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Author Topic: Colorbyte's lost dongle policy is repaying software - does this only concern me?  (Read 15613 times)

psorantin

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I would like to know what other members of this Forum think who use RIP software, including users of Impageprint from Colorbyte:
https://www.colorbytesoftware.com/

I am using their Imageprint software for probably 7-8 years on my Epson 4800;
bought paid updates over those years;
I am up-to-date on the current version 10 of Imageprint.

Imageprint v10 is currently priced at $895.- for a 17" printer like an Epson SC5000 (to which I switched very recently).

Turns out I lost the USB dongle that is required to run the software;
I called Colorbyte support to get a new dongle expecting a shipping fee and some fee for the new dongle.

Nope - support tells me that "policy is to rebuy the software for $895; do they know that I am customer - yes, sure; but policy for a lost dongle is to repay the full software fee".
Support says she understands my frustration, but she cant change that policy, talk to John Pannozzo (probably owner or co-owner).

I talked to John; answer on the phone call:
- this is our policy
- you could sell that dongle in reality, and just make this up, so we cant send you a new dongle
- go search for the dongle more, if you dont want to rebuy
- I sent two more emails to John -- he seems not to consider my emails worth a response. I find that quite rude.

I  checked all of their documentation available to me regarding this - in my opinion - terribly one-sided policy;
having to repurchase the software due to a lost dongle is a significant risk for a customer one should know upfront about:
- not mentioned anywhere in the Imageprint manual
- not mentioned in the software license agreement.

I find that unacceptable - an undocumented policy that represents a significant risk for anyone buying from Colorbyte.
The only rationale given to me is that I could be a crook trying to trick them, although I am a customer for many years and purchased over time paid upgrades.

Am I wrong with my judgement that this undocumented "policy" is wrong -- do other folks here think that I should repurchase for $895.- a new dongle?

Imageprint provides value, is a great product, but I paid for my license already and Colorbyte chooses to ignore that.

Peter


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Peter Sorantin
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digitaldog

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Agreed, unacceptable. I could see a small fee for their cost of the dongle, but others no; move on. Last version I had was V6 and all is fine without.
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Mark D Segal

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You can make excellent prints on an Epson SC-P5000 without ImagePrint. And if you print out of Lightroom you can make and save Print layouts with all the settings. If you need to get custom profiles for certain papers, you can buy nine or ten of them for the price of ImagePrint.

Frankly, I find their judgment in your case rigid and unreasonable, but it's their company and they are of course free to set their own policies. Fortunately you have options and don't need to buy into them. I also agree that failure to answer emails is rude.

(edited a typo)
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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digitaldog

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Mark is right on! Lightroom’s print module is worth the price of admission and no silly dongle.
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deanwork

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Lightroom, yes. I never understood the whole allure of Imageprint in the first place. What are you paying for,  a profile library where 90% of the profiles it contains you would never use? Seems to me your money would be much better spent investing in a good profiling package with a spectro, or hiring someone really good to make them for you for your specific equipment. For me a rip without linearization capability is not worth owning. Now Ergosoft, that’s a professional print rip.


Mark is right on! Lightroom’s print module is worth the price of admission and no silly dongle.
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loganross

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I have been a steadfast supporter and customer of Imageprint for many years now.  I am still a fan.  However, I now use QImage (print layout and workflow) and custom ICC profiles from Chromix (color accuracy and quality).  My prints are the best they have ever been.  These days, newer printers are pretty darn stable, reliable, and linear, including for black and white.  I recently switched to Canon, which seems less in need of third party crutches than Epson (i.e., Canon has very linear printing capability, built-in color and paper calibration options; and a custom media configuration tool). 

The bottom line: When I got my Canon, I had had to choose between paying for a license for a second printer with Colorbyte, or trying a new workflow. I got tired of licensing and un-licensing  a printer based on which printer I wanted to use in Imageprint (my attempt to avoid paying the additional big license fee just for having a second printer).

I would recommend you experiment before paying out additional large sums of money for a RIP.  Qimage is $69, and Chromix Color Valet service for unlimited profiles for your printer for 18 months is about $179.  It took me about 3 weeks to fully acclimate to the new workflow, including (i) refining the creation of custom media types for third party papers (which is optional anyway), (ii) mastering the Qimage interface, and (iii) getting the custom profiles made.  I have not found anything from Imageprint that I can't easily do in Qimage.     Moreover, if you happen to move to Canon, Imageprint has to use the Canon driver anyway, unlike for Epson for which they are able to directly talk to the printer.

There are also some added benefits to my new workflow:

-A more intuitive way to save "jobs"
-Support for multiple printers and different size printers without additional license fees
-no dongle
-the ability to have custom profiles made when you see fit to do so
-Jobs aren't deleted when you change the printer being licensed
-like imageprint - resizing, output sharpening, and cropping at the print stage


Also, another option is Colorbyte's upcoming Imageprint Red, which is much less expensive than regular imageprint, and is like Qimage in that it relies on the manufacturer driver and your own color icc profiles.  I believe there are no printer size/# of printer licensing restrictions.


« Last Edit: March 11, 2018, 12:06:21 pm by loganross »
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DP

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this one = https://luminous-landscape.com/imageprint-overview-making-printing-easier/ = must be updated with the story about dongle  ;D

Kevin, would' you - that will be fair to the customers to know upfront, don't you think ? not just "ImagePrint is one of the only pieces of software that I am aware of that still uses a dongle. This takes up a USB drive port. I wish there was a better way to handle activations with this software, similar to how Adobe does it. "
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Mark D Segal

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this one = https://luminous-landscape.com/imageprint-overview-making-printing-easier/ = must be updated with the story about dongle  ;D

Kevin, would' you - that will be fair to the customers to know upfront, don't you think ? not just "ImagePrint is one of the only pieces of software that I am aware of that still uses a dongle. This takes up a USB drive port. I wish there was a better way to handle activations with this software, similar to how Adobe does it. "

Of course there are options. They could use a machine number and a TAN which the customer and the provider can keep separately on a computer (or the customer's smart phone). This ties the software to a specific machine and the risk of losing the credentials and the use of the software is close to zero. The problem here isn't technical, it's managerial.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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deanwork

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I totally agree with that.

When I bought my copy of Studio Print and Poster Print ( now they call it Ergo Rip or something like that which contains both) from Ergosoft I bought it used, totally legally and it comes with the dongle, as does my drum scanner software.

I just called into Ergosoft and they transferred the license to me, so only one person could register and use it. They said at that time that if the dongle was ever lost they would give me another one. I don’t remember what it would cost but it was hardly anything. And that software costs about three times what Imageprint does. And for good reason, it is a real rip, not a nesting software that comes with generic profiles.  QImage is a huge bang for the buck for a software like that.

Does Color Burst come with a dongle?

John



Of course there are options. They could use a machine number and a TAN which the customer and the provider can keep separately on a computer (or the customer's smart phone). This ties the software to a specific machine and the risk of losing the credentials and the use of the software is close to zero. The problem here isn't technical, it's managerial.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2018, 07:00:29 pm by deanwork »
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Jim Kasson

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Of course there are options. They could use a machine number and a TAN which the customer and the provider can keep separately on a computer (or the customer's smart phone). This ties the software to a specific machine and the risk of losing the credentials and the use of the software is close to zero. The problem here isn't technical, it's managerial.

Mathworks has an interesting licensing system. You can license software to run on one machine. But, if you wish, you can license software to run on machines which are logged on to a Windows domain with a single userid. That way, your license can follow you from machine to machine. I find that convenient.

Jim

JayWPage

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I agree 100%

Another beef with Imageprint, I upgraded last year to V10 and then discovered that it isn't even a 64-bit program yet. So there will be yet another upgrade to deal with later this year when Apple upgrades their OS to 64-bit only.
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dhachey

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Mathworks has an interesting licensing system. You can license software to run on one machine. But, if you wish, you can license software to run on machines which are logged on to a Windows domain with a single userid. That way, your license can follow you from machine to machine. I find that convenient.

Jim

I truly hate these dongle things, to the point where I go out of my way to find alternatives (even writing my own code in one case).  Matlab is a great program, but there are now reasonable free alternatives out there:  https://dspguru.com/dsp/links/matlab-clones/
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psorantin

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so what Mark Segal and Andrew (?) 'digitaldog' are saying is that the Epson driver has come along way and really doesnt make Imageprint a requirement, if you stay with non-exotic papers - correct?

I am printing mostly on Epson papers, and sometimes on Slickrock metallic pearl 260, Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Hahnemuehle Photorag, all 17" roll paper

bye - Peter
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Peter Sorantin
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digitaldog

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so what Mark Segal and Andrew (?) 'digitaldog' are saying is that the Epson driver has come along way and really doesnt make Imageprint a requirement, if you stay with non-exotic papers - correct?
There's a point of diminishing returns. In the old days (when IP was on OS9 and it literally took days to get it installed), it was the only game in town for good B&W images. Those days are over. Prior to LR and the Print Module, it had more juice. IP's dither was slightly superior back then too; not sure if that's different today with respect to Epson or if it's worth the extra money (a LOT of extra money). Add the Dongle mess, I don't see the point. But I haven't seen the point since V6 of IP and yes, I still have a silver dongle in my dongle collections (I muse have nearly 2 dozen, some dating back to the serial port days). Hate them! In the days I used it and made custom profiles, mine were better!  ;D
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Mark D Segal

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so what Mark Segal and Andrew (?) 'digitaldog' are saying is that the Epson driver has come along way and really doesnt make Imageprint a requirement, if you stay with non-exotic papers - correct?

I am printing mostly on Epson papers, and sometimes on Slickrock metallic pearl 260, Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Hahnemuehle Photorag, all 17" roll paper

bye - Peter

Hi Peter; I have found that I did not/do not need any RIP for getting what to me was/is highly satisfactory colour and BW results, measured objectively and observed subjectively, using the Epson driver, and more recently the Canon driver in the context of proper image editing in Lr and Ps. This applies to ANY inkjet paper I've tested as long as the profiles are good.

That said, I have not made objectively measured comparisons of printer proofing targets comparing an ImagePrint result with a custom-profiled result from the Epson driver as the Epson driver comes at no charge with the printer, while Imageprint does not. I would not invest about 1200 CAD for the fun of doing this.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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PeterAit

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Outrageous to ask you to spend $895 to replace the lost dongle. Outrageous to automatically assume that a long-time customer is a cheat. Dongles are old technology, so "20th century." Web-based activation is so common these days, used by Adobe and Microsoft and ... the list is endless. Plus, ImagePrint itself is the biggest rip-off (sorry!) in the world of photography software. I gave the trial version a thorough workout on my 7900 compared with LR printing and the paper manufacturer's profiles. Subtle differences? Yes. Better? No.
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Mark D Segal

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............ I gave the trial version a thorough workout on my 7900 compared with LR printing and the paper manufacturer's profiles. Subtle differences? Yes. Better? No.

This is an important observation Peter. It could be useful to know which papers you used for these comparisons. It would be interesting for an appropriately equipped person to redo these kinds of comparisons now that Epson has produced the deepest Maximum Black in its history with the new SC-PX000 printers, and to use first-rate custom profiles with the Epson driver rather than OEM profiles. That set of tests would add another data point along with your observations.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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loganross

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I know you did not address the question to me,
but I use Ilford GFS and Smooth Gloss, Moab Somerset Museum Rag and Slickrock, Hahnenuhle Fine Art Barayta, Barayta FB, and Photo Rag UltraSmooth; and the Canon papers.  I currently own Imageprint. I have found my current workflow without imageprint to produce equal, and in some cases better prints.
 
so what Mark Segal and Andrew (?) 'digitaldog' are saying is that the Epson driver has come along way and really doesnt make Imageprint a requirement, if you stay with non-exotic papers - correct?

I am printing mostly on Epson papers, and sometimes on Slickrock metallic pearl 260, Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, Hahnemuehle Photorag, all 17" roll paper

bye - Peter
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Mark D Segal

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I know you did not address the question to me,
but I use Ilford GFS and Smooth Gloss, Moab Somerset Museum Rag and Slickrock, Hahnenuhle Fine Art Barayta, Barayta FB, and Photo Rag UltraSmooth; and the Canon papers.  I currently own Imageprint. I have found my current workflow without imageprint to produce equal, and in some cases better prints.

Again very interesting observation Logan. Could you inform: what printer are you using - especially is it the same one for both with and without ImagePrint, and when you say "better prints" - could you elaborate a bit indicating in what respects?
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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deanwork

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I’ve been using QtR for black and white with any inset on Epson printers for at least 18 years and it was far bettter than Imageprint ages ago and now because you could/ can always Linearize it yourself for any media, and it was always $50.00.


Again very interesting observation Logan. Could you inform: what printer are you using - especially is it the same one for both with and without ImagePrint, and when you say "better prints" - could you elaborate a bit indicating in what respects?
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