The Sound of Crickets
Well, Skylum? 9 days ago you tried to fend us off with the promise, Very soon we will launch a dedicated campaign to keep users updated about the progress in our product developments and news from the product team. A week later and nothing. Did you finally realize that vague announcements of something happening soon are falling on deaf ears? We Windows users are less than amazed by your lack of progress delivering on promises. Your Mac version is wonderful but the Windows version is reminding me of the early versions of the Windows OS - all patched together and inconsistent with no regard for continuity or interface. It seems fairly obvious that your marketing department has not been listening to your Windows developers. Do you even have Windows developers, or are some of your Mac developers trying to translate the IOS code into Windows binaries and discovering the paradigms are radically different?
I'm sure, like most other Windows users of Luminar 2018, I was drawn in by a different approach and lots of promises, the most egregious of which was Luminar 2018 being a replacement for Lightroom. Leaving the DAM aside, as you've had to do, you have merely put a different face on presets and thrown in layers (sort of) to make things seem superior. Problem is, you have tried to reinvent the layer paradigm and it's not working. How can you release a layer-based program that you cannot duplicate layers in? To achieve that result, which should take one click or one keystroke, I have to add take several redundant steps to sort of end up in the same place. So much of my basic workflow, which is easy and straight forward in virtually every other piece of software I've used, is an exercise in frustration in Luminar 2018. We complain, justifyably so ,and all we get in return is that will be fixed in a future update. I now don't believe you can accomplish this simple function, let alone release a functional DAM to compete with a mature product like Adobe Lightroom Classic, or even a young On1 Photo Raw 2018.
Please stop the hype and vague attempts at blowing smoke, and start getting real with us. Admit you were overly confident at your ability to deliver on the marketing department's promise, and either hire developers who are experienced with developing for the Windows platform in its wide variety of hardware configurations, like Adobe, On1, Alien Skin, Topaz Labs, Serif, etc. have done, or withdraw the Windows version and sincerely apologize. We may not have paid a lot for your software, but we bought based on promises you appear unable to deliver on. Time to man up!
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I totally agree with Tom. I was so hopeful after the last update that the Windows version would finally be comparable to the Mac version, but to no avail. I purchased the software with the understanding that it would be equal to the Mac version in early 2018. Some improvements have happened but it is still not even close to the Mac version capabilities, in my opinion. I quit using Luminar shortly after the latest update and have been using On1 Photo Raw and Affinity Photo. I want to love Luminar, but the current state of the Windows version is making this seem like an improbable happening. I’ll keep hoping......
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Hi Tom,
These are reasonable comments and I fully understand your point here.
We keep our promises and never give up on our users. The thing is that tools and features mentioned above are being developed and believe me, we want them released as much as our users do. You've probably heard it hundreds of times but high-quality and well-thought concepts need the most valuable resource - time. -
Konstantin -
Yes, but to release a product before you've taken the TIME to fully develop it, at least to the same level as the Mac version, and then herald it as ready is not reasonable. Like many other Windows users, I took you (Skylum) at your word, and purchased what turned out to be a half-baked product. 6 months later, and I still cannot complete my workflow on most images with it, let alone replace Lightroom with it. If your developers had taken the necessary TIME to bring it to parity with the Mac version before attaching a price to it, we wouldn't be upset. I've stopped looking at the videos that show what the program should be like, because I have no clue when I'll ever be able to do even the most basic of things. The bottom line is it's TIME you make this right for us and top with the empty promises.
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Hi Konstantin, the problem is that you are adding functions to a platform that’s not solid yet. There are too many conceptual flaws in the RAW conversion and in the functionality of Luminar that need to be fixed first! Things like the automatic noise reduction during the RAW conversion that can neither be disabled nor configure nor gives any indication what was applied is a showstopper bug. As long as conceptual mistakes like this aren’t remedied all work put into a DAM is a complete waste as you will introduce functions that can not be kept stable for the lifetime of the software as is a must if it ever is to be considered a valid LR competitor!
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Thank you for a constructive feedback.
Our developers, more than everyone else, fully realize all possible shortcomings of our software. Some of the issues you have mentioned are already "in works", others will be addressed later, but none of them will be "left hanging" - we are as interested in delivering the best product possible as you are receiving one.
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@Yaroslav,
if by later means adressing them after the IMHO ill fated DAM feature release then you have dug a very costly grave for Luminar. I am a software developer myself and our company made the same mistake and a smaller caveat almost ruined it. It was only by throwing all available resources at rectifying the mistake and abandoning high flying plans by the management that means we are still in business 10 years after. Today we still feel the effects in our development because we have to keep old, long since technically outdated code alive because our customers have become reliant on this code.
And the same will happen to Luminar if you don’t tidy the bases before encasing it with the DAM. The moment you release the DAM (assuming it comes with parametric editing) you have to keep noise reduction (very poor at the moment), sharpening (equally poor), RAW development (demosaicing for anything but Fuji x-trans isn’t up to snuff, especially with the idiotic automatic noise reduction) fixed for any edits and will have to forever carry around the baggage of that bad functionality because if you change the algorithms later you would else be invalidating peoples workflow and existing edits and that would ruin any reputation your software may have until that time.
Also things like chaning the hardware requirements in the middle of the release cycle is a very bad omen for thing to come, If people use your DAM and you pull a stunt like the OpenGL requirement (it never should have been mandatory to use OpenGL, my machines as far as I can get Luminar running at all are considerably slower now because they are optimized for image editing and not gaming) then they will be livid because they will lose access to their images. Optimization must never come at the cost of not being able to run the software, so increasing the hardware requirements or even making an optimization like the OpenGL integration mandatory without recourse is highly problematic. For my machines (those that still can run Luminar) it has slowed to a crawl because OpenGL performance never was at the focus of my purchases. They run Lightroom quickly because I have put my money into the main processor, not the graphics card - so Luminar currently is total useless for me. If that happened to someone relying on the upcoming DAM then you would probably hear from a lawyer or two because you impacted their livelyhood.
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