I’ve just updated Topaz Photo to v1.6.0, and this and the last few updates I have done have been incredibly annoying when it gets to the model download step. There are two choices: download all models, or download only the most-used models to save time and space. I chose to download only the most-used models. The resulting download and verification took 18:03 on a fiber-optic internet in a major metropolitan area. The first 53 files went in the blink of an eye, and then…
Downloading wonder-all-20260512.zip. 3883 / 7311 MB
This went FOREVER. And then failed verification. And took forever again, this time silently without progress indicators.
And then we moved on to unzipping and verifying the unzipped files.
There’s so many comically bad things about this. I don’t want to be harsh but from a user’s perspective this is just a really bad experience. You’ve seen Office Space, where the guy is trying to get out of the office and his computer is saving files during shutdown? It’s that bad.
Let’s begin with the easy thing: why can’t I choose the models I want? All the more recent ones with names like “Wonder” and similar… they aren’t what I bought this software for, and if I had the choice, I wouldn’t install them.
As far as I can tell, if I’d had the choice to download and install only the models I actually use, I’d have been done in 0:05 seconds instead of 18:03 minutes. I can only guess how long it’d have taken if I had selected to download ALL models!
Another way to put this: At my hourly rate, 18:03 is more than the annual license fee I pay for this entire software suite. Thanks for reading this far!
