This is a goodlooking and full-featured piece of software. Even though I installed the previous giveaway of Zoner Photo Studio 12, I haven't had an opportunity to explore all of its features yet. I'm very pleased to have it so thanks to Zoner Software and GOTD for the giveway.

However, I did have a couple of issues with installation. I installed Zoner Photo Studio 13 without uninstalling Zoner Photo Studio 12, on the assumption that it would replace it. Instead it left the previous version installed, and created a parallel set of folders in Application Data, My Documents and Program Files. While installing, it asked whether it should import all of the settings from the ZPS12 but didn't ask if the user wants to uninstall it. I think it should do that.

A worse issue arose when I tried to uninstall ZPS12 manually. The uninstaller simply hung. I was forced to cancel the process, whereupon Windows Explorer crashed and I was forced to reboot. In the end, I had to delete ZPS12 from the registry and Program Files manually. Not very elegant. Then when I ran ZPS13, my Windows debugger was triggered. So I installed ZPS13 again, just in case removing ZPS12 had somehow damaged ZPS13. None of these problems would have arisen if Zoner Software had started from the reasonable assumption that a user MIGHT only want one version of Zoner Photo Studio on their system, and had asked that question.

Zoner Software, I would greatly appreciate some clarification from you on one point. As we would expect, the terms of the giveaway are "No free upgrades to future versions". However, there seems to be no way to turn off the automatic update checks. Also, your terminology implies that the next version will be ZPS14. So it's not clear whether it is safe, under the term of this giveaway, to accept new builds of ZPS13, using the automatic update checks which can't be switched off. Please let us know.

Julia  –  15 years ago  –  Комментарий оказался полезным? да | нет (+70)

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I was wrong. It seems that all versions of this soft share the same Help file. According to publisher website, Zoner Photo Studio 13 Home has no RAW module, Professional version has this feature.

Vladimir  –  15 years ago  –  Комментарий оказался полезным? да | нет (+58)

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Hello rizla01,

I definitely agree with the advice to check the comparison chart, and thank you for linking to it. Whether the glass is half empty or half full is a more individual decision, but I'll still take the liberty of highlighting a couple of large advantages of Home over Free.

First is the ability to work with selections in the Editor. This is in Home and not in Free. Almost any time you want to do any thing with just one area in a picture, being able to work with selections is very important.

Second is the ability to work with GPS information, that is, info about where a picture was taken. This is a lot of fun for vacation photos or any kind of travel photos. We also have corporate and government users who turn this kind of power into profit or public benefit too.

These are nowhere near the only differences! But I'd say they're two good examples of cool or useful things only available in Home or higher.

Erik Piper - Zoner Software  –  15 years ago  –  Комментарий оказался полезным? да | нет (+51)

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Hello all,

lots of comments since I last looked! So, here are lots of answers!

Angie tam -
we're gathering up comments and suggestions just like the one in comment 11, but we're doing it in a special place this time. Scroll up above the comments to the Share Your Ideas section and use the "Give Your Feedback" button there to make sure your idea won't be missed. This is extra-important because for this GotD, we're giving out prizes for the 3 best suggestions.

You don't need to uninstall version 12 before installing version 13. It's harmless to keep the old version around, except for the bit of extra hard drive space.


Julia -
the uninstallation troubles are unsettling to hear about, and definitely be sent to our support line. Off the cuff I don't know what to say about them except that fortunately, they are unusual.

Regarding updates and upgrades: Updates are different from upgrades. Updates are improvements and fixes within the same version number. Upgrades are new version numbers. Updates are free; only upgrades cost money. The update checker *makes* updates, but only *informs about* possible upgrades.

Keep the comments coming!

Erik Piper
Zoner Software Customer Support

Erik Piper - Zoner Software  –  15 years ago  –  Комментарий оказался полезным? да | нет (+47)

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Well for what it's worth I was about to mention this freebie on a certain Photography site but I am not impressed.

There are very few features that this has to offer, over the free version.

Check out the comparison table here.

http://www.zoner.com/__download/zps-13-edition-comparison.pdf

Thanks but no thanks for me.

rizla01  –  15 years ago  –  Комментарий оказался полезным? да | нет (+33)

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