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09-24-2018, 10:38 AM   #1
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Would you purchase DXO software now after their bankruptcy?

I've been searching for an alternative to a Lightroom subscription for RAW development for my K-3II. De-noising is very important to me and I used a trial version of DXO PhotoLab Elite Edition and was very happy with it. I don't care so much for the cataloging that Lightroom gives you - I can get that elsewhere. RAW development and ease of use/low learning curve is the most important to me.

But.... I don't know if buying into a bankrupt company for $200 software is a good idea. What are your thoughts? Anyone in a similar position? I wish they would at least give a discount for the software but I haven't been able to find one so if anyone knows how to get a discount, I'd be interested in hearing about it. Thanks.

09-24-2018, 10:47 AM   #2
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They went under? Interesting.. Going to go read up on it, thanks for the heads up)
09-24-2018, 10:50 AM   #3
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My position is this: I will never buy a subscription to Lightroom. I will find an alternative when the time is right and needed. In the absence of any viable alternative that is non subscription based, I will sell all of my camera gear and devote the money to one of my two or three other expensive hobbies.
09-24-2018, 10:51 AM - 2 Likes   #4
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Nope. Capture One all the way.

09-24-2018, 10:54 AM - 4 Likes   #5
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mm, LR/PS is like $10 per month. I actually paid more lik $7.5 for the first year with a Pentax discount that came with K-1. I think it's fairly reasonable, LR might have it's down sides, but PS is an outstanding piece of software (also helps that I use it a lot for work). I just bought a Sketchapp subscription, $100 upfront for a year worth of upgrades (re-subbing is cheaper for the second year i believe). So, a very good combination of processing tools for a price of a good filter per year, that's not too bad in the long run. my 2 cents
09-24-2018, 11:15 AM - 1 Like   #6
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LR/PS for $10 a month is a decent deal in my opinion.
What I dislike is how expensive additional cloud storage is!

My current deal of $14.99 a month for Photographer's subscription plus 1TB cloud storage is reasonable in my opinion. That's going up to $20 a month once my current deal is up in January.
Will likely drop back down to the 20GB peasant edition.

$10 a month per additional TB of cloud storage is an absolute ripoff.
09-24-2018, 11:15 AM - 1 Like   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by sealonsf Quote
I've been searching for an alternative to a Lightroom subscription for RAW development for my K-3II. De-noising is very important to me and I used a trial version of DXO PhotoLab Elite Edition and was very happy with it. I don't care so much for the cataloging that Lightroom gives you - I can get that elsewhere. RAW development and ease of use/low learning curve is the most important to me.

But.... I don't know if buying into a bankrupt company for $200 software is a good idea. What are your thoughts? Anyone in a similar position? I wish they would at least give a discount for the software but I haven't been able to find one so if anyone knows how to get a discount, I'd be interested in hearing about it. Thanks.
I urge you to try Darktable (for Windows, assuming that's what you're running). The de-noising options require some learning because there are many different approaches open to the user, and initially I found these quite frustrating. I just couldn't achieve the same quality of results that Lightroom 6 gave me. But you can bypass that frustration and benefit from my learning curve, as I now firmly believe you only need to learn how to use two of the tools... "equalizer" and "denoise (bilateral filter)". And unless you're shooting at quite high ISO and have a lot of colour noise to deal with, you can get away with just using the "equalizer", as it's very powerful for both luminance noise and low-to-medium levels of colour noise. I now far prefer the noise reduction capabilities of Darktable.

The latest version of Darktable is incredibly capable for raw development, but lags behind Lightroom in terms of cataloguing - but since you're not so interested in the latter, you won't mind.

09-24-2018, 11:15 AM   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by sealonsf Quote
De-noising is very important to me
Check out Topaz Labs DeNoise - works stand alone or as a plugin. I have found it very good - better results for me than Lightroom (with disclaimer I'm far far from being a Lr expert, but coming from ground zero with both products, I do much better with DeNoise)

DeNoise – Topaz Labs
09-24-2018, 11:29 AM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by UserAccessDenied Quote
LR/PS for $10 a month is a decent deal in my opinion.
What I dislike is how expensive additional cloud storage is!

My current deal of $14.99 a month for Photographer's subscription plus 1TB cloud storage is reasonable in my opinion. That's going up to $20 a month once my current deal is up in January.
Will likely drop back down to the 20GB peasant edition.

$10 a month per additional TB of cloud storage is an absolute ripoff.
Mm, I tried the amazon cloud storage once, and found uploading my entire library way too long (around 700gb of raws, processed files etc). So I settled with a small NAS storage that holds everything for now.
I see that amazon switched to $60 per year for 1tb, about half of the price of the adobe cloud. Maybe they'll drop the price to stay competitive, who knows
09-24-2018, 11:32 AM   #10
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What is the current status of DXOlabs anyway? Are the still in receivership?
09-24-2018, 11:33 AM - 1 Like   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by awscreo Quote
Mm, I tried the amazon cloud storage once, and found uploading my entire library way too long (around 700gb of raws, processed files etc). So I settled with a small NAS storage that holds everything for now.
I see that amazon switched to $60 per year for 1tb, about half of the price of the adobe cloud. Maybe they'll drop the price to stay competitive, who knows
Can you tap Lightroom CC into other services like Dropbox, Amazon, etc?

I thought part of the hook from Adobe was that only their cloud storage was accessible from Lightroom CC (mobile).

I don't use it often, but when I'm on the road and want to access my entire photo library, it's nice to have. And the ability to edit in Lightroom CC (mobile) is icing on the cake.


Is it worth $10 a month extra? Absolutely not; in my opinion...
EDIT: honestly devalues their software if they think the cost of storage is the SAME as the cost of software development and maintenance...
09-24-2018, 11:51 AM   #12
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QuoteOriginally posted by UserAccessDenied Quote
Can you tap Lightroom CC into other services like Dropbox, Amazon, etc?

I thought part of the hook from Adobe was that only their cloud storage was accessible from Lightroom CC (mobile).

I don't use it often, but when I'm on the road and want to access my entire photo library, it's nice to have. And the ability to edit in Lightroom CC (mobile) is icing on the cake.


Is it worth $10 a month extra? Absolutely not; in my opinion...
EDIT: honestly devalues their software if they think the cost of storage is the SAME as the cost of software development and maintenance...
Well, look at it this way. The stand alone apps in creative cloud are $10 to $20 on their own. And the only way to get cheaper photoshop (that's worth $10 on its own to me personally), and lightroom on top of it is to get the photography package, and it is pretty good value. Maybe they're looking at as a way to make up the difference they're "losing" with the photography package.

I haven't tried attaching other cloud services, I just tried backing up the folder with images to Amazon cloud.

The beauty of NAS is that it's also accessible remotely via web interface, and that it runs on Linux OS meaning there are apps you can install to speed up the work flow.
09-24-2018, 12:24 PM   #13
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Thanks for the comments. I'm not going to go with the Lightroom subscription and have let mine lapse - that's why I'm looking at other options. I'm not happy that they think everyone is willing to tie themselves into Adobe forever. I'm not a professional photographer so as long as I get a decent RAW processor I will be happy for it for years to come.

I'm on a Mac but will take a look at darktable.

On another note, I bought ON1 when it was on sale and am just not happy with it. I admit, I haven't given it a lot of time but I just don't think it will work for what I want.
09-24-2018, 12:31 PM   #14
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Cant you just buy Lightroom?
09-24-2018, 12:32 PM - 1 Like   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by Pål Jensen Quote
Cant you just buy Lightroom?
Yes, you can. That's another option but it is already a few years old and they will not be updating the standalone software.
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