[Junction10]

Hi upgraded my studio v9 license (Mac) to V10 as soon as I had the email informing me it was available. The upgrade cost £19.95.

64 Bit was apparently not available for Mac at that time.. it certainly wasn't in any of the emails or on the website at the time, but I assumed that inline with other* 'plugin' publishers that 64 bit compatibility would come at no extra cost later.

I can't understand why a major version upgrade is only £19.95, but then I discover today that a 64 bit version IS available for Mac - at an ADDITIONAL cost of £34.95 - almost twice the cost of the version upgrade, and that's already after the £19.95 cost of that.

It just seems a bit expensive when it's essentially a compiler switch to produce 64 bit code (or am I wrong?) and especially when companies like Nik software, Alienskin, On-One software have all provided 64-bit support free of charge.

Am I missing something? What would I get for an extra £34.95??

[admin]

Hi,

As it happens, there was quite a large amount of work in producing the 64 bit version beyond just setting the compiler switch. But I don't think that's important.

There are two ways of looking at us charging a different price for our 32 bit versions and 64 bit versions. Either the 64 bit version is higher or the 32 bit version is lower. Compared to the prices of the other companies you mentioned it seems like we fall more in the latter camp, giving a discount for the 32 bit software, as their products seem to be priced pretty highly compared to us. And I presume you don't want us to increase the price of the 32 bit version so it matches the 64 bit version!

The 64 bit version is for people who want to process very large files, as output by what are expensive cameras. If someone is buying an expensive camera, I think we're justified in getting them to spend a tiny fraction extra on software to support that camera's resolution.

Tony

[Salisbury]

Nik Software, Alienskin, OnOne et al have all been in business for yonks, so their user base is greater.  PP (IMHO) is unique, no other software I've used/am aware of, comes close.  If you want it, you'll pay for it.
It's still a damned sight cheaper than Adobe's creations, and it does the job quicker and better.

So .......... stop whingeing about how much it costs .......... if it does the job, faster and better than other software you have ......... PAY UP !!
(I am in no way affiliated or connected with Anthropics Technology ..... I'm just a satisfied user)

[Junction10]

Salisbury Wrote:Nik Software, Alienskin, OnOne et al have all been in business for yonks, so their user base is greater.  PP (IMHO) is unique, no other software I've used/am aware of, comes close.  If you want it, you'll pay for it.
It's still a damned sight cheaper than Adobe's creations, and it does the job quicker and better.

So .......... stop whingeing about how much it costs .......... if it does the job, faster and better than other software you have ......... PAY UP !!
(I am in no way affiliated or connected with Anthropics Technology ..... I'm just a satisfied user)

Well that's the thing isn't it?  It doesn't matter how long other companies have been in business or how big their user base is... The fact is, they don't charge almost twice the price of a version upgrade JUST to support 64 bit OS, and the fact that Anthropics hasn't been in business as long as Adobe doesn't mean that 64-bit pricing is justified or reasonable.

OnOne software products for example are priced at $159.95 - and they support 64 bit as standard.
Nik software plugins are priced at between $99 and $199 and support 64 bit as standard.

Portrait Professional Studio - Approx. $180 - and supports 32-bit only.
64 bit version? $267

So the other developers are actually cheaper, not priced more highly than Portrait Professional...

Now obviously, they're different products entirely so you can't compare the pricing on a 'like for like' basis... but they all support 64 bit as standard and most are all still cheaper than PP - despite Admin's claim to the contrary.... $87 difference between 32 and 64 bit support for a base licence??

I don't think the Portrait Professional (Studio) product is overpriced per se - it's a great product... but the '64 bit support' option I believe IS vastly over-priced, for saving a few seconds rendering time per image when you will be spending at least 5-10 minutes working on anyway....

I use a Canon 5D mk II and a 1DS Mk III which produce huge files...  and the 32bit version of Portrait Professional has no problem working with them...  
The program isn't one which is suited to batch processing either, so the time-saving benefits of 64bit support are negligible...  it just seems a weird price policy for something that isn't that much of a bonus...  and THAT is what I can't understand. I'm not criticising the price of the Studio version..  just wondering how the price of the 64 bit support can be justified.

I like Portrait Professional and already HAVE paid for it..  but I'm not so gullible as to pay nearly twice the cost of a version upgrade for when I'm not going to get any ROI.

Version 9 -> 10 brings many performance and feature enhancements for only £19.95.
Version 10 32bit -> v10 64 bit - £34.95...  and the benefits??  
a few seconds of processing time per image, which you'll spend a couple of minutes prepping anyway...  

That just doesn't seem logical to me.

Unless by 'very expensive cameras' you mean Hasselblad's etc, and not high end Canon D-SLR's - In which case, upgrading to 64 bit is still pointless for many?

[Leo]

Hi,

When we say very expensive cameras we do mean Hasselblad's or cameras which produce images of over 30 Megapixels, if images are this size or larger you will need the Studio 64 version as it can access all the memory on your machine to process these enormous images. It is if you are processing really, really large images that you will really notice/ get the most out of Studio 64.

Warm regards,
Leo
Anthropics Technology

[Grantster]

I'd like to say something...  and plz delete this post if I'm wrong, but when has Mac ever given away a OS, 9 to 10 or Microsoft Windows XP to Vista or to 7? Upgrades take money, and money makes the upgrades happen...

It seems like upgrades to computers happen almost 2 times a fiscal year and with these new updates we expect the updates to happen free...
Now I truely believe that NOBODY works for free.. I'll be the first to say that I Don't!!!  The more you pay me, the better my work is... and I TRUELY believe that I must do things proper the first time...  ( I am in the service world for an Internet company ) so I DON'T work for PP in any form!!  

32 Bit on a Windows 64 bit OS works great for me, and also the Mac OS 10.5.8 right beside me ( trial test, liked the MS version for person nikon reasons) but long story short..

You want the best program, buy something that has 5 digit price tag...  you want a company that wants to be the best, buy early and help them to improve...  cost is spead over years instead of one payment...  Corel and PS started from somewhere I bet you anything ( I have a reciept for Corel 3) that they were cheap like this as well. Quality of the program was on top of the software game but the program name just wasn't out yet and us that were lucky enough to find such a great program got it at a great price and all we have to worry about is update costs...  

All I have to say more, is Thank you for listening to us, and for taking the time to learn new technoligy...  also for keeping the cost to a minimal bump  :-)

But thats my 2¢

[Alan]

There doesn't seem much point in comparing apples and oranges (no, not Macs and PCs).

In all businesses, the fundamental guiding principle is profit maximization which tampered with what the market can bear.

[joshhuntnm]

how much faster is the 64 bit? is it noticeable?

[Wayne]

(04-26-2011, 09:24 AM)admin Wrote: The 64 bit version is for people who want to process very large files, as output by what are expensive cameras. If someone is buying an expensive camera, I think we're justified in getting them to spend a tiny fraction extra on software to support that camera's resolution.

The fraction is 200 percent.

That sounds like Obama - "the rich have the money, and we want to spend it".

Actually in this case though, it is not Portrait Professional's business how much we spent for our camera. 64 bits ought to be a Standard free feature today.

[Rawit]

Running V11 Studio 64-bit here, I must say, it's stable and working great. I can't give an indication of speed increase, because I haven't used the 32-bit version.