The issue is that, AFAIK, this is/was not spelled out anywhere (prior to your post). How would CU’s know the details you just posted unless they stumble into this thread? That seems relatively obvious to me that there will be confusion based on the naming.
For example, what will happen if/when DeNoise becomes "DeNoise in Studio’? Does Reduce Noise go away? Can RN do things that DN cannot? It’s not clear and this is a perfect example of that.
DeNoise handles noise for individual channels as well as for the image as a whole, and has a main slider that handles both luminance and color noise for all channels. It also has individual sliders for each color channel.
Given that, it seems to me that Reduce Noise is a “proper subset” (in the mathematical sense) of the functionality of DeNoise and there is nothing in Reduce Noise that is not already in DeNoise. DeNoise specifically says that it reduces noise for all images, not just for raws.
I do not wish to belabor the point, but it does not seem to me that reducing the functionality of a product makes it a separate product that people who already have the initial product should pay extra for. I can understand the idea of selling a general noise reduction tool to those who do not already have one, but it does seem to me that those of us who already have DeNoise should not have to pay extra for a “new” product that does nothing that our already existing product does.
It is simple enough, of course, for me to just keep using DeNoise, and I will do so.
This is one of the points I, too, tried to make elsewhere. I actually start to feel ripped off. If I purchase an app from the app store and have to repurchase it (at a secret reduced rate) to add it to my studio tool box, I do feel ripped off.
Also, the textures plugin, I think, was a purchase I thought I had made but in actuality I had accidentally purchased the pro adjustments.
The feeling of being scammed can be the death of a product.
Barb
If you bought the Texture adjustment when you really wanted the Texture Effects 2 plugin, then I’m sure Topaz will refund your money so you can purchase the correct one. Your accidentally purchasing the wrong one is hardly any justification for feeling scammed. In addition, you don’t have to repurchase any app at any rate (reduced or secret). If you correct your purchase and get Texture Effects 2, then when it’s ported into Studio you’ll get it free.
Thanks, But that’s not my point. I can work with it and that’s ok. The problem is larger than the example which can in and of itself be nothing. The problem comes when products feel helter skelter to users who have no sense of where their investment is going. I don’t have a clear paradigm of the working environment of Topaz Studio. In my experience there are many things that influence the success of product development. 1) Marketing and and engineering are not on the same page; 2) engineering wants a UI that’s convenient for them rather than a UI that would be more difficult to development but more convenient for the user; 3) a confusing mix of development and release. (Should a release feel polished? Should it be opened ended); 4) Absence of a flow chart for the ui and the final product 5) Giving marketing the final call. They will always let a product go before it should.
Don’t take ‘scamed’ as the key word there. Perhaps its hair trigger factor should have left it better unspoken. Users do not want to feel there are bits and pieces they are always picking up because they didn’t not always understand what the goal was with the product.
> Giving marketing the final call. They will always let a product go before it should.
As someone who worked as a software developer and architect for 25 years before I retired I can tell you that there is more than a little truth in the saying “Given enough time no product would ever be released”.
Development always feels that a little more time is needed. New OS releases sometimes change the technical requirements for a release, QA and testing are always finding problems, customers are always asking for new functionality and development itself always feels that they can fit “just a little bit more” technical sophistication to a release. I have seen (but fortunately never been directly involved in) release schedules slip from 12 months to 36 months for a new product, after which the development effort was cancelled and the developers mostly laid off. There was nothing wrong with the product they were working on, but management felt, with some justification, that those involved could clearly not keep their eyes on the calendar.
The fact is that marketing (which I was never part of) often has a good feeling for when a product has a chance of making a profit and when it does not. A perfect product, released after its usefulness is either past or taken by an alternative product, is pretty much useless. Just look at Word Perfect which used to be the dominant word processor app in the US, and now is not. Or tax preparation software release on, say, April 20th after taxes have passed their deadline.
Cute, but I stick to my point. This thread was about a user’s response or feelings about the products s they are being released. I’m hoping my little corner to this process is to respond honestly to things I as a user appreciate or that I as a user find detract from my investment.
It was not intended to be “cute”. You were complaining that marketing determines release dates and I was responding that while that might be true, it is also a fact that development often can not set release dates that can be met due to changes in the circumstances in which they work and that often the only way products can be released is when marketing sets the release date.
That aphorism was not mine but was a well known fact of life during the years I worked in development for multiple software development organizations and companies.
You said yourself it was one of your points. However, just to clarify, the purpose of my contribution was simply to correct what I perceived as some misconceptions on your part. Nothing more.
In another thread that is pinned there is a response to threads like this and, as this leads nowhere … the facts of the matter are:
Topaz Labs have publically stated that they are endeavouring to migrate existing PS plugins to the Studio platform
Topaz Labs have publically stated they will honor their upgrade policy and as plugins are migrated the resulting Studio product is upgraded to existing plugin owners … as has happened with previous plugins that have been migrated.
And, most importantly, the Reduce Noise Adjustment is NOT DeNoise
