Subscription Model

[willievass]

guys, please understand: you CAN still use the 'old' program as long as the OS of your device keeps the support. So, don't skip PM just because they put this subscription model out, use it as usual (you already paid it) and only if something wrong (or a very extraordinary update [apple sillicon is NOT an update, it is a MUST in 2024]) move to a decision.

You can use the old versions but not the update or the beta release the other day, (unless I am mistaken) effectively an historical user is loccked into the Feb 24 update, without any offer of a discount to help marination to a new system. Personally I would buy a new perpetual license to give me a year of updates, at which point I would be able to use the silicon version and see if PM still works as well as it has done.

Alas no discount was offered, and I cant justify the cost.

It's a shame but I was hoping we'd see some form of carrot waved to encourage users to migrate to the new version and pricing structure.

I think that horse has bolted. Would have been nice to have a limited time upgrade offer for legacy registered users when the Apple Silicon version is released out of beta.

However those (few?) legacy users already upgraded to the full price perpetual version would complain.

[Max Lemesh]

This is just sad... it could've been handled way better.
Surely racking up pricing and locking out current loyal user base from meaningful upgrade paths or even trying long awaited native Mac app is working great — 13 pages of support so far.


I swear by PM, but it is very hard to promote it to fellow photogs now with the current practices and pricing... and lack of any meaningful updates in years

[vale]

As others had said, there wasn't an official announcement through an official email (or more) to announce the new pricing (with discounts for existing users). Or not for everyone, it's not really clear. I'd say that most of the users, still are on old versions of PM, because it works for them. Probably those with bulk licensing got some deals and Camera Bits kept going with their money. I really don't understand how someone could jump from the old version of PM to buy the new version, when nothing is change. Unless money is not a problem...

[ahoward]

Please see my reply in the Beta 2 announcement thread for how to access the beta without signing up for a trial or making a purchase: https://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=16261.msg79374#msg79374

[jrp]

PMs USP is variables / macros. I use it to add basic keywords / captions to my photos. However, to flesh out my keywords, I use various AI based plugin in Lightroom. It will not be long before the big AI players will mark up your pics better than you can. I use Llava, run on my MacBook, to provide even better annotation than Google does.

In 5 years, it will not be necessary to keyword your pics, as the search engine will not use your keywords, but recognise image features on the fly (as, eg, apple photos does already).

Paying full price for an App that will only be supported for a couple of years, and may be obsoleted before then makes little sense. Shame that camerabits hasn’t been more ambitious.

[Max Lemesh]

For me PMs USP is automation at ingest and during batch work.
I love how you can come up with crazy use case scenarios and make it work with variables and code replacements.

[Kirk Baker]

PMs USP is variables / macros. I use it to add basic keywords / captions to my photos. However, to flesh out my keywords, I use various AI based plugin in Lightroom. It will not be long before the big AI players will mark up your pics better than you can. I use Llava, run on my MacBook, to provide even better annotation than Google does.

Which Llava package are you using?  Do you have a reference (URL) for it?

Thanks,

-Kirk

[jrp]

https://github.com/Blaizzy/mlx-vlm

This gives you access to several llava models. 

Code: [Select]

import mlx.core as mx
from mlx_vlm import load, generate

import os
from pathlib import Path

# model_path = "mlx-community/llava-1.5-7b-4bit"
model_path = "mlx-community/llava-v1.6-mistral-7b-8bit"
#model_path = "mlx-community/llava-v1.6-34b-8bit"
model, processor = load(model_path)

prompt = processor.tokenizer.apply_chat_template(
    [{"role": "user", "content": f"<image>\nProvide a caption and keywords for this image"}],
    tokenize=False,
    add_generation_prompt=True,
)

picpath = "/Users/user/Pictures/Processed"
pics = sorted(Path(picpath).iterdir(), key=os.path.getmtime, reverse=True)
pic = str(pics[0])
print(pic)


#output = generate(model, processor, "http://images.cocodataset.org/val2017/000000039769.jpg", prompt, verbose=True)
output = generate(model, processor, pic, prompt, max_tokens=200, verbose=True)

print(output)

A setup for Llava 1.5 is available here: https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx-examples/tree/main/llava They both require https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx

[Kirk Baker]

I'll check those out too, but I found and installed another one via 'llamafile' which can run Llava.  On one image that I tried, it was fairly impressive, but on another, the caption was good but the keywords did not include anything that it had listed in the caption text.

These are kind of fun, but there's no way we could include them in the application.  For one, they're too large (somewhere over 4GB for the one I used), and two, they could virtually say anything, including things that are offensive and Camera Bits would be responsible.

We could offer an integration with the user's install (running a local server) and then the user would be responsible for vetting the model that they're using and its output.

-Kirk

[jrp]

At present, the models are improving at an almost incredible rate. The likes of apple will want to run applications of these models on phones, never mind laptops. As you will be aware, the next release of MacOS will provide new AI-based services, running what can be run on local device and offloading more complex things to the apple cloud.  I know that you prefer to roll your own stuff, but you could provide hooks, or whatever.

As well as fiddling around with llava I use google’s image annotation api. It’s very capable (doing OCR, too) but the keywords that it produces don’t distinguish between the main subject and other incidental features (sky, car, …).

Thing about this key wording / captioning capability is that it’s redundant if the platform hosting your pictures can do all the image recognition itself…. What will be needed is the ability to be very specific about the contents of the picture (name of the player, location, etc).

Anyway, it might be wise the keep to the meat and potatoes capabilities of the current program, while testing out some more experimental features, to avoid obsolescence.

[Anton Largiader]

If the ability to write metadata into .CR3 files ever happens (which seems unlikely), I might be tempted to upgrade. Or, I suppose, if I ever switch over to Adobe, in which case the sidecar files won't be a problem. As it is, though, I'm pretty happy with the paid version I'm "stuck" with.

[rhomberg]

Oh, so there is a subscription model live now? I didn't hear a thing and got no notification or update whatsoever. I can't wait to see what amazing things are new and a must have to switch immediately! Many other software companies handle the transition gracefully and valuing existing customers. I am excited to read up on the camerabits website as soon as possible about all their thoughtful offerings and great deals! They sure must value their loyal customers highly.

And well, on top of that, I guess now we can all witness how rapid all those future very useful features will be added to the subscription version that make it worth switching then! I mean I couldn't think of a single thing that I want PM to do more ... but I'll always be open to being surprised!

I guess the one big thing I would hope for is to get the speed back that PM had when it was still 32 bit. Many years after everything else switched to 64 bits PM followed ... but it never was as fast ever again.

At least ist's "universal" now half a decade after most other software went universal or even ARM only. 😂🤷🏻‍♂️ Cheers.

[grumly6]

I am not sure to understand your complain :

you are happy of what you have already, your version is still working (some other compagnies have disabled the old version of their software when launching a subscription like DXO dont allow you to reinstall your old license), you say, you dont need new features... so why would you want to subcribe to anything?

In addition, there is also a perpetual license. Yes is far more expensive than before, because... the price was low before. And if you want you can decide to change software if the sun is brighter elsewere.

Personnaly I have bought 2 software in my workflow recently :
Photomechanics perpetual license for 330 $ et many Retouch4me plugin for more than 600$.

They are expansive but they make my workflow so much easier and faster, that in my case it's totally worth it.

Photomechanics is a niche software, but the one it's the target need it so badly, than price... is not a real concern in my opinion. The cheap price before, has perhaps attract other customers, who are not the target. For example if you dont shoot 100 000 pictures a years, you are not really the target in my opinion.

In october alone, photomechanics makes me gain around 1 weeks of culling and allow me to deliver my clients way faster, so much my first client asked why the delivery was so fast... and he decided to pay me my photomechanics perpetual license.

Another refexion : when Adobe ent full subscription, the first 2 years, there was not a lot of new features. Now we have a lot new things each year,  so maybe time will tell.

For the ARM version... well all compagnies have not the same size and all software are not using the low layers of OS the same. Photomechanics is VERY fast compare to any other software and that speed is obtained (if I guess correctly) by using very low level file handling functions. Apple, since the ARM version has totally changeg, the way the file system is managed with a lot of security in mind, but that implied totally rethinling the way you access files. Thats also why an ipâdOS version seems almost impossible. For other softwares, which were using normal tools, a simple recompîlation has almost done all the job.

Oh, so there is a subscription model live now? I didn't hear a thing and got no notification or update whatsoever. I can't wait to see what amazing things are new and a must have to switch immediately! Many other software companies handle the transition gracefully and valuing existing customers. I am excited to read up on the camerabits website as soon as possible about all their thoughtful offerings and great deals! They sure must value their loyal customers highly.

And well, on top of that, I guess now we can all witness how rapid all those future very useful features will be added to the subscription version that make it worth switching then! I mean I couldn't think of a single thing that I want PM to do more ... but I'll always be open to being surprised!

I guess the one big thing I would hope for is to get the speed back that PM had when it was still 32 bit. Many years after everything else switched to 64 bits PM followed ... but it never was as fast ever again.

At least ist's "universal" now half a decade after most other software went universal or even ARM only. 😂🤷🏻‍♂️ Cheers.

[rhomberg]

Hey grumply6! Not sure why there's a need to try to discuss, dismiss and/or defend my last post, but here we go I guess.

As I said I am glad, but yet not happy with what I got. My workflow depends on PM and I wouldn't wanna miss it. I guess I can say I make it work by never having PM open in full screen size to not cripple its performance totally and that's how I manage its issues. So a move to Apple Silicon ARM architecture after we are in it's 4th generation already is appreciated and I will test it as soon as I can find the time.

I never use anything of the DxO company because they have really sub-par software at a constant cash-grab for the same old stuff over and over again. So I'm with you on that comparison there. I really, really don't want Camerybits to become that.

Exactly – I need no new features. Just bugfixes of things the programmers might have messed up in their code. And that's where I cannot understand any reasoning for a subscription model and having to raise prices for the perpetual license to incentivize anyone to maybe switch at some point.

Subscriptions make sense where there's constant development of the software. I can't see the team coming up with meaningful new features though that anyone would want. I'll gladly be proven wrong though and make the switch once all those AI assistants and what not come flocking in.

It's a compliment really that this piece of software is so well thought out and one can't think of things it would still need. All they did for many years is shuffle around UI elements to break muscle memory. Most importantly though they updated some elements of the code to keep it running before the deadlines in the past expired where the old code would have been not supported my modern OS any more after many years of transitioning time.

We are back at that point again. So I will gladly buy the update if they kept the new code at least as fast as it was. Although an increase in performance would be appreciated because even Lightroom performs light years better in some cases by now.

I don't see how there can be wrong customers for a software, but I understand your subtlety. Unfortunately 100k pics don't cut it for me, as we cull through well over 1M+ shots a year. That's why also the factor of having to buy more licenses for employees factors in.


Well, I hope I addressed some points and made mine more clear. I guess I'll summarize it as follows:
I don't see a subscription model make sense for the non-existent roadmap of features and find the perpetual price increase to justify the subscription price and even more importantly the limitation of time for included bugfixes(!) an un-welcome side effect. But I'll be very happy if either meaningful features come pouring in in the future or if they make use of mayor new architectures or APIs in a more timely manner in the future.

[elianoimperato]

New prices are very expensive, this is the truth. The ones that can't afford to pay more will not buy anymore Photo Mechanic when will be not supported on the new OS in the next future.
I'm a freelance photojournalist from Italy and trust me isn't easy to be a freelance photojournalist in this country. So, until I can use my Photo Mechanic Plus I'll use it, then I'll do my work using other softwares, for sure not easy and fast like Photo Mechanic, but what can we do? It's like this for everything in the life.

Ps.
I've always paid for this software and I know some professional photographers, working as staff for some agencies and newspapers, that use pirate copies. So is not just about the money. This too is like everything in the life.

Best to all,
eliano