After years of using the Photographer subscription and using mainly Lightroom Classic, I tallied how much money I had spent on Adobe without anything to show for it. So I decided, and that's definitive, that I wouldn't use any other software that does not offer a perpetual license.
So I switched. After what I thought was a pretty complete evaluation of different alternatives, I shortlisted Capture One and DXO PhotoLab.
PhotoLab won for different reasons.
It turns out my "careful" evaluation was not all that good. I overlooked the fact that DXO PhotoLab does not allow to create smart albums. This is incredible to me. I feel stupid for overlooking that, but at the same time it is the last thing I expected them not to include.
Neither product includes photo stacking (grouping). I knew that before buying, but it turns out to be more important to me than I thought. It is only when you stop having something that you realise how important it was.
Now, smart albums and stacking are pretty important and not all that difficult to implement. I've worked in software development, I have an understanding of what is very complex or not. Besides, when you see how it is implemented in Adobe Bridge, you completely realise it is way less difficult than many things they include in their software.
So it appears it is a lack of understanding of what photographers need, use and that different photographers have different needs and a good app would try to cater for a wide array of needs.
I have looked again. the only ones who include both stacking and smart albums are Adobe. Why, why, why? That is incomprehensible to me. Adobe includes that in Lightroom and in the *free* Bridge.
After purchasing DXO PhotoLab, I also came across the petty business practices of DXO. PhotoLab does not include the luminosity masks, you need to buy the Film Pack to have that feature. The code is actually there already, it is just disabled and activated when you enter the Film Pack key.
And the worst: PhotoLab does not allow flipping an image horizontally or vertically. Seriously. The code is there, the feature is there, only it is disabled until you enter the key for ViewPoint! I mean, really? It is hard to think of a feature more basic than flipping the image. Hard also to think of cheaper ones to implement. This is so petty, so ridiculous.
It is again beyond me to understand why intelligent people would do that. Instead of ensuring customer satisfaction, securing future upgrade revenue, no, they chose to deliberately enrage their customer with such a vexing issue. I did not buy ViewPoint, it would have made me feel too much as a fool. So the ploy to get a few Euros more from me did not work. On the contrary, it kept me alert to alternatives.
Also, in DXO, there is not way to see the content of subfolders. I wonder if they even talk to photographers.
It turns out PhotoLab is a glorious RAW converter with a toy library management and DXO's petty business practices grafted on it.
In any case, I am not returning to Adobe, especially at the new price of 25€/month!
I'll keep an eye on how C1 evolves. If they add stacking, mmm, maybe.
So I switched. After what I thought was a pretty complete evaluation of different alternatives, I shortlisted Capture One and DXO PhotoLab.
PhotoLab won for different reasons.
It turns out my "careful" evaluation was not all that good. I overlooked the fact that DXO PhotoLab does not allow to create smart albums. This is incredible to me. I feel stupid for overlooking that, but at the same time it is the last thing I expected them not to include.
Neither product includes photo stacking (grouping). I knew that before buying, but it turns out to be more important to me than I thought. It is only when you stop having something that you realise how important it was.
Now, smart albums and stacking are pretty important and not all that difficult to implement. I've worked in software development, I have an understanding of what is very complex or not. Besides, when you see how it is implemented in Adobe Bridge, you completely realise it is way less difficult than many things they include in their software.
So it appears it is a lack of understanding of what photographers need, use and that different photographers have different needs and a good app would try to cater for a wide array of needs.
I have looked again. the only ones who include both stacking and smart albums are Adobe. Why, why, why? That is incomprehensible to me. Adobe includes that in Lightroom and in the *free* Bridge.
After purchasing DXO PhotoLab, I also came across the petty business practices of DXO. PhotoLab does not include the luminosity masks, you need to buy the Film Pack to have that feature. The code is actually there already, it is just disabled and activated when you enter the Film Pack key.
And the worst: PhotoLab does not allow flipping an image horizontally or vertically. Seriously. The code is there, the feature is there, only it is disabled until you enter the key for ViewPoint! I mean, really? It is hard to think of a feature more basic than flipping the image. Hard also to think of cheaper ones to implement. This is so petty, so ridiculous.
It is again beyond me to understand why intelligent people would do that. Instead of ensuring customer satisfaction, securing future upgrade revenue, no, they chose to deliberately enrage their customer with such a vexing issue. I did not buy ViewPoint, it would have made me feel too much as a fool. So the ploy to get a few Euros more from me did not work. On the contrary, it kept me alert to alternatives.
Also, in DXO, there is not way to see the content of subfolders. I wonder if they even talk to photographers.
It turns out PhotoLab is a glorious RAW converter with a toy library management and DXO's petty business practices grafted on it.
In any case, I am not returning to Adobe, especially at the new price of 25€/month!
I'll keep an eye on how C1 evolves. If they add stacking, mmm, maybe.
C1 and DXO were the shortlist.
