Digital Light & Color

This is very sad news, although I can't say I'm completely surprised. I have been wondering how long you might keep it going. Its very difficult to keep a small, privately owned software company going these days...this is the third major (to me!) software I've "lost" this year. However, unlike my birding software, which I had to abandon (because it relies on such frequent updates) I don't see any reason why I can't keep using PWP forever--since I don't use it for RAW conversion, and hopefully a TIF will remain a TIF for a long time. At least until it no longer works with some upcoming version of Windows--I have no plans to move to anything else!

I think I still have my Version 2.1 CD, which is where I believe I started...

I wish you and Kiril the best of luck in your new endeavors (or retirement!), and I will send you my email to keep on your mailing list.

Janet

The inevitable is here. With its transformation functions, combinations and nearly unlimited and still meaninfull settings the PWP is going to remain the most inspirative and challenging software I have ever worked with. Fortunately even at this moment there is still a lot of to discover around this exceptional photo editor.
It has always been a big honour and pleasure to be part of the PWP forum and get opportunity to participate in testing new beta versions.
I can only thank very much to Jonathen and Kiril and wish them all the best.
If there is at least a minimal hope of another version of this excelent SW in whatewer finish or design, I am definitely interested in testing it and having it. The enlistment mail will follow.

Thanks again,
David

Hello Jonathan, Kiril and fellow forum members.

I am also saddened and also not surprised by the announcement. We seem to be in a phase in the technology industry of decreasing biodiversity with the remainders exhibiting characteristics of hubris and a loss of the craft of software engineering.

PWP has been a great piece of software: small and lightweight, simple user-interface eschewing glamour for function, and leaving the image processing choices up to the user.
This is in contrast to the current dominant species of large and heavyweight (> 1Gb), User-interface-obsessed and a paternalistic pre-processing of files to their own workflow and 'look'.

Lastly, although I have been an infrequent contributor to the board, I'd like to thank the contributors here. This forum is in my experience almost unique in the internet. Discussions remain discussions (without the typical internet degredation of maturity), disagreements (rare) are treated with respect and the willingness to share knowledge is high.
Through the PWP software and it's community I've learned a lot about image processing.
You have something to be very proud of Jonathan and Kiril - I thank you.
Goodbye all.
Hans

Wow, this comes as quite a shock... although I'm perfectly happy to use the current version of PWP for the rest of my (photographic) life, "as is". I am also happy I can continue to suggest to my students that they can continue to use PWP, and now for "free". I remember ordering version 1.0 and receiving version 2.0 in the mail, sometime in the late '90s... Many, many thanks to Jonathan for producing the software in the first place, and then to continuing to support it, and adding Kiril to the team to keep us up-to-date with the later versions.

The thoughtful and supportive discussions on this Board have been worth much more than the price of the licenses over the years. Thanks to all who have contributed!

All the best in your next project(s) Jonathan!

Mark

Hi Jonathan/Kiril

Really sorry to hear this. Sadly I lost interest in photography quite some time ago. But I dearly remember the days when I was happily involved and reckoned PWP was the only way to go. I never got on with photoshop or alternatives like Gimp - and Lightroom horrified me. PWP gave the necessary control and much needed simplicity compared to other tools. Memorising all those keyboard short cuts for Photoshop was, for me, impossible and the menu based approach in PWP far superior.

Good luck with the redesign, and I'll try to become motivated again. Many thanks to Dieter for alerting me.

I think that having 15 posts to this thread in 36 hours is very interesting. Sometimes we go for weeks without a single posting. But I check in almost daily to see if anything is "new". These responses make it appear that we have a deeper and much more engaged forum membership (who may visit frequently to learn, but not necessarily post) than I realized by merely looking at the frequency of new posts.

I'll be very happy to keep using PWP for a long time (but perhaps not too long since I'm anready nearing 75) but I'll really miss the ability to learn more about my favorite editing software through these forum postings.

Just repeating what others have already said, but Jonathan and Kiril, you should be very proud that you have done something really special.

Thank you Jonathan and Kiril: you have taught me a lot about digital processing...much more than I could have learned by using all the other tools put together!

Indeed this feels somewhat like the passing of an old friend... I was never one to use photoshop or lightroom, though I have started using DxO Optics Pro for it's raw processing and noise reduction. But for any real modification of a photo PWP was my go-to.

One question: I see an updated 64b version but not the 32b - is there any plans to update that as well? I seem to recall having an issue running the 64b and have stuck with the 32b for years despite being on Win7 64b.

Thanks to everyone who made PWP, reference documentation and white papers possible.

Tim

I recommend switching to the 64-bit version if possible as it handles large files much more smoothly. The only things missing from the 64-bit version are TWAIN and PhotoCD support. TWAIN can generally be avoided by running the scanner driver stand-alone and exporting a TIFF file to PWP. PhotoCD is pretty much a dead product at this point.

snif snfi

I wish you the very best and I'm gratefull that you made the last version available.

BTW. For those looking for an alternative, I have taken a brief look at photoline now at version 20 and I'm considering it.