Paintshop Pro X7 upgrade price a joke

[iantresman]

Corel adds 10% new features to the program, but wants to charge 75% of the original price for the privilege.
To add insult to injury, the UK price is 30% more than the US dollar price.

Value for money is insulting.

[MikeFromMesa]

To add insult to injury, the UK price is 30% more than the US dollar price.
Value for money is insulting.

Does the UK price include VAT? Or is that in addition to the UK price? And just how high is the VAT rate now? Perhaps part of the difference is VAT?

Just asking.

[Joelle]

Corel adds 10% new features to the program, but wants to charge 75% of the original price for the privilege.
To add insult to injury, the UK price is 30% more than the US dollar price.

Value for money is insulting.

Is there anything in the new version you feel you can't live without?
It isn't compulsory to upgrade.
Version X6 is excellent.

Joëlle

[iantresman]

Good point, the £79.99 does indeed include VAT at 19%, which is equivalent to £67.22 excluding VAT, which equates to about $108.92, about 9% higher than the US price.

I'm still disappointed that the upgrade is 75% of the original cost.

@Joelle "Is there anything in the new version you feel you can't live without?"

Nothing. There seems to be two new features, and half dozen improvements, none of which I feel I am missing out. It's the same with Wordperfect which I dropped 5 years ago... tiny upgrades, or bundled with useless software, and huge upgrade costs. Corel could learn from other companies that offer genuine improvements, and 20-25% of the full price to upgrade, which is a no-brainer, and means I can afford to upgrade every year.

[Joelle]

Sadly Corel will never win any prizes for imagination.
If they were still at school, they would get very low grades!
But as already mentioned, X6 is pretty good.

Seen from Corel's point of view (yes, that's hard) if they put out a program that's perfect, no-one will bother buying another version, ergo, no money coming in, ergo, no Corel..
Most people upgrade every 2 or 3 years, then the 'improvements' will look more substantial.

Joëlle

[iantresman]

Seen from Corel's point of view (yes, that's hard) if they put out a program that's perfect, no-one will bother buying another version, ergo, no money coming in, ergo, no Corel..
Most people upgrade every 2 or 3 years, then the 'improvements' will look more substantial.

Joëlle

Difficult to believe. I could come up with a list of a dozen genuinely useful improvements. I've posted suggests to various forum (I think even to this one), have never had an acknowledgement, and a low renewal price would make me upgrade every year.

There are some great web sites where users (ie. the people who pay for the software) can make suggestions, and the customers then vote on what they consider most useful. It works great, the customers get what they want, the the publishers doesn't waste their time on fluff. (Example) Consequently my server control panel updates every 3-4 weeks, and has more useful new features than Corel manages in a year.

Nero software costs about the same as Paintshop (£79.99), yet upgrades start at £19.99. Upgrading each year is a no-brainer.

[MikeFromMesa]

Good point, the £79.99 does indeed include VAT at 19%, which is equivalent to £67.22 excluding VAT, which equates to about $108.92, about 9% higher than the US price.

I'm still disappointed that the upgrade is 75% of the original cost.

@Joelle "Is there anything in the new version you feel you can't live without?"

Nothing. There seems to be two new features, and half dozen improvements, none of which I feel I am missing out. It's the same with Wordperfect which I dropped 5 years ago... tiny upgrades, or bundled with useless software, and huge upgrade costs. Corel could learn from other companies that offer genuine improvements, and 20-25% of the full price to upgrade, which is a no-brainer, and means I can afford to upgrade every year.

I do not mean to sound like a Corel shill because I am not. But ...

1) Yes, the upgrade price struck me as being too high as well, but I am not aware of any Photo editing software of high quality that regularly offers upgrades at 20-25% of the regular price unless the original price was way too high to begin with. Lightroom upgrade is about 60% of the retail, CaptureOne upgrade is about 50% of the retail, OnOne about 50%, Elements about 60% and so on. It is true that before Photoshop went to subscription the upgrade was about $120 which was about 20% of the full retail, but the full version of Photoshop was just extraordinarily expensive.

2) I don't know about X6 but X7 comes with PerfectlyClear which I found to be very nice indeed and not "useless". It is, in fact, the same as the retail version with all of the same functionality.

3) As for WordPerfect, I feel I should not comment because I find it hard to say anything very good about the product for the last 10 years. For a product that used to be at the top of the quality and innovation curve it does seem sad what has happened to it.

[mwenz]

but I am not aware of any Photo editing software of high quality that regularly offers upgrades at 20-25% of the regular price unless the original price was way too high to begin with.

Mac or Windows. 59 Euros for a new license. 29 Euros for the upgrades.

The two brothers that have been making this application since the mid-1990s, update the application (bug fixes and new features) during every release cycle. They are responsive to changes, plays well with plug-ins. Has vector capability in the same document. Adjustment layers work great...and RAW is updated frequently enough. Find a RAW not working? Let them know and it'll be updated.

I have used PL as my main photo editing software for years. I use others too. Aside from PSP a bit, I use PhotoPaint a lot for the duo/tri-tone work I need. Pantone color is something that PL does not yet do.

Mike

[LeviFiction]

Also Corel has done surveys for the past two versions to decide what customers find the most useful or what features they want focused on. And for X6 they attempted to demonstrate the data they received and why they made the decisions they did.

I'm not saying all their decisions are based on customer feedback. But some of it is. And the number of people who want more superficial features probably out-weigh those who want more specific improvements.

[mwenz]

Here's how a software company can forego so-called (small) customer surveys.

(1) License as many of the competitors' software as humanly possible (trust me, they have X number of them already).
(2) Get the people who program PSP to become familiar with features & functions in these other packages. Make a comparative list.
(3) Get the people who oversee the programmers to become familiar with features & functions in these other packages. Make a comparative list.
(4) Have the people responsible for advancing future features compile those lists and rank them.
(5) Have the people responsible for advancing future features present these lists...and argue for the list...to those responsible for approving the list.
(6) Have the people responsible for advancing the list take the approved list and create a solid road-map.
(7) Have the people responsible who have the approved list and the road-map communicate clearly to the programmers what the road-map is.
(8) Hold the programmers responsible for the milestones of the road-map.
(9) Make everyone who is involved depend upon meeting the milestones understand any bonuses--indeed, perhaps their jobs--are dependent upon meeting the milestones.
(10) ...

Worked for me beginning in 1991 through the mid-2000s when I had a company that built a large-scale, vertical market enterprise application. And it is still running right along to this day. We met every milestone goal, came in under budget and everyone involved received pretty good bonuses.

[photodrawken]

Here's how a software company can forego so-called (small) customer surveys.

There's a simpler (and better) way:

• Get rid of every marketing parasite on the payroll.
• Hire only people who are committed to producing quality code.
• Ensure that those people also love the field (e.g., image editing) that the software addresses.

This is (partially) why PhotoLine, and RawTherapee, and FotoSketcher, and HDRMerge, and Microsoft ICE are such outstanding programs.

In the year that I've been using PhotoLine, I've come to see how its developers are truly interested in high-quality imaging and how they really enjoy the challenges of creating code that provides the best features possible for producing those quality images.

[Radim]

[
This is why PhotoLine, and RawTherapee, and FotoSketcher, and HDRMerge, and Microsoft ICE are such outstanding programs.

My 2 cents: Mediachance PhotoReactor, Inpaint 6 and Hornil StylePix.

[LindaSue]

There's a simpler (and better) way:

• Get rid of every marketing parasite on the payroll.
• Hire only people who are committed to producing quality code.
• Ensure that those people also love the field (e.g., image editing) that the software addresses.

Hmmm...sounds vaguely familiar. Jasc perhaps?

[MikeFromMesa]

but I am not aware of any Photo editing software of high quality that regularly offers upgrades at 20-25% of the regular price unless the original price was way too high to begin with.

Mac or Windows. 59 Euros for a new license. 29 Euros for the upgrades.

The two brothers that have been making this application since the mid-1990s, update the application (bug fixes and new features) during every release cycle. They are responsive to changes, plays well with plug-ins. Has vector capability in the same document. Adjustment layers work great...and RAW is updated frequently enough. Find a RAW not working? Let them know and it'll be updated.

I have used PL as my main photo editing software for years. I use others too. Aside from PSP a bit, I use PhotoPaint a lot for the duo/tri-tone work I need. Pantone color is something that PL does not yet do.

Mike

59/29. That is a 50% upgrade fee, not 20-25%. The 50% figure is in line with the other examples I gave.

[df]

(1) License as many of the competitors' software as humanly possible...

I'm pretty sure some of the employees use the "competitors' software" more than Corel's own software already.