Other Software > Found Deals and Discounts

Sagelight Editor - $39.95 Lifetime Promotion Ending July 1st

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Bionic71:
Well.. yes, it was not a quickly change, myself stressed buying before stated date.
I cant say I'm angry as he dealt & implemented many new hot features, I'm impressed and see now why he's been busy.

After reading his forum I know that rob is in the progress of splitting the program apart.
These changes will occur very soon, if I recall there will be Free/Standard/Pro, still discounted is the Pro license $39.95 lifetime offer

Great program & no regrets   :Thmbsup:

Rob Nelson:
Hi, Everyone.

I thought I'd tell you what I am up to with Sagelight and explain where I am at with current pricing and future plans.

First, thanks a lot for all the support.  I appreciate it very much.  I apologize for the sale issue, but also want to explain why all that happened.

In the last year, I have added a lot to Sagelight, and the last release was definitely a major release with the Lens Blur/Bokeh, which turned out to be much harder than I thought it would! 

As I add more and more functions to Sagelight, the pressure to raise the price has grown also, as $39.95 doesn't really reflect the level of functions inside of Sagelight any longer.

On the other side, though, is that as I do add more functionality to Sagelight, it has been really great to expose those features to people who would never buy an advanced image editor at a greater price.  For example, the Bokeh/Lens Blur that was recently added is typically found in packages that are fairly expensive (Alien Skin, for example is $200, and DOF Pro is $99), and I have received a lot of e-mails and comments from people exploring and having fun with it who would never buy a package with Bokeh/Lens Blur in it due to the price.

With the other functions in Sagelight (such as the Light Blender, Vignetting, Tone Blender, Power Curves, Masking, etc.), it's also been great to give people the exposure to the wonderful world of image editing who normally wouldn't even know that they could do so much with their images.

Many Sagelight customers are on a fixed income or find $39.95 the their upper-limit due to their financial circumstances.

I've been looking for ways to split Sagelight and also to find ways to make the higher-end functions of Sagelight available to as many people as possible.

While I didn't mean to mislead anyone about the sale, finding the right way to keep Sagelight as cheap as possible, while not devaluing it with a price that is too-low, and keeping in the spirit of why I started Sagelight has been a difficult and ongoing task. 

Right now, the current plan is to split it into a standard and "Enthusiast/Pro" version, though I would also like to continue to find other options that lets everyone enjoy Sagelight, as $79.95 gets out of the range of a lot of people.

I originally started Sagelight for two purposes.  One was to create an image editor with powerful functions that I've always wanted to see.  The other was to write an image editor that was (hopefully) also very fast and easy to use so that people who never thought about image editing (other than removing red-eye and cropping, that sort of thing) could see how much of an artistic endeavor it definitely can be.

Sagelight is still a young editor (at 3 years old), and, actually, I never expected Sagelight to have so many features and to get so big as it is now, and I am planning much more in the next year.  The current plan is to build verison 5 over the next year (with pre-releases as things are added), adding HDR (both artistic/single-frame as well as multi-frame), extended layers/stacks, more masking functionality, content-aware object removal, comprehensive paint function (i.e. for image coloring and painting, in various modes such as Soft light, hard light, dodge & burn, etc.), procedural language scripting, automation, NL means noise-reduction, RAW staging area, as well as updating and upgrading many current functions to be even better (like the LightBlender, Power Box, etc. (not to mention a few notable bugs. :) )).

The great thing is that these are all already designed, and just need to be put in.

I'ts been a great process, and I really appreciate the support here and posts on the discussion board, as well as the positive e-mails -- it definitely makes all the difference.

I'd be interested in any thoughts you might have on the pricing structure.  As I mentioned, the current plan is to split it into two versions around the end of the year (I am just wrapping up the 4.2 release, and starting on the last version 4 release).  But, it would also be great to hear any other ideas about how to keep Sagelight accessible to those whose price range is just not in the $80 area.  I'd love to make Sagelight available to anyone who wants it.  While that's probably not possible, perhaps some creative ideas might make something closer to that possible.

Thanks again,

Rob

rgdot:
In my opinion in the age of online apps pricing for offline apps is even more difficult. There are niche, one (or few) feature apps (extensions, programs, etc.) that go for much less than $39. My limited experience suggests that you make a standard version for as feature rich and cheap as possible, under $30 perhaps. Then go for it for the pro version, $80 or more.

CWuestefeld:
Rob, if I'm at all typical of your customers, then the choice for Sagelight was made over upgrading Corel PaintShop Pro, which I can purchase for ~$90. Since I decided that your app is superior, at least for editing of photos, I think it would be possible to go with a number in that neighborhood. (FWIW, PSP is probably better for some kinds of tasks, but when it comes to optimizing a photograph, you're the hands-down winner)

You didn't actually ask, but I'll weigh in on future functionality -- because that's the kind of guy I am  :P

When I'm using Sagelight, I still rely on two plugins: Alien Skin Image Doctor and Topaz DeNoise. So from my perspective, the quickest way to become my full-feature editor is to provide those function -- easy-to-use noise and more effective noise filtering, and object removal. I'd also love to see some kind of object detection coupled with the masking feature.

Something else you just said struck a chord with me: "extended layers/stacks". You're currently referring to this as "layers", but that's confusing because it really has nothing to do with the layering feature found in PSP or Photoshop. Changing terminology to "stacks" might prevent such confusion.

JavaJones:
As someone whose "other editor" is $300 (Lightroom), I find your pricing considerations and general range to be very, very reasonable! Now granted LR does things that Sagelight does not do, things I wish SL did, and I cannot replace LR with SL right now because of that. Photo organizing, tagging, and uploading are the majority of that, but also things like HDR plugins. At the same time SL can do things that LR doesn't, or at least do things in ways that are easier to control and/or produce better results. The new lens blur/bokeh stuff is a great example.

So while I understand people's comments about "the app world" and whatnot, I also see the other side of things where SL is actually a tremendous deal compared to other *similarly capable* apps. That's the thing though, does SL have a professional reputation and if not, could it develop one? That's what you need to charge more than about $50 I think, or $100 at most. It's little or nothing to do with the actual capabilities which, as I've said, are excellent and already surpass programs that cost much more in some ways.

If I'm being honest, I think the UI design is probably the lest professional-seeming thing about SL. It's hard to put my finger on, but it feels less clean and polished than LR, Bibble, and the like. More colors, gradients, and icons than clear lines and text, perhaps. Beveled edges, that sort of thing. And the general feel and workflow is good, but still somehow just doesn't "feel" as "solid" as LR and others. That may be just my personal, subjective opinion of course.

At any rate I definitely understand the pricing difficulties. I admire your dedication to keeping features accessible, and that's one thing I've dealt with personally at Planetside Software where we make a fully free (with some limitations) version of our software available. I also understand the pro vs. hobbyist vs. amateur debate and the difficulty in establishing the right perceptions of your product, *especially* when you want to keep things accessible to a wide range of users and price points. I suspect that sometimes you do just have to make a sacrifice of one or the other, or take some radical approach like making an entirely different product (at least in name). But I do have some suggestions for a pro vs. "light" split if you're interested. I suspect you might not agree, but I think any decision you make on it is going to involve some compromise in your core desires and values. If that weren't the case I expect you'd have made a decision by now. ;)

By the way, great to hear that HDR functionality (that I recently emailed you about) is planned!

- Oshyan

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