

ian_s said:
When the products don't work they make it implausibly difficult to get a refund
Click to expand...

Which is why you get a 30 day free trial to see if everything works for you, thus avoiding the need for a refund.

ian_s said:
- they demand to remotely take control of your machine with admin rights
Click to expand...

And quite rightly too. Or do you live in a Utopia where nobody claims a refund but continues using the product by restoring a backup of the registration key?

In my time contributing to the DxO forums, I have come across some incredibly complex workflows, usually based on people's experience of what it takes to use Lr or PS.

Anyway, this thread is here for folks who want help with getting to know PhotoLab, not for those who want to slag it off.
 
Joanna Carter said:
Which is why you get a 30 day free trial to see if everything works for you, thus avoiding the need for a refund.
Click to expand...
I had a previous version which I was happy with, then I gave them some more cash and upgraded ........ to ver 4 ....... which was broken. All I wanted to do was revert back.

DXO do not allow you to run the paid for version in parallel with a demo of the upgraded version before you pay. The demo for the new version wipes out your current one.

I sent them multiple screen grabs and even video's of the problem, but they were clueless to the cause. I re-installed etc etc etc. They kept asking for more time to understand - pushing it past 30 days of purchase.

The ver 4 licence number does not allow you to re-install the previous version, so you are b**gered !

If they didn't have a half baked licencing architecture they could have re-imposed the previous version remotely, rescinding the updated version.

Did they think I was going through all this performance to con them out of the upgrade fee ? If I wanted to do that I would just have downloaded a pirate version.

Then along comes ver 5, they ask for MORE MONEY. They DON'T bother fixing the issues in ver 4 and stop supporting it, no more updates to resolve the problem they introduced.

In just over a year they went from ver 3 to 4 to 5. Asking for almost as much as the licencing cost for both PS and LR together. They are providing a plugin / filter not an entire workflow (that would have costed EVEN more).

They should NEVER expect to remotely take control of a customers machine, it would give them access to all the confidential information on the machine AND they won't take responsibility for any damage to the machine they may inadvertently cause. If they introduce a problem and crash the machine then what would the user do ?

The really funny bit is they said I could do a complete system backup ..... which would have allowed me to reverse the changes to my machine they wanted to do.

They really are muppets, best avoided. Their s/w will never darken my machine again. They are in another world if the answer is to abandon any PS / LR workflow and only use theirs, its either delusional or anti-competitive.
 
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Joanna Carter said:
DNG is only a true RAW format if it is generated by the camera. When it is generated from some software, it is usually a simple wrapper around a TIFF file, although it may retain some RAW characteristics.
Click to expand...
Both Leica and Ricoh create native DNGs. I wish all manufacturers should follow this approach rather than perceive they have some secret sauce that needs protecting.
Joanna Carter said:
In addition to which, generating a DNG from a RAW original means having to maintain another file, somewhat larger than the original, in addition to the original.

Nikon D850 NEF - 76.6MB
DNG export from PL - 139.6MB
TIFF export from PL - 217.0MB

Whereas, if I stay with the original RAW file, I can create any number of different virtual copies and the only extra file I need is the DOP sidecar which, with a couple of different versions ends up being around 25KB.
Click to expand...
This is the same approach as LR. Out of interest I have found that the effective cost of storage is reducing quicker than file sizes have increased. A cross platform file format is going to be the most important if you either fall out of love with the s/w vendor or they go bust.
Joanna Carter said:
Given the RAW and the DOP, I can export to any file format, at the point of need, without having to keep hold of the exported file, because I can re-export at any time.
Click to expand...
Until DXO (or the OS provider) break the s/w following a flakey update ;-)
Joanna Carter said:
With DxO, there are no "constant demands for upgrade costs". It is not sold on a subscription model and you are free to continue using the version you have purchased for as long as you have a computer and OS which supports it.



So, don't buy the Nik tools. I bought them to help support others who might have problems but I have never needed to use any of them. Fairly much everything they do is part of PhotoLab and are not necessary in addition.



Which is why you get a 30 day free trial to see if everything works for you, thus avoiding the need for a refund.



And quite rightly too. Or do you live in a Utopia where nobody claims a refund but continues using the product by restoring a backup of the registration key?

In my time contributing to the DxO forums, I have come across some incredibly complex workflows, usually based on people's experience of what it takes to use Lr or PS.

Anyway, this thread is here for folks who want help with getting to know PhotoLab, not for those who want to slag it off.
Click to expand...
 
ian_s said:
I had a previous version which I was happy with, then I gave them some more cash and upgraded ........ to ver 4 ....... which was broken. All I wanted to do was revert back.

DXO do not allow you to run the paid for version in parallel with a demo of the upgraded version before you pay. The demo for the new version wipes out your current one.

I sent them multiple screen grabs and even video's of the problem, but they were clueless to the cause. I re-installed etc etc etc. They kept asking for more time to understand - pushing it past 30 days of purchase.

The ver 4 licence number does not allow you to re-install the previous version, so you are b**gered !

If they didn't have a half baked licencing architecture they could have re-imposed the previous version remotely, rescinding the updated version.

Did they think I was going through all this performance to con them out of the upgrade fee ? If I wanted to do that I would just have downloaded a pirate version.

Then along comes ver 5, they ask for MORE MONEY. They DON'T bother fixing the issues in ver 4 and stop supporting it, no more updates to resolve the problem they introduced.

In just over a year they went from ver 3 to 4 to 5. Asking for almost as much as the licencing cost for both PS and LR together. They are providing a plugin / filter not an entire workflow (that would have costed EVEN more).

They should NEVER expect to remotely take control of a customers machine, it would give them access to all the confidential information on the machine AND they won't take responsibility for any damage to the machine they may inadvertently cause. If they introduce a problem and crash the machine then what would the user do ?

The really funny bit is they said I could do a complete system backup ..... which would have allowed me to reverse the changes to my machine they wanted to do.

They really are muppets, best avoided. Their s/w will never darken my machine again. They are in another world if the answer is to abandon any PS / LR workflow and only use theirs, its either delusional or anti-competitive.
Click to expand...
Got that off your chest then but as Joanna said : the thread is to help explain how it works
 
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