Adobe buys out Pixmantec! = the end of rawshooter?

[Leigh]

Information here;

http://www.pixmantec.com/company/adobe.asp

:(

Quote;

In preparation for this integration, the Pixmantec RawShooter Premium product is being discontinued, though the free RawShooter Essentials product will continue to be available until the Lightroom public beta program is completed. Existing Pixmantec customers will continue to be supported by Adobe and will be provided with an upgrade path to the Adobe digital imaging product family.


I bought premium last month as well, £40 looking like its up the spout :brickwall

[Taq]

gah ffs.
Looking forward to Adobe releasing roughly the same thing for £300 more in the near future then.

Still, RSP does everything I need it to presently.

Taq

[Leigh]

Oh yeah it does everything i need as well, so im not complaining from that point of view. Its okay until you have to re-install your copy of RSP for some reason and cant download it.

[sideshowbob]

That's bad news, they're just making room in the market for themselves from what I can see.

[Radiohead]

Interesting news - not the best ever though....

The lack of a Lightroom Beta for the PC is worrying as well.

[sworrall]

thats a real bummer

[emeyedeejay]

Oh dear ... Just shows how decent a product it is I think...

[Radiohead]

FAQ (http://www.pixmantec.com/pdf/press_releases/AdobeFAQ-Pixmantec.pdf) from Adobe.

Basically, there will be no future updates of RSE/RSP. What exists today is it - so no support for 30D owners.

[sworrall]

Basically, there will be no future updates of RSE/RSP. What exists today is it - so no support for 30D owners.
double bummer, was thinking of buying this too. Theres nothing as great as a big company gobbling up the smaller (and better) competition rather than innovating themselves.

unless of course they use the technology and bring out a bargain price adobe shooter essentials/premium (but i doubt it)

[sideshowbob]

I don't suppose there is any chance of them doing anything bargain-priced, given the cost of CS2 and Acrobat

[sworrall]

I don't suppose there is any chance of them doing anything bargain-priced, given the cost of CS2 and Acrobat
nope, i fully agree on that one. RIP RSE

[chet-lee]

Terrible news, I finally find a product that does nearly everything I want from a cheap RAW converter and one of the bigwigs spoils my fun. I can't see Adobe making anything that runs fast on an older machine :(

[Leigh]

Get over to to the pixmantec forums and post your disappointment, maybe there is the smallest of chances Adobe will take things on board.

www.pixmantec.com

[Boink!]

Seriously doubt that.

Spotted thi son the Pixmantec open forum:
Anybody else notice this in the (Adobe press) release? At least I got a good laugh out of the situtation :-)

"The Raw Shooter products do not offer any significant functionality that is not already, or will not be shortly, offered in Lightroom, so continuing this product line would only cause confusion for our customers."
Yup, in other words..."We're just cleaning up the competition". It's Microsoft all over again.
I think you are sooo right. My first thought was that Lightroom is too much ready now to start incorporating RSP in it.... so it's a clean up job, definitly.

[surfer_chicky]

Was just getting into the RSE, and was thinking of upgrading.

Wont bother now :(

[simion_levi]

Bah.

I've always used CS2 for RAW conversion, but I downloaded RSE a few months back after seeing all the positive comments. Still haven't got round to installing and trying it for myself, not sure if there's much point now :(

[Tintop]

FAQ (http://www.pixmantec.com/pdf/press_releases/AdobeFAQ-Pixmantec.pdf) from Adobe.

Basically, there will be no future updates of RSE/RSP. What exists today is it - so no support for 30D owners.

From the website:

Rawshooter | Premium 2006 is updated and now supports Canon's 30D and Olympus' E-330!

:suspect:

[puddleduck]

I'm not hugely fond of Rawshooter, and when I do dabble with RAW I use Nikon Capture or ACR.

I never expected Pixmatec too last long, RSE is too good for free, and their bizarre policy of providing sub-par colour profiles, then charging for better ones via their ColourEngine support always smacked of the tactics of a small startup company desperate to eek out funds from any available source.

Nevertheless, this is Adobe basically eliminating the competition and there is now one less choice for the consumer, which is never good news.

[Radiohead]

To those of us using RSE/RSP, some infro from Adobe over at the Pixmantec forums:

"We at Adobe are reading and listening. Yes, we've been slow to respond, and I apologize for that. In any acquisition, there are snafus and I and others did not handle the communication well at all. I've started a swat team to get the decisions final, coordination done, and communications out.

I have to say also that I'm really excited about the possibilities now that we have Michael Jonsson & Kenneth Tang Laerke joining our team. We have assembled what I think are the best minds in raw processing to take Adobe Camera Raw to the next level. The engines in ACR and RSP are each exceptional in a number of ways, and one of our first technical tasks is to determine how we can blend them to achieve something better than either was alone.

I've known Michael for a while now, and I know he's excited to be able to do even more than he could do alone. I won't put more words in his mouth right now.

I hope our actions will start addressing some of the gaps in communication. As I said, we've started acting to fill some of those gaps, including:

- We have taken down the RSP purchase link so that folks do not continue to purchase RSP unaware of the termination of the product.

- We are contractually obligated to continue selling the Color Engine for a few more weeks, so that sales link is still up.

- Purchasers of RSP will soon get information on the upgrade path from RSP to Lightroom. We hope many of you will choose to try Lightroom. (And yes, a Windows beta is coming soon. As Kevin notes, it's been demoed publicly and now we're polishing it. We have many folks who wish to download it, and we do not want to disappoint.)

- Michael Tapes will stay on moderating these forums, and he'll be hooked up to George Jardins, who will also monitor these forums, in addition to the Lightroom forums.

- We have already started looking at how to transition as many of your settings from RSP to Lightroom as possible. We don't know yet how feasible all of that will be.

- This week we are holding a get-together of the minds in California to figure out many more of the technical details and bring Michael Jonsson into the planning and development of the next generation of raw processing.

- There are many other actions coming.

All of this takes time, complicated by various factors like the inevitable summer vacations, but all that matters are the end results.

Again, I apologize for the delay in getting word directly to you from Adobe, and I thank you for your patience.

Cheers,

Dave Story
VP Product Development, Digital Imaging
Adobe Systems"

http://www.pixmantec.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=32534&page=0&fpart=4&vc=1

So the Lightroom Beta for Windows is close. For Nikon shooters it's going to be interesting to compare this with Capture NX.

[Leigh]

Hmm, sounds a bit more positive, all they really had to do was post that when it was announced and it would have saved a lots of the criticism,

Thanks RH for that :)

[Radiohead]

Great news from Adobe - anyone who bought RSP will get Lightroom for free.

To clarify the circumstances surrounding the purchase of Pixmantec, Adobe has posted updated FAQ’s regarding the purchase and what it will mean for current RawShooter users. Included in the FAQ is the statement that current registered users of RawShooter Premium will receive a free upgrade to Adobe Lightroom version 1.0 when it ships.

[sideshowbob]

That's good, innit.

[Radiohead]

Excellent news - really pleased about that.

[Taq]

cool!

[Leigh]

Crieky, certainly didnt expect that at all. That is good news.

Well played to Abode, maybe they do listen afterall :)

[Leigh]

Ive just had a read of this (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/lightroom1.shtml) article which is a review of the beat version of lightroom. Must say that i like what i see :thumbs:

[Faythur]

A couple of videos here http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/video/#

[kez]

Great news from Adobe - anyone who bought RSP will get Lightroom for free.

To clarify the circumstances surrounding the purchase of Pixmantec, Adobe has posted updated FAQ’s regarding the purchase and what it will mean for current RawShooter users. Included in the FAQ is the statement that current registered users of RawShooter Premium will receive a free upgrade to Adobe Lightroom version 1.0 when it ships.

got a clicky for that?

[Radiohead]

I do - it's here (http://www.pixmantec.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=32873&an=opentalk&page=0#32873)

:)

[kez]

ta. found something official on adobe's site, too. see question 3.

clicky (http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressmaterials/pdfs/FAQ-Pixmantec.pdf)

[ajoh198]

Adobe just released the lightroom beta for windows today:
lightroom (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/)

but it looks like the download page is struggling :(

[Nana]

So far I hate Lightroom, but the good news is that if you have RAW Essentials you can now upgrade to Premium for free.

[simion_levi]

the good news is that if you have RAW Essentials you can now upgrade to Premium for free.

Missed that, do you have a link?

[Nana]

http://www.pixmantec.com/ about a third of the way down the page on the left it says Free Update for existing users, click on the download, there's also a pdf guide link opposite it.

[Boink!]

Damn, gone for that, except it's now asking for a licience key. :|

[emeyedeejay]

I'm sure that will be a free update to V1.03 of RSP (ie for current owners of RSP v 1.02 or 1.02)

[Andrew70]

Unless I'm missing something obvious, that is a free upgrade to Rawshooter Premium v1.03 for users who are already using Rawshooter Premium v1.02.

The current version of Rawshooter Essentials is v1.2.

[emeyedeejay]

Pity ... would have been great in that ...

1. Pixmantec offers free upgrade from RSE to RSP then
2. Adobe offers isers of RSP free "upgrade" to light room

Would have been perfect :D

[Nana]

Apologies for the mis-information, put it down to heat madness.
I had Essentials and assumed it was a free upgrade, I downloaded and installed Premium, it works fine, please don't tell me I have to pay for it now. :(

[emeyedeejay]

Works fine? When it starts up do you not see "15 days remaining" at the bottom of the splash screen?

[Nana]

I've only started it up twice, both times there was a distraction and I didn't see the start up screen, oh ********. Sorry guys for getting you worked up over nothing, storm in a tea cup.

Disappointed now, it would have been so nice too. :brickwall :doh:

[emeyedeejay]

:lol:

Just uninstall RSP and reinstall RSE - it won't be a problem.

[chet-lee]

Does anybody know how this upgrade scheme will work? I can't even remember how I installed premium, was there unlock codes or a link to a direct download?

BTW I did pay for it so it's not dodgy.

[kez]

mine used an unlcok code / email type thing upon first startup

[Leigh]

mine used an unlcok code / email type thing upon first startup

Same here i supplied my email address and i was emailed an unlock code which was used in conjunction with the email address you registered with.

[chet-lee]

What is the email address the code is sent from then I can seacrh through my mail. Cheers.