Well said Brad, I agree with you 100%
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Can someone from Topaz Labs please give us and update of the future of Topaz Labs products? What are the current plans? Fixing current products? New products? Update of roll outs of Topaz Studio-Some products are in Studio, some are not and some new products are “stand alone”, are there any updates or status on this, and if so what is this status? What are the current updates/plans for the future as well as long range plans. Is Topaz Labs still a company? Who is still working at Topaz Labs? Is anyone working on these issues-tickets? Why isn’t anyone answering the many posts on here and FB etc?
I feel that we as long-term committed customers we need to understand where we have invested our $$$$ and the hope for the future of our investment. As a long time customer I have been patiently waiting for the old Topaz Labs to return. The plugins products were great, Customer service was great and people great.! Topaz webinars were great and when asked why they offered free upgrades: We at Topaz rather investing in our customer rather than pay big for marketing. By keeping our current customers happy, they are the best marketing we could pay for. Word of mouth marketing is the best $ we could spend.
I have almost all of your products, I never missed a webinar, helped with beta and have been I’m hoping for 2-3 years now that the greatness will return. Also, this is not a hate post or anything close to that, I’m just looking to know the plans or I need to move on, which I don’t want to do. I loved the creative touch TL adds to my photography and as a PSE user, TL gave me effects and I didn’t have in the full Photoshop which was great. But as a photographer I need a product to work and not cause extra time and hassle.
Thank you for your understanding and we hope we get a reply to the many questions and if there is a post or another place that I have missed- I’m sorry I missed it, but please let me know.
Thanks again.
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Thank you but no enlightenment for me. (Although I do agree with Brad_photo) that’s a separate issue.
My request for information from Topaz Labs are :
1)- having a product/software that I have already paid for work. (not about upgrade)
For a few examples, my Adjust AI is greyed out and doesn’t work, my remask doesn’t work and many and after using other TL effects all the same products of halos, pixels, noise I don’t know what geek work you want to call–product bugs , I call it not working as purchased.
2)- At one point my first purchased a plugin software, then Fusion, Fusion Express 2 , PhotoFXlab, Classic Studio, then to Studio 2, then AI everything and now it seems to stand alone AI products. Is Studio 2 still being worked on? If you don’t upgrade what happens to the products you just purchased? Is Studio 2 a thing or is something else going to be developed and we will have to again be charged $99 to make what we already spend $99 to make it work. ?? All these changes to the original 16 plugins and charging more $$$money along the way. And always creating processing and result problem.
3)- There are some of the older products that TL said was going to be added to Studio 2, like restyle, Lens eff, B&W, clean?? . Again products already purchased. These have been hanging for years. What is the plan? IS TL going to add a AI to them to charge us more $$$. ??
4)- TL use to have a list (again not sure of the “correct” word) but customers were give an update of the A)- new features and nice to have items, B) product Bugs & fixed and development issues etc… and C) a timeline of when to expect results. Companies back when I was a user working with software techs had them and would provide information, status update to our customers. Shouldn’t customers know the terms of the items they purchased? And what protects the customer from changing the rules again?
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So to quote eric2, "It’s been a while since our last post–9 mon ago from Feb 13, 2020. Not about upgrades (separate issue) but the part in his post that says “Again, this was not a quick or easy decision to make, but we think it’s a necessary one in order for us to deliver massive value for you in the future. All I ask of you is that you give us a chance to prove this through our product improvements in 2020 and beyond.” This is now July 15, 2020, where is our massive value and what is our future? All during this time since Classic Studio /Studio 2, these products don’t work as marketed–just look at all the product bugs. TL extend date is August 2020 and again these products don’t work as promised. I can’t understand how any of that is legal, that is what customers need to be enlightened on.
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So shouldn’t there be a date given by TL that states you have purchased this product, on this date, it is fully functionable no problems and as of that date your upgrade pay us more money clock begins? Because using the dates in Eric2 post, it doesn’t (at least to me) addresses the issue that TL hasn’t delivered a product that works and customers would be constantly paying for product bug, crashes, no longer compatible, or whatever bug which just means you bought a product that doesn’t work and keep giving us more money or we don’t have to deal with you. These products have been in the “beta” testing stage during all this time, asking customers to help you make the product right, then as months go on and the time runs out – bam you ask your customers to pay more money if you want the product you already bought to work right?
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Hi, if you look at the first post in this thread it will outline the affected products and the timeline, in summary " Starting in August 2020, we will charge for product upgrades to DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, Gigapixel AI, and Mask AI.".
If you look at the list of legacy downloads on the main website it outlines the products that are no longer sold or supported:
Studio 2 is still a current product.
AIDon -
Barb (and I’m sure many others) would like a roadmap for the TL products, and many of us have asked (but not received answers to) what happens regarding existing, reported bugs in the effected products.
She has some very good points. Eric promised “massive value” and I personally have seen nothing, either in the capabilities or quality of the products. Words are meaningless, especially when the president of the company has broken his company’s promise. I was giving TL until August to prove what he promised, and that hasn’t happened yet. DeNoise AI 2.2.2 was just released with bugs that have existed since 2.0 was released in January (the same bug existed in early versions of JPEG to RAW but has been fixed there), but I will not be able to update it in a month.
I still believe that the model is a bad idea. I hope Topaz is around long enough to realize that and change it.
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Understood, agree and support…software development has to be paid for.
REALLY appreciate that you are sticking with the “owned software” model, so that if people choose to stop updating, they can still use the software they paid for.
Thanks for your work
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I appreciate your frankness. I think this is the right move. You’ve moved the incentive from creating new products to improving existing products. Now, you’re incentivised to make updates that people will want to pay for.
Do you want free “meh” updates or do you want updates that add value that is worth paying for? Do you want software that you actually use in your workflow to become neglected and dated?
Im sure many will disagree, but I see this as GOOD news for people that use Topaz products.
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The only problem is there are so many updates that the chances are very high that your left with some kind of bug in your Topaz application when you don’t upgrade.
You can’t expect that Topaz will have 2 updates: One with the bug fixes (for every day of the year that someones subscription runs out of time, they all stop updating on a other day of course depending on the purchase date ) and one with the new features that can start every day of the year also depending on your purchase date.
This way your forced to update to keep it working without artifacts and bugs!
So it sounds nice that you can keep your Topaz app’s running without upgrading, but in reality with the incredible amount of updates I have seen in the last year I have my doubts.
That’s why I think you can better have upgrade possibilities for version numbers! For example from Sharpen AI 5 to 6 etc. At least it will be much easier to make a version (almost) bug free.
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I just saw this note at the bottom of the pricing page (Product Pricing). I don’t know if this is a recent decision or not, but it would have been nice for someone to directly answer the question which has been asked so many times in this thread. At least we have an official answer for now.
“Maintenance releases and fixes (v2.0.0 > v2.0.1) are always included free for all users, even if you do not have an active Upgrade License.
To download a major or minor upgrade (v2.0 > 3.0 or v2.0 > v2.1) an active Upgrade License is required.”
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Since the promise of lifetime free upgrades and updates of Gigapixel has been broken I do not trust anymore whatever is told lately I am afraid.
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I so wish I had screencapped the point of sale pages, when I got the all the software, where it said “free lifetime updates”. Right now, I am scurrying to make sure everything I have is up to date, because as of August 15th, my “free lifetime updates” become ‘rental programs’. That’s right… months AFTER I bought the programs, they changed their business model to subscription.
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There is no subscription, you can continue to use the the product you have paid for at the point of time you don’t wish to upgrade any more.
I see you neatly sidestepped that when I bought the software last year, it was free lifetime updates, and that this business model was of “pay for updates” was posited months after my purchase. So, the new business model was made retroactive. Thanks heap.
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Muting topic, as I really don’t want to read your excuses as to why my “lifetime updates” end August 15th.
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Yes, you can continue to use the software you have, including the existing bugs because after Aug 15 you won’t be able to get bugfixes for the version you have unless they are included in a “point point” release (2.1.5 - 2.1.6 for example) or you pay for them.
If that’s wrong, please correct me because that question has been asked time and time again and I have not seen it answered.
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It is clearly explained in the first post in this topic that in August 2020 Topaz will charge for product upgrades to DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, Gigapixel AI, and Mask AI.
It is also clearly explained that If you don’t think a certain upgrade is worth it, don’t renew your upgrade license just yet. Wait until it actually includes something you want to pay for.
If you purchase an upgrade then. You receive another year of free upgrades starting from the time you purchased the upgrade
Thank you for once again clearly sidestepping the question with a condescending response.
It is not clearly explained what will happen regarding existing bugs - not upgrades - which is very clearly what I was talking about.
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Your sarcasm is totally uncalled for, we are all users here and as a moderator here I am simply pointing you to details of the announcement.
As for you wanting an update on “existing bugs” please raise a support request at the main website. They are the only people who can answer your question beyond the announcement.
Your condescending tone was equally uncalled for, and my sarcasm was entirely based on that. You do that quite often, and I am not the first person to notice it or call you out on it.
I realize that some people have posted incorrect information in this thread, and I appreciate that you are one of the people responsible for making sure that doesn’t happen and for getting the correct information out there. But please try to understand that we are here trying to figure out what this change will mean for us. We know that we will have to pay for upgrades after Aug 15 or 1 year from purchase, whichever is later. But bug fixes are not “upgrades”. I just opened a ticket last week about a bug in Denoise and Sharpen, and the response was that it will be fixed in a future release. But since the current version of Denoise is 2.2.7, if it isn’t fixed before 2.3.0 I will have to pay for it even though the only thing I want is to have the bug fixed, not any new functionality. I have asked support about this but have not received a response yet.
Many people are ok with the changes, many people are not, and many feel they have been betrayed/lied to, whether they agree that the changes are necessary or not. But Eric seems to have ghosted us, so we have almost no official answers to anything beyond the initial statement and the one clarification that minor updates (2.2.x to 2.2.y) will be included at no charge.
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