Eric - The elephant in the room is what will happen to the “Other Products” indicated below after 2020:
Only DeNoise, Sharpen, Gigapixel, and Mask will require an upgrade license in 2020. Other products remain under the old policy.
I expect that after Topaz gets us use to paying $99 for DeNoise, Sharpen, Gigapixel, and Mask; we will be hit with another annual charge to remain current on Studio 2 and additional annual charges for other products. (Like we are seeing the annual $199 charge for the video AI just announced)
Perhaps Topaz is moving to a business model of a smaller user base that has the resources to pay multiple sets of annual fees for individual products - This appears to be the direction from the announcement. Topax needs to clearly state the support direction for all products not time limited to what is happening in 2020.
Thanks for sharing the link as it provides perspective on this announcement amd it is good to see that there are discussions going on outside this forum
Too time consuming to read all 448 replies to this point, but I would like to know or at least wish, that there was some way to try the upgrades before purchasing since that is the road you are taking. Not all the upgrades have impressed me at all, and I have found myself going back to the previous versions. I work part time, and all of these additional costs and subscriptions are sinking my financial boat fast. Do as you must, and I shall consider whether it is worth my while to continue using Topaz.
The issue with the EULA is not whether it promised free upgrades, but whether it provides cover for Topaz’s retreat from its stated commitment to lifetime free upgrades. That clause you mention does provide such cover this retreat, applying to both purchase and use of Topaz products. I agree this means there is likely no breach of contract involved. There is, however, considerable breach of faith with their customers, which it will take more than lawyers to heal.
Now your changing the contract you made with me, buy my purchase, to fit your financial needs.
Hi - I really understand where you’re coming from on this one. If I bought someone’s products and the #1 selling point was that I believed I’d get free upgrades for life, I’d be frustrated too and would write a similar post.
If this applies to you or someone else reading, please contact us, send us your receipts, and tell us you want to deactivate and receive a refund on your purchases. Our payment processors usually restrict this process to a certain time period, but we can consider Paypal-ing you your purchase price if it’s beyond our return policy.
That said, while I realize these technicalities are little consolation from a human perspective, I’ll still mention them. We haven’t listed free upgrades on our website or communications for the past year, and we’ve never had it in our actual product license agreements. The AI products are also technically new products instead of existing ones, which is why the version numbers restarted (even though we upgraded people for free).
The truth is that we need to make this change, and our main goal is that we communicate it as honestly and fairly (and with as much lead time) as possible. If you think this means your initial purchase is no longer worth it, please let us know and we’ll make it right.
Thanks Hans, makes sense. The main thing we wanted to communicate is that you can continue using your purchased versions for as long as you like even if you don’t upgrade. To me, a subscription would imply that you lose access to the products if you stop paying, which is not the case.
I get what you’re saying and do not disagree that there is really nothing else Topaz can do from a business perspective. But as I said in my OP a while ago, they must be very careful about (1) distinguishing between bug fixes to existing features and major upgrades that introduce new features, charging a fee only for the latter and (2) ensuring more rigorous QC process so they avoid the buggy releases that have at times been an issue.
Eric, I understand your reasoning behind this, but are users able to test the upgrade before they purchase it? Or do you refund our purchase if we are not satisfied? Also, are you suggesting that we pay for upgrades in order for you to repair bugs in the product that are the result of inadequate testing? I trust that all these things will be worked out befor you market your upgrades.
Eric, thank you for your note and the years of “free” upgrades. I own every Topaz product and enjoy them.
I well appreciate this may well be a “do-or-die” solution for Topaz where the “die-outcome” is bad for all. There’s just no point in crying about the disappearance of unlimited, free upgrades: ergo, I support your decision.
Permit me, please to make a few observations:
I wish there was some “grandfathering” plan for long-time owners and also those who bought a product within recent weeks.
I hope that buyers of a product(s) will be able to download that version later even if they don’t upgrade.
3.(a) Speaking of upgrades; these have been incredibly sloppy starting with Studio 2 and show evidence of little or no testing, turning the entire user community into a large and unannounced beta test. Where are the promised enhancements to Studio 2 which, after a dozen or so “upgrades” still lacks the functionality of Studio 1? And, please don’t count 40 new Looks as an upgrade to v2.2. I’d be really annoyed if that was an example of what I’d have to pay for as an upgrade for another year.
3.(b) I hope that between now and August that we continue to see evidence of serious upgrades. This applies especially to Studio 2.
You need to focus on QUALITY and RELIABILITY in the upgrades.
You need to focus on product SPEED which has degraded across several of the Topaz products in recent months.
Thank you for this opportunity to contribute. I wish you and Topaz every success.
This is more than disappointing. Topaz built its business on bringing to the photo market innovative products based on a standard of “buy once - get updates free for life”. I understand the changing market. I understand the cost of groundbreaking research. But I can’t help to feel a bit betrayed by a company with whom I have been a loyal customer of since its inception 11 years ago. I am a recently retired hobbyist photographer who loves Sharpen AI, Gigapixel AI, DeNoise AI, and Mask AI. I own them all. But now, to keep then current, your new policy will cause me to add an annual cost of $99.99 to my already stretched, fixed income. Is it not possible to lower that price in half for a customer that has been with you for so long. If you could do that for long-time customers, it sure would help my budget and your goodwill.
Agreed - major bug fixes should be made for the current version. There’s always gonna be niggles that get resolved over time. Software developers classify bugs along the lines of critical, serious, medium, minor and so forth. Critical and serious bugs interfere with the proper working of the software and so need to be fixed in the current release.
Re QC - ideally software would be released with no major bugs. The reality is some always get through as us users 1) find ways to use the software they didn’t anticipate and 2) have a hardware configuration they didn’t test and 3) software testers are human and make mistakes.
I’ve experienced some bugs with DeNoise not saving exif info into the output file. And Gigapixel didn’t like my (not officially supported) graphics card. After I changed to a supported card I’ve not experienced anything bad with any of the AI software or Studio 2.
I wish DeNoise and Sharpen were faster but I’ve learned to live with it as I’m so happy with the results. My tests on my blog show DeNoise to be superior to DXO and Photo Ninja (both of which I own) although Ninja is blindingly fast in comparison.
After August I’ll be evaluating the upgrades to see if I need them. If I do then I’ll pay for them. If I don’t then I may skip a release or two.
Charge if you must but upgrade pricing too high for a plug-in.
Quality control before release- the latest Denoise Ai update doesn’t even install properly and I’m not doing work a rounds- you fix it!
The business need is obvious, and I have been wondering about Topaz’s finances since they seem now to be unable to produce bug-free installers for their products. However, by not exempting your existing customers from the new upgrade scheme (at least initially), by not addressing the bug-fix release question (after putting out some very buggy software), and by asking a rather high price for programs that are really add-ons to a workflow rather than core components, you are obviously managing to antagonize many of your most loyal customers. I trust you do realize that, at the upgrade price you are charging henceforth, Topaz will be expected to be releasing finished software, not beta-level releases with buggy installers. Personally, I am still running Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 5.7 because I am a serious amateur who can only spend so much on photography and these two programs are plenty good enough for most of my work. At the same time, I am learning RawTherapee, Gimp, and G’Mic because I expect my Adobe products to eventually fail and am not moving to Adobe’s licensing model to upgrade them. And of course the open-source products I mentioned actually are better in certain respects than their commercial competitors. I fear that even with the new upgrade policy Topaz will struggle to produce upgrades that will keep up with the inevitable down-the-road competition. I will pay for exciting enough upgrades as my budget permits, but these upgrades had better be significant, stable, and reasonably close to bug-free or else I too will be gone as a customer. Good luck Topaz, but treat your loyal customers right.
Quoting you Eric, “One of the ways we did this was by offering free major upgrades for all of our products.”
Quoting you Eric, “We haven’t listed free upgrades on our website or communications for the past year, and we’ve never had it in our actual product license agreements.”
Eric, to paraphrase an old Yiddish saying, “Don’t piss on me and tell me that it’s raining.”
I own all Topaz Labs software, one of the original attractions was your statement of “free upgrades”. I have been exposed to some of your best software and some others that even you gave up on such as PFXL. I do think that Topaz will continue to challenge PS. A promise is a promise and now you say we will make no more changes_____ so you say…
So, are you saying that to continue using the products I already own, that I’ll have to pay a yearly fee to keep them functional? I certainly hope that is not the case, and that I misunderstood your message. Please clarify. Thank You.
