Subscription Model

[Claude Diderich]

General discussion forum perfectly covers the issue most have with subscription, no need to create a ticket for general discussion and hide these concerns under wraps

Fully agree, especially if Camerabits is interesting in better understand what their (past/future) customers are willing to pay to continue using PM.

I would recommend to Camerabits to first and foremost work on its communication strategy. I think many of the comments in this section are due to us [me] (your customers) not understanding what to expect in the future (beyond having to pay more) from Camerabits and failing to identify whether this future aligns with ours [mine].

[sydlow]

…The technical team will not be responding to sales related conversations moving forward and hope you are able to resolve your sales related issues via the sales channel.
…

Be great if the sales team chipped in on this discussion then!
I didn’t know there was a rule that this forum was only for technical questions.

[tempusrob]

Kirk, Jerry, Andrew, and the entire technical team eagerly await the opportunity to sustain meaningful dialogue in this forum, fostering further technical discussions for years to come.

With all due respect, this is super condescending.

More than a few people in this thread have tried to have a "meaningful dialogue" about what to expect in the "years to come" and it's a shame that y'all have not really made an effort to contribute to that discussion.

People just want to know what they're getting with what is a pretty drastic change in price.

If we should expect the same product at the same update and development cadence as years past, just say so. Plainly. "We're raising the price to match what we feel is the value PM provides and to more appropriately compensate our developers." I couldn't be mad at that! I do the same in my own business.

Or if you've got a roadmap of how PM and its development is going to change, then one month out from the big change that was announced last fall would be a pretty good time to bring that out.

[samknutson]

TL;DR The proposed prices are too high
<snip>
Now we're in the position of facing a sizeable subscription or a huge increase in the perpetual licence. Unfortunately in my view PM is too late to the table. Many if not most customers will have Creative Cloud subscriptions and be comparing value for money. My Adobe photography plan includes two alternatives to PM, Bridge and Lightroom, which are effectively 'free' with Photoshop and all for a much lower subscription. Both are capable of replacing PM for many users. Of course there are some unique features in PM which will be indispensable to some but they may well be a relatively small percentage of the customer base. For everyone else there are alternatives they're already paying for. I'd be happy with a subscription fee of 30% of the intended one and would call that fair value. Otherwise I'll be running 6 into the ground while checking in from time to time to see if genuinely useful and unique new features appear with sufficient frequency to tun my head and woo me back. In the meantime, thanks to all at Camera Bits, it's been great.

Tom is spot on here! My compare is the Adobe Photography Plan which is a must have.  I have not heard one good reason to switch.  I am looking harder at my workflow and how I would replace Photo Mechanic if I need to.  I am also lobbying adobe to deliver the capabilities I use in Ingest in an easy to use feature in Lightroom Classic.  Other tools like Fast Raw Viewer may work and I am exploring some new offering.  The frustrating thing I was was happy in fact recommending PM to people and would have just kept buying the new versions if they had kept the status quo but now don't feel the company is behaving well.  Too often these shifts precede a change in ownership that doesn't go well for customers.  The pricing for the new models is simply too high and the communication has been very poor.  PM is the performance tires not the car.

[neil@dg28.com]

I have moved over to the subscription model and have paid for my first year. I use Photo Mechanic all day every day and the price appears to me to be absolutely fine given the position that the software occupies in my working life. I am looking forward to some developments and hope that what we get is very much what we always have done - evolution rather than revolution.

[bwana]

I have moved over to the subscription model and have paid for my first year. I use Photo Mechanic all day every day and the price appears to me to be absolutely fine given the position that the software occupies in my working life. I am looking forward to some developments and hope that what we get is very much what we always have done - evolution rather than revolution.

Would you mind listing the new features that came with moving to the subscription model, as compared Photo Mechanic Version 6.0, build 7102?

[neil@dg28.com]

I have moved over to the subscription model and have paid for my first year. I use Photo Mechanic all day every day and the price appears to me to be absolutely fine given the position that the software occupies in my working life. I am looking forward to some developments and hope that what we get is very much what we always have done - evolution rather than revolution.

Would you mind listing the new features that came with moving to the subscription model, as compared Photo Mechanic Version 6.0, build 7102?

I am not aware of any. The dock icon is different and it is no longer called Photo Mechanic 6 but that's not really why I switched. The point is that Camera Bits and their software are the core of my workflow and if my paying a tiny percentage of my business turnover a year enables them to develop the application then I'm fine with that. I see it as an investment.

I still have a copy of PM6 on each of my Macs but I am now using the latest subscription version on my two frontline machines. I really hope that everyone who relies on PM as heavily as I do goes for the new option.

[bwana]

I have moved over to the subscription model and have paid for my first year. I use Photo Mechanic all day every day and the price appears to me to be absolutely fine given the position that the software occupies in my working life. I am looking forward to some developments and hope that what we get is very much what we always have done - evolution rather than revolution.

Would you mind listing the new features that came with moving to the subscription model, as compared Photo Mechanic Version 6.0, build 7102?

I am not aware of any. The dock icon is different and it is no longer called Photo Mechanic 6 but that's not really why I switched. The point is that Camera Bits and their software are the core of my workflow and if my paying a tiny percentage of my business turnover a year enables them to develop the application then I'm fine with that. I see it as an investment.

I still have a copy of PM6 on each of my Macs but I am now using the latest subscription version on my two frontline machines. I really hope that everyone who relies on PM as heavily as I do goes for the new option.

Sorry, but I'm not here to sponsor them and spending money unnecessarily is irresponsible.

Realistically, unless they come up with a respectable upgrade pricing I'll stick with 6 until something else comes along.

[Max Lemesh]

Transparency would go a long way.

The subscription version has been up for almost month and a half, but there is still no updates thread for that version of PM here on forum.

[mklass]

Wow. I did not even know a Subscription Model had been implemented!

I've been using PM or PM+ for almost 20 years, and have upgraded consistently.

I have not received any communication from Camera Bits regarding a change in licensing, pricing and plans.

I just happened to stubble across this thread.

Normally, I have commended Camera Bits for their communications, but now I wonder what is going on.

[vale]

your license is still working (until the software will not support PM). But you will not get any new updates or patches for your version of PM

[mklass]

Yea, but you would have thought Camera Bits would have sent an e mail to registered ushered informing them of the change and cost.

[jgrove]

I have used PM for a many years (the days when registration codes were mailed to you) and have always found it to be reliable and support excellent. However when Apple shifted to Silicon and a UB code, I foolishly had expected that the transition for PM would be quick, given the large user base.

Years later we are still waiting for a UB or Native version of the software, and yes it works under Rosetta but this is far from ideal, and the software has been broken on several occasions with changes made by Apple.

Given the years that have passed since Apple moved to Silicon it seems that PM has just sat their like an old Blackberry phone.

The complete lack of direction, and any actual evidence of a new product or even some form of road map would have helped, but its quiet.

Alas PM is the last software on my system that requires Rosetta, its with regret that I have now stopped using it. FastRAWViewer has now taken its place and other features that made PM unique are embedded into other software.

I am grateful for the support and updates that were provided from a one off cost, and I understand the transition to a subscription model, but not if it doesn't come with some road map especially for software still using Intel code (for Mac users)

Regards

[krakouer]

The prices may be high, they may be spot on or even too low with all the cost of living for the devs, but ultimately the market will work that out.

Personally, as a full time pro - this will be my most significant software cost by a fair margin. All for software that ingests and catalogs. I'll defintiley see where this one goes but I'm not automatically in on this for sure as costs of living also affects us customers.

[vale]

Yea, but you would have thought Camera Bits would have sent an e mail to registered ushered informing them of the change and cost.

This is very, very strange.
The thing is that those guys (CB) know how many users they have. From updates (or from program calling home). They know how many updated from 4 to 5 and from 5 to 6. The pool of users is going down naturally. But, there is a percentage who is using a pirated version, and the biggest mistake is that CB is NOT looking for those to bring them to legal path. You cannot do that putting the same program at higher price and hope to change them.
Adobe with it's subscription did the same thing. A lot of their pirated software was dropped when a decent option was available.
Yeah, PM is aimed at pros, not normal users, but normal users can bring the money needed to continue (when not enough pros will be paying monthly for no significant update)
Example:
Adobe Lightroom Classic got an update in december 2023 (13.1). And another one in February 2024 (13.2)
Here are the changes (besides camera and lenses compatibility). And if I bring Photoshop in discussion with his AI integrations, the image is not very good for PM with its 200$ per year subscription.

February 2024 release (version 13.2)

Select the Spot Removal tool and Flag photo as a pick has the wrong shortcuts
setAttributes() fails to change the case of the keyword's name
Crash due to INVALID_POINTER_READ
Video in any published collection results in an internal error
Incorrect localization of Ctrl, Cmd, and Opt for some commands in all languages
Watermark Editor - Text Based - Font Italic and Bold Italic do not apply
Plugins can't set the selection of simple_list() controls on Mac
Help for Library and Develop shortcuts in German shows Shift instead of Umschalt
White point not adjustable in Tone curve
Keywording panel sorts keywords incorrectly
Metadata customize option showing Debug Capture Time
Accessibility field support needs to be added in the SDK 
Accessibility fields - The SDK guide needs to be updated
Keywords with Include on export unchecked are still being uploaded to Stock
Error in message when creating a smart preview

December 2023 release (version 13.1)

Compare View on a second monitor shows no image on Zoom
Lightroom Classic 13.0 histogram is much darker than Lightroom Classic 12.5
"Built-in Lens Profile applied" isn't always displayed for embedded lens profiles
In Lightroom Classic 13.0, Export post-process plugins don't run with a Publish plugin
Lens Blur's Focal Range histogram doesn't update when Use Device Map is toggled
A Thin line at the bottom of the histogram makes it impossible to know the real distribution of the pixels
Tips of point color dropper is wrong
Wrong keyboard shortcuts displayed for Depth Range in Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese
The original file is deleted when trying to export in the original folder using the original name
photo:applyDevelopSettings() truncates the HDR region of tone curves
Point Color HSL individual ranges can't be reset by using the text
Wrong keyboard shortcut is shown for Create a virtual copy in Japanese
Point Color doesn't clear when syncing or copy-pasting
Intersection in history is called Subtract
Missing Translations in Polish
In Windows, Color Swatch does not sample from a reference image in the reference view
IPTC metadata templates need to be updated to support the new accessibility properties
In Japanese, "Select the Spot Removal tool" and "Flag photo as a pick" shows the wrong shortcut
Lightroom Classic Crashing when creating a mask
Lightroom Classic Catalog Upgrade issue
RGB Info numbers don't update when using the mouse wheel to pan
Image Export always uses GPU even when the preference is unset
Suggest moving "Learn More" from Enhance Preview to under the Denoise section
On macOS, Folders with long names show two tooltips on hover
The slideshow caption isn't displayed correctly while navigating through the film strip
The Slideshow doesn't show the correct file name as text
Soft Proofing before cropping can result in a blank work area
The Map module doesn't load