I had to reinstall Windows. GRRR
where to I access my copy of CGS 2018?
That's the thing I really hate about download-only software. It's a good idea to back-up the original download installer file. Hindsight is 20/20 vision though. I can log into my Corel account and see several past registered versions of CorelDRAW along with their serial numbers. But Corel doesn't let you directly access the main installer file, just the patches. I seem to remember being able to download the main installer files from the downloads page in the past.I don't understand this policy. If you, the customer, bought a copy of CorelDRAW, registered and activated it then that should be enough to be granted access to download the main installer file (as well as the updates for that version). When you reinstall the software you have to sign into your Corel account, enter the serial number and activate it. This whole "we need a proof of purchase" email thing makes no sense.I just did an overhaul of an old personal notebook (new 1TB SSD and upgrade from 8 to 16GB of RAM). Put Win 10 Pro in it clean. I installed Adobe Creative Cloud on it (for now until I buy the new notebook I'm planning to buy). All I needed was my user name and password to get running. I installed personal copies of X8 and CDR 2020 on this old notebook; thankfully I had the ZIP installer files, patches, etc.
Great fear of piracy, weaponized against the actual customers.
I wasn't planning on this. I was supposed to be a 10 min job adding ram. I didn't know it would blow out into killing off and actually deleting my software, emails, passwords... Unbootable is unbootable... you would think after 30 year Microsoft would have managed a repair utility that worked. I think it has something to do with the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). I doubt if Windows can get inside that to fix anything. If it could that would potentially be a security risk.
I've downloaded 10 years of Paypal as CVS, found the Corel transaction, given it to them raw with the "", explained that it was an issue at the time as I was updating the post beta. Which didn't matter as I'd owned the copy before. Said it is urgent and screwing me over on a job, which it is. Told them to talk directly to Gérard Métrailler.
That was 10 hours ago. I'd say 24 hours was long enough for them to sort it out. That's about how long it will take me to get everything reloaded that I need for the job.
I'm very intolerant of people who say "that can't possibly be done". But I will try to just let this proceed without contacting support again. And I'll feedback what happens.
You are correct, you should be able to download the software at call. Things happen! Computers are stolen, HD go US, you buy a new computer... and you can do that. But if you have paid for something and you are not on Corel's DB then it isn't really your problem is it!
It "feels like" call centre bullshit from the telco. I had a classic this week. A customer with 4 emails that are jamming his email feed that I can't delete no matter what I do. I've had to wait 2 months while they developed the covid safe call centre.
Yani "Well if you can't do this by accessing his account and deleting the emails on the server then delete the whole account and recreate it."
Tech Support "Creating an email account is a sales job and it will take 2 days."
2 days for 1 minute of effort! Support can't even create an email account for an existing customer?
This is some bullshit attitude I've never been allowed. I'll bet ya most of us have done all nighters to meet a deadline, worked weekends without overtime, done our share of author's corrections and dared not complain. I thought that was called the "real world". Maybe I just got it all *** about face again. In the "real world" it takes 2 days to set up an email. Which is about the same amount of effort as to fix my license on the server.
Never see anything ever that related to a AMD processor issue.
Lots of Windows people using Davinci Resolve are jumping ship because it renders 15% faster on the same hardware when running Linux. They pick AMD graphics cards because AMD use "open source" drivers on Linux.
It's now Friday, no contact from Corel Support. My guess is that they are claiming I invented CVS data from Paypal and payment isn't proof of purchase. Feels like they don't even have a too hard basket, they just ignore what doesn't fit the flow chart of allowed responses.
The guys I watched were MAC guys moving to Ryzen due to costs. Each and every one of them had serious driver issues which took months to resolve.
All of them were serious tech people and 2 of them do tech videos on YouTube professionally. All of the regularly deal with crash issues with Davinci.
Of the several I watched none ever went back to MAC one did stay with Adobe, in fairness his operation was 10 times larger than anyone's else and their logic made sense due to volume.
Davinci Resolve has operations that eat up GPU RAM. That's the issue I'm dealing with. When I upgraded to a 4K camera X4 the image area, the Geforce GTX cards won't take the load of some operations. You needed a lot of GPU RAM.
A lesser GPU with more RAM seems like a better choice.
Then with Resolve 16 they improved the way GPU memory is used.
Anyways... I've been looking about for software that uses AI for imaging and found this $90 gem.
https://skylum.com/luminar-c
This is something else... Remove dark rings under eyes with a slider! Make a face narrower. Improve skin texture. Replace a sky with a single click.
It's something new to add to your "image pipeline".
Unfortunately the PS plugin will only work with PP up to 24bit. That's a big hole in the ability of PP to perform into the future. One that is unresolved for 10+ years. And we are still waiting for support who are no doubt doing their very best to do nothing.
I see the 24/48 issue all the time with many apps. Unfortunately today you simply have to look at different apps and find different filters to fix, or try and fix the myriad of problems that exist today with images.
I keep three in my toolbox all the time and depending on circumstances I use all 3 on most images.
If it was an easy fix for Corel then it would have been done by now. I suspect a deeper issue with compatibility related to Corel's implementation of 48bit. Or maybe just not a big enough feature for Corel marketing to sell.
Have a go at Luminar. It gives you an insight into what we can expect for AI in imagining. If you were a portrait or landscape photographer, it would be a must have.
Actually Photo-PAINT 2020 had a few filters working in 48 bit that didn't before. I'll list them when I bet back to my system.
A few filters working after 10 years of asking isn't going to win any hearts.
PP is good for arting images @24bit and for text. It's a total fail as a "photographers" program.
If you are shooting in 12-14bpc then you simply don't want to scale down to 24bit except when all editing is done and you are posting to the web. I wouldn't even put a 24bit file in Draw to make a PDF.
Even though I suspect you are never going to see a difference in a CMYK printed document, there have been plenty of times I've needed to make a minor edit to an image in Draw after seeing a proof.
Corel have had 10 years to create a stronger interface between Draw and PP, to get high bit color to a point that is equal to 24bit and they have just ignored the issue.
Sadly, that doesn't make a subscription of $69 a month, value, to me.
You get nothing from unknown improvements, especially when you make zero effort to tell anyone! It may be they did it by mistake and don't know themselves.
I use PP for the core of my image editing it's a solid performer, limited by so few new features but the best display and color management.
My own photography and RAW files from clients get processed in AfterShot Pro to 16 bit Prophoto RGB.
I then screen all the conversions in PP for micro blow outs in the LMIN and micro posterizations in the DMAX. PP with it's super sharp display is great for this. In some cases I'll go back to the RAW file and convert again.
ALL RAW conversion software I'v tested have lousy displays, I don't care if they're free or cost $500 they are ok as long as it's going to presentation display or to a browser for display. The lousy display has been the trend since Photoshop 7.
After I'm happy with the conversion I bounce between PaintShop Pro and Photo-PAINT with the finals coming out of Photo-PAINT.
I never do any images in Draw, I convert a vector to image or resample but that's it, Draw has a terrible image display.
The 48 bit support is important for micro changes in RGB color for CMYK conversion and in some cases I may convert from 48 bit RGB to CMYK and undo that conversion 3 or 4 times or in some cases make multiple CMYK versions to compare before output. Today that kind of effort toward quality is not often seen. In my experience few are capable of making the effort pay well.
Here is a link to 2 images that have issues with being used on press, one much more worse than the other.
http://www.graphictechnology.com/imagedowload/
RAW editors and low/no cost image editors I have used do not show this well at their default zoom level, they show it but you have to work at it.
In Photo-PAINT with the default zoom it stands out really well, now Photo-PAINT certainly displays all the issues with images and that's great as it makes it easier to see them and the images always look better in print and display.
I have checked and all the image correction selections work in 48 bit as do all the selections in the adjust menu.
Oh a job at last! Let me see.