I asked Luminar for clarification on their pricing model these are the questions I asked - Hi, I need clarification on pricing. 1.The 12 month subscription is priced at €49 discounted from €317 which is very generous - can you confirm that the discount is applied to every repeat billing for life? Or does it revert to the full price. 2. Can you also confirm that this discount is limited to the Black Friday sale and that it will not be replaced by another discount after the Sale completes? 3. Finally - the Lifetime Perpetual License - what does Perpetual mean in this license, I understand it does not include major upgrades so what differentiates Perpetual from Lifetime? And these are their responses.. 1. Yes, I can confirm that the renewal price will be the same next year and the discount will be applied. 2. Correct. We currently have a Black Friday sale, offering a great opportunity to purchase the software at the best possible price. 3. The Lifetime license is a one-time purchase. By "one-time purchase," I mean there are no recurring charges. This means you can purchase and use this version for a lifetime with no limitations. So I understand that as long as you buy during the Black Friday discount period, the discount remains active on renewal. Fair play to Luminar, I was mistaken and I withdraw that comment. It is worth noting that this price is not a permanent price, it is a Black Friday Discount and will presumably revert after the discount period. Although that part of the question was not answered. The use of the term perpetual in the Lifetime Perpetual license is redundant. It means Lifetime, no upgrades.
Thank you for your efforts on all your Photo Lab vids! Love the tutorials as I am recently converted from the subscription fees of Lightroom and still learning editing.
I love DxO Photolab, and yes I think it’s the best RAW processing software. I tested the rendering of several software because I wanted to quit Lightroom. I tested Dxo Photolab, Affinity Photo, Lightroom, Capture One, ON1, Luminar, Darktable and Rawterapee on several raw images taken with Canon and DxO Photlab has always won. At the time of my test Photolab had a horrible interface compared to LR but now with version 7 it is a pleasure to use. The only thing I regret a little bit about LR is the selection of the sky and the radial masks that allowed me a fast and pleasant workflow, but thanks to your videos I’m learning to use Photolab 7 well. Thank you!
I use DXO Photo Lab 8 with film pack 7, and NIK collection and the results are better than all of the other one's listed. I have everything except photoshop because they are pay by the month.
Thank you Chris..I,m just starting to learn photo editing.Your video was helpful..I,m still undecided what software to begin with.I,m not looking for a subscription model.
Thank you! If you're just beginning, and you want to avoid subscriptions, be aware that the upgrades with PhotoLab are annual. You don't have to upgrade of course, but it's a factor to consider, One product I didn't mention here because it supports Apple OS only was Photomator, it''s cheap and very capable. it's in the process of being acquired by Apple so probably has a very bright future. I'll be doing a video about it presently.
I use DXO Photo Lab 8 with film pack 7, and NIK collection and the results are better than all of the other one's listed. I have everything except photoshop because they are pay by the month. Luminar Neo in the states is a set price, you can buy the software without a monthly fee here. I paid a one time fee of 99 dollars for the software. I like it for some things, and some quick edits but nothing compares to Photo Lab.
Hello Chris, Though I have LRC (mostly for cataloging) and Photoshop, now, since 3 years I only treat my RAW files in PhotLab. The only difficulty I have with PL is that I can’t delete parts of the photos properly. I've tried, but the results are not satisfactory.
@@chriswright.photography Yes, Chris. And, because I don't know very well how to bring the PL results into Photoshop and how to do it there, well, I leave it as it is. Philipoe
I've tried to bound the comparison with the core attributes of RAW Processing. If we were to extend the bounds to those of photo processing more generally, what would you most like to see DxO add to PhotoLab in terms go functionality?
Don't forget that every Black Friday DxO has some rather good Black Friday deals, on both new licences and upgrades and if you buy your software during the Black Friday Deals every year your cost of ownership for photography software goes down.
@@chriswright.photography I've been using Luminar Neo for a good two years and have never seen actual prices over €59/year for the entire duration of the subscription. Every Luminar user will be able to confirm this.
@@FlyMax61 I can confirm that. For example, I only pay €47,60 every two (!) years for the Luminar Neo subscription ... until I cancel it. This was a special offer for Luminar's anniversary.
I’m pleased you are getting the product so cheaply, but if this is in fact the norm, I’d have to ask why they advertise a price that is never applied. One answer might be that the discount looks good against the advertised price.
@@chriswright.photography "Sub will revert in a year to full price" ... with all due respect, but that is not correct. Skylum support will be to confirm this.
I wish DxO would support more sensors. I understand that some are low volume niche cameras, many customers own different camera brands. It’s about supporting the customer rather than the camera. Also the assett management aspect of Photolab is very rudimentary compared to Lightroom, for example. What DAM do people use? And no, the file manager of the computer is not detailed enough.
It’s about deviation from the Beyer sensor basically. Needs a different process to do the demosaicing. Which is really complex from the dev perspective. Agree about the Asset Management. Lightroom will move files for you, on import. So simple and saves so much time.
@@chriswright.photography actually I had in mind monochrome sensors that need no demosaicing and also Pixii, which use standard Bayer sensors. Fuji sensors are now supported by DxO Photolab, so maybe there is hope that they will get around to the more esoteric flavors.
Adobe’s resolutely free Bridge 2024 remains an excellent DAM and is being kept up to date by Adobe. If users can live with the software being bound to a single computer (or one user at a time on a local network) it’s a very good product. As a Fujifilm camera user, for RAW processing, I like Photolab, but find that results are not always reliable with files from earlier cameras, such as my XPro1 (no longer owned). Affinity Photo is reliable and the ability to re-process RAW files during the edit process is a great tool to have available when working with files that stretch the histogram to its limits. I would also put in a word for Aurora HDR that is avaiable to download and use as a standalone app. It does a very capable job on many ‘difficult’ RAW images and can be controlled to provide very natural looking images from single as well as multiple exposures. The last version dates back to 2019, but Skylum do seem to be providing maintenance updates.
@@kirklaws-chapman7281 Thanks for posting , I hadn't realised Aurora was still available. I used to use it and found it very good. I think the Fuji issue has probably always been about the sensors they use. In terms of developer effort to market size it's challenging for all vendors.
It’s clearly flagged at the beginning of the video that I am promoting some products mentioned in the video. I only ever promote products that I use regularly or have used recently and believe them to be useful. Sometimes I get paid. Usually this is a fraction of the cost of making the video!
@chriswrightphotographs It was meant to be a joke. As a poor man I have no choice but to use the software for free. Thank you for your videos, they help me a lot!
Apologies, it’s been a much debated subject on social. Apparently there are people promoting anything that they can get for free, regardless of quality. I don’t know of anyone personally.
@@chriswright.photography I've got all the most sophisticated editing software: Capture One Pro, which is my favourite, DXO Photo Lab 8, which is my second favourite and number 1 noise reduction software, Lightroom Classic, ON1, Luminar Neo.
the PL tonal control tools are less sophisticated than in LR or c1 both programs adjust for a loss in local contrast to produce natural looking resulted, dxo is really bad in this regard. sharpening tools are also not great beside bold claims. adobe NR is in some aspects even better than deep prime, adobe seems to have updated the tool with the latest version without announcing making it equal to xd2s in quality. PL is a nice software but with some clear limitations compared to LR or C1, adobe is so far ahead when it comes to masking that there is no way around.
Thanks for posting. As a regular Lightroom user I’m not sure I share your opinion re sharpening and noise reduction but these are subjective views. Each to his own.
@@chriswright.photography don´t think this is just subjective because you can see the difference in a side by side comparison very clearly when you know what to look for. with DP XD2s I see: sometimes posterisation in very dark images areas suppression of aliasing artifacts not as good as adobe sometimes strange increase in saturation of already high saturated areas a too strong micro contras boost in dark areas which sometimes looks very unnatural overall more artifacts than adobe adobe is faster the differences vary with image contend but both are very good and usable dxo starts with higher levels of USM, saturation and also far stronger clipped blacks which produces a reversal film like punch one can like , I was also fooled to believe that there is something special but you can make images look similar in LR or C1.
@@friendofarca6550 I do find XD2s too strong for many pictures, largely because of the microcontrast you point out. But you have choice. Where DxO were once very obvious "better" at noise reduction than any competitor, the gap is visibly closing and that is as it should be. As for Adobe being faster, I'm interested to know what you base that statement on - PL applies noise reduction during the export process. What are you comparing?
@@chriswright.photography I think overall xd is better in removing noise than deep prime but I don´t understand why they are not able to keep the image characteristics intact like adobe does, noise reduction should not change local contrast or color. I primarily use the PR plugin for my workflow now and this allows a direct comparison with adobe noise ai. dp is still much faster than adobe but xd is slower on my Mac. beside image quality differences dxo makes you pay for something what should be included. having to pay for the film package just to get the absolute needed tonal contrast tool is pathetic same is to say for viewpoint. they did not even add all the new nik controllpoint features in their flagship software !
@@friendofarca6550 So there are other things going on in PureRAW other than noise reduction, the NR process is identical to that in PhotoLab but different to that in Adobe. DxO combine noise reduction with demosaicing whereas Adobe applies noise reduction to the imported (demosaiced) image. In addition PureRAW applies the lens corrections in line with the DxO profile. These are separate in Adobe so difficult to say categorically that one is faster than the other. The difference is probably sub second on a fast computer. Your points about FilmPack and Nik ControlPoints are well made, both create friction in the community! The dependency on FilmPack is very hard to justify. I believe Nik have a separate development team so I can understand why control points in PL have not been updated, I hope that they all be because I keep trying to change the shape of the control point in PL! I think ViewPoint is excellent as a product in its own right so I'm less irked by that dependency.
I like your work Chris but your assessment of Neo simply tells me you know nothing about it.A deep dive will reveal it is a full pro app and many professional photographers are now using it.I t has everything DXO has and better masking which is a train wreck on DXO compared to the comp.
I am not experienced with Luminar but I have trialled it two years ago and have watched the products many changes closely. I am admittedly not a fan of AI or template driven apps
I do say in the video that I am comparing full price across the board. All vendors will discount heavily at this time of year. Glad you got yours so cheaply.
@@chriswright.photography Its not templte driven that is just an option and you could say DXO have is template driven as well with its film simulations.I will say again once you do a deep dive into its processing ability its a wonderful app and being improved on all the time
I have Luminar Neo and do not use it because I find it completely unintuitive and it's interface hideous. I realise that some professionals are producing great results with it, but it's just not for me. Maybe it's an age thing.
I asked Luminar for clarification on their pricing model these are the questions I asked -
Hi,
I need clarification on pricing.
1.The 12 month subscription is priced at €49 discounted from €317 which is very generous - can you confirm that the discount is applied to every repeat billing for life? Or does it revert to the full price.
2. Can you also confirm that this discount is limited to the Black Friday sale and that it will not be replaced by another discount after the Sale completes?
3. Finally - the Lifetime Perpetual License - what does Perpetual mean in this license, I understand it does not include major upgrades so what differentiates Perpetual from Lifetime?
And these are their responses..
1. Yes, I can confirm that the renewal price will be the same next year and the discount will be applied.
2. Correct. We currently have a Black Friday sale, offering a great opportunity to purchase the software at the best possible price.
3. The Lifetime license is a one-time purchase. By "one-time purchase," I mean there are no recurring charges. This means you can purchase and use this version for a lifetime with no limitations.
So I understand that as long as you buy during the Black Friday discount period, the discount remains active on renewal. Fair play to Luminar, I was mistaken and I withdraw that comment. It is worth noting that this price is not a permanent price, it is a Black Friday Discount and will presumably revert after the discount period. Although that part of the question was not answered.
The use of the term perpetual in the Lifetime Perpetual license is redundant. It means Lifetime, no upgrades.
Thank you for your efforts on all your Photo Lab vids! Love the tutorials as I am recently converted from the subscription fees of Lightroom and still learning editing.
Thank you! Glad these videos are useful.
Another great video Chris.
Glad you enjoyed it
Excellent review! Congratulations on the subscribers, as I am one of the 2000 from last year. I really like your photography!
Thank you, That's much appreciated!
I love DxO Photolab, and yes I think it’s the best RAW processing software. I tested the rendering of several software because I wanted to quit Lightroom. I tested Dxo Photolab, Affinity Photo, Lightroom, Capture One, ON1, Luminar, Darktable and Rawterapee on several raw images taken with Canon and DxO Photlab has always won. At the time of my test Photolab had a horrible interface compared to LR but now with version 7 it is a pleasure to use. The only thing I regret a little bit about LR is the selection of the sky and the radial masks that allowed me a fast and pleasant workflow, but thanks to your videos I’m learning to use Photolab 7 well. Thank you!
Thanks Riccardo, this is a useful comment, thanks for posting, I’m glad you’re finding the videos useful!
Actually, for skin colors, I often prefer Canon DPP4 over the rest when using Canon CR2 or CR3 files.
@@uhligsu interesting
I use DXO Photo Lab 8 with film pack 7, and NIK collection and the results are better than all of the other one's listed. I have everything except photoshop because they are pay by the month.
Thank you Chris
Very welcome!
Thank you Chris..I,m just starting to learn photo editing.Your video was helpful..I,m still undecided what software to begin with.I,m not looking for a subscription model.
Thank you! If you're just beginning, and you want to avoid subscriptions, be aware that the upgrades with PhotoLab are annual. You don't have to upgrade of course, but it's a factor to consider, One product I didn't mention here because it supports Apple OS only was Photomator, it''s cheap and very capable. it's in the process of being acquired by Apple so probably has a very bright future. I'll be doing a video about it presently.
I'm not an expert, but for what I do, it is terrific. I still think every MFT camera body should come with a one-year free trial.
Great idea! They used to give a copy of Silver Efex away with the Leica Monochrom many years ago. Great endorsement.
I use DXO Photo Lab 8 with film pack 7, and NIK collection and the results are better than all of the other one's listed. I have everything except photoshop because they are pay by the month. Luminar Neo in the states is a set price, you can buy the software without a monthly fee here. I paid a one time fee of 99 dollars for the software. I like it for some things, and some quick edits but nothing compares to Photo Lab.
Thanks for the insight, that’s interesting about Luminar.
Hello Chris,
Though I have LRC (mostly for cataloging) and Photoshop, now, since 3 years I only treat my RAW files in PhotLab. The only difficulty I have with PL is that I can’t delete parts of the photos properly. I've tried, but the results are not satisfactory.
Are you referring to the cloning tools? I agree, they are quite a way behind those offered by photoshop.
@@chriswright.photography Yes, Chris. And, because I don't know very well how to bring the PL results into Photoshop and how to do it there, well, I leave it as it is.
Philipoe
I've tried to bound the comparison with the core attributes of RAW Processing. If we were to extend the bounds to those of photo processing more generally, what would you most like to see DxO add to PhotoLab in terms go functionality?
Don't forget that every Black Friday DxO has some rather good Black Friday deals, on both new licences and upgrades and if you buy your software during the Black Friday Deals every year your cost of ownership for photography software goes down.
You might want to take a closer look at the prices of Luminar Neo - it currently costs €49 per year.
Yeah. I just purchased it 4 days ago and paid around 65 US dollars. And that was for a perp license.
@@chriswright.photography I've been using Luminar Neo for a good two years and have never seen actual prices over €59/year for the entire duration of the subscription. Every Luminar user will be able to confirm this.
@@FlyMax61 I can confirm that. For example, I only pay €47,60 every two (!) years for the Luminar Neo subscription ... until I cancel it. This was a special offer for Luminar's anniversary.
I’m pleased you are getting the product so cheaply, but if this is in fact the norm, I’d have to ask why they advertise a price that is never applied. One answer might be that the discount looks good against the advertised price.
@@chriswright.photography "Sub will revert in a year to full price" ... with all due respect, but that is not correct. Skylum support will be to confirm this.
I wish DxO would support more sensors. I understand that some are low volume niche cameras, many customers own different camera brands. It’s about supporting the customer rather than the camera.
Also the assett management aspect of Photolab is very rudimentary compared to Lightroom, for example. What DAM do people use? And no, the file manager of the computer is not detailed enough.
It’s about deviation from the Beyer sensor basically. Needs a different process to do the demosaicing. Which is really complex from the dev perspective. Agree about the Asset Management. Lightroom will move files for you, on import. So simple and saves so much time.
@@chriswright.photography actually I had in mind monochrome sensors that need no demosaicing and also Pixii, which use standard Bayer sensors. Fuji sensors are now supported by DxO Photolab, so maybe there is hope that they will get around to the more esoteric flavors.
Adobe’s resolutely free Bridge 2024 remains an excellent DAM and is being kept up to date by Adobe. If users can live with the software being bound to a single computer (or one user at a time on a local network) it’s a very good product.
As a Fujifilm camera user, for RAW processing, I like Photolab, but find that results are not always reliable with files from earlier cameras, such as my XPro1 (no longer owned). Affinity Photo is reliable and the ability to re-process RAW files during the edit process is a great tool to have available when working with files that stretch the histogram to its limits.
I would also put in a word for Aurora HDR that is avaiable to download and use as a standalone app. It does a very capable job on many ‘difficult’ RAW images and can be controlled to provide very natural looking images from single as well as multiple exposures. The last version dates back to 2019, but Skylum do seem to be providing maintenance updates.
@@kirklaws-chapman7281 Thanks for posting , I hadn't realised Aurora was still available. I used to use it and found it very good. I think the Fuji issue has probably always been about the sensors they use. In terms of developer effort to market size it's challenging for all vendors.
Do you really pay for the editing software?
It’s clearly flagged at the beginning of the video that I am promoting some products mentioned in the video. I only ever promote products that I use regularly or have used recently and believe them to be useful. Sometimes I get paid. Usually this is a fraction of the cost of making the video!
@chriswrightphotographs It was meant to be a joke. As a poor man I have no choice but to use the software for free. Thank you for your videos, they help me a lot!
Apologies, it’s been a much debated subject on social. Apparently there are people promoting anything that they can get for free, regardless of quality. I don’t know of anyone personally.
@@chriswright.photography I've got all the most sophisticated editing software: Capture One Pro, which is my favourite, DXO Photo Lab 8, which is my second favourite and number 1 noise reduction software, Lightroom Classic, ON1, Luminar Neo.
the PL tonal control tools are less sophisticated than in LR or c1 both programs adjust for a loss in local contrast to produce natural looking resulted, dxo is really bad in this regard. sharpening tools are also not great beside bold claims. adobe NR is in some aspects even better than deep prime, adobe seems to have updated the tool with the latest version without announcing making it equal to xd2s in quality. PL is a nice software but with some clear limitations compared to LR or C1, adobe is so far ahead when it comes to masking that there is no way around.
Thanks for posting. As a regular Lightroom user I’m not sure I share your opinion re sharpening and noise reduction but these are subjective views. Each to his own.
@@chriswright.photography don´t think this is just subjective because you can see the difference in a side by side comparison very clearly when you know what to look for.
with DP XD2s I see:
sometimes posterisation in very dark images areas
suppression of aliasing artifacts not as good as adobe
sometimes strange increase in saturation of already high saturated areas
a too strong micro contras boost in dark areas which sometimes looks very unnatural
overall more artifacts than adobe
adobe is faster
the differences vary with image contend but both are very good and usable
dxo starts with higher levels of USM, saturation and also far stronger clipped blacks which produces a
reversal film like punch one can like , I was also fooled to believe that there is something special but
you can make images look similar in LR or C1.
@@friendofarca6550 I do find XD2s too strong for many pictures, largely because of the microcontrast you point out. But you have choice. Where DxO were once very obvious "better" at noise reduction than any competitor, the gap is visibly closing and that is as it should be. As for Adobe being faster, I'm interested to know what you base that statement on - PL applies noise reduction during the export process. What are you comparing?
@@chriswright.photography I think overall xd is better in removing noise than deep prime but I don´t understand why they are not able to keep the image characteristics intact like adobe does, noise reduction should not change local contrast or color.
I primarily use the PR plugin for my workflow now and this allows a direct comparison with adobe noise ai. dp is still much faster than adobe but xd is slower on my Mac.
beside image quality differences dxo makes you pay for something what should be included. having to pay for the film package just to get the absolute needed tonal contrast tool is pathetic same is to say for viewpoint. they did not even add all the new nik controllpoint features in their flagship software !
@@friendofarca6550 So there are other things going on in PureRAW other than noise reduction, the NR process is identical to that in PhotoLab but different to that in Adobe. DxO combine noise reduction with demosaicing whereas Adobe applies noise reduction to the imported (demosaiced) image. In addition PureRAW applies the lens corrections in line with the DxO profile. These are separate in Adobe so difficult to say categorically that one is faster than the other. The difference is probably sub second on a fast computer. Your points about FilmPack and Nik ControlPoints are well made, both create friction in the community! The dependency on FilmPack is very hard to justify. I believe Nik have a separate development team so I can understand why control points in PL have not been updated, I hope that they all be because I keep trying to change the shape of the control point in PL! I think ViewPoint is excellent as a product in its own right so I'm less irked by that dependency.
I like your work Chris but your assessment of Neo simply tells me you know nothing about it.A deep dive will reveal it is a full pro app and many professional photographers are now using it.I t has everything DXO has and better masking which is a train wreck on DXO compared to the comp.
Pricing seems off too. Unless I’m missing something. I purchased Luminar Neo just 4 days ago and paid around $65 for a perp license.
I am not experienced with Luminar but I have trialled it two years ago and have watched the products many changes closely. I am admittedly not a fan of AI or template driven apps
I do say in the video that I am comparing full price across the board. All vendors will discount heavily at this time of year. Glad you got yours so cheaply.
@@chriswright.photography Its not templte driven that is just an option and you could say DXO have is template driven as well with its film simulations.I will say again once you do a deep dive into its processing ability its a wonderful app and being improved on all the time
I have Luminar Neo and do not use it because I find it completely unintuitive and it's interface hideous. I realise that some professionals are producing great results with it, but it's just not for me. Maybe it's an age thing.