Sorry Dave, but now you are going to far;
I know that it is not out of charity that you put your time in
writing software, but when you ask before to test your routine,
then it is in the understanding that you supply those early testers
with a corrected version also for free (offcourse, further updates
should not be for free, but that you can state on beforehand);
Besides that, for people outsite the US, it is quite impossible to
pay an amount of $10 (I don't see a possibility, unless with a
credit card);
There seems to be a great deal of "distaste" over suddenly charging
for the real filter. Let me explain why I had to do that here for
everyone...there are actually a couple reasons.
Firstly, I have to pay for bandwidth (like everyone else running a
website). DPReview has many readers and so mentioning that I have a
new filter causes a lot of traffic. I can do this a few times (Ie,
I offered my Infrared filter for free, I offer two other filters
for free on a permanent basis, and I offered this filter for free
the first time around). I write these mostly for myself, and also
because I see a need - I wouldn't put 50+ hours into these things
if I didn't enjoy it. Believe me, I would love to offer them all
for free to everyone here for the start to build some momentum, but
I would actually lose money. I owe my hosting company if I exceed
my bandwidth usage so I have to recoup expenses somehow.
Secondly, I do feel that I should make a small something off of
these. As I said earlier, I do enjoy it a great deal, but I have
indeed spent 50+ hours on this. I tried to price it low enough that
it wouldn't be a big deal (Fred Miranda sells his noise reduction
kit for $30 - mine is $10 to work on all noise levels). I'm not
sure why that amount is a problem for out of country folks,
either...not trying to be difficult, I really don't get it - please
explain?
Thirdly, in response to the beta testing issue... I didn't mean to
ruffle the feathers of those who helped with the earlier version. I
do understand and completly agree that those folks should have the
new version as well. I simply hadn't thought that far ahead. I'll
be contacting everyone who helped out by contributing comments on
here with download instructions for the new version.
About the quality of the filter : the beta version gave good
results, but it was a pain to try different levels, or to switch
the preview window : every movement resulted in again computing the
whole thing, and took many, many minutes (on a high-end PC : 1.8GHz
- 750MB Ram); I liked the most the biggest noise-reduction factor
(and should it be possible, even some more);
I'm working on a way to fix this - and do realize it's a problem.
There is a short term fix, though. When you change a setting,
hitting the escape key stops the preview window from continuing the
update. Also, it seemed to me that there was a desire to have
better reduction with more time. Thus, the new version does take a
little longer.
You have done a terrific job, and I hope that you have solved the
performance issue: in this case, the product has a future...
Thank you!
-Dave
http://www.glickcreative.com
