Problem with Ultimate 2022 on Win 8.1 (and not with Win 10)

[Jurek V]

Hello! This is my first post to the forum, but I'm familiar with it, having browsed around quite a lot.


I recently tested a friend's Ultimate 2020 and 2021 (he lent me a spare licence), and greatly enjoyed playing with them. It looked like I could put an end to a long search started when Apple's Aperture left a lot of orphans behind. So, having some free time now, and hoping to catch the year end promotion, I've been giving a try to Ultimate 2022. My workflow is very straightforward, since I shoot only RAW: quick selection in Manage, deeper check in View (with RAW decode), then straight to Develop with each selected photo. And here I got a nasty surprise: As Develop opens a new RAW, the whole image gets bathed with a loss of resolution and an awful glow. For a few seconds it blinks three times: normal - glow - normal - glow - normal - stable glow. 'Glow' means that everything acquires a broad, luminous halo, similar to what you'd probably get if you could slide Clarity to -200 or -300. A pretty unusable image. Nothing similar has ever happened with Ultimate 2020 and 2021 when I tested them on the same PC. Please note: this happens only with RAWs opened for the first time. If a RAW was manipulated in the past, it opens exactly as it was closed.


To make a long story short, I've discovered that deactivating Noise Reduction in the Detail tab (or just sliding to zero both Luminance and Color Noise Reduction) everything reverts to normal. But then I can't use Noise Reduction: As soon as I move those two sliders, the glow gets activated instantly in full, with no progression of sort. I've also found other ways to cancel the glow, but it always means involving a slider or some preset, and after that the RAW file isn't virgin land anymore.


I've manipulated everything I could in my desktop (various cleaning routines, a few uninstall, and so on) to no effect. I then installed the 2022 trial on my two laptops, which I don't use for photography, just to see what happened. On one I've Win 10, and everything run smoothly, the way it should. On the older one, with 8.1, the horrible glow immediately reared its head.


All in all, quite a mess. In my book this sounds like a big bug (those blinkings!), but I haven't found any mention of it around. Maybe no one is using Ultimate 2022 on so old machines?


My desktop is a Lenovo Ideacentre K450, Intel i7-4770, 16 Gb RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 with 2 Gb, Win 8.1 Home Build 9600. Disk C on SSD, photos on an internal 2 Tb HD. Ultimate 2022 Build 2798 downloaded December 24. Allow me to repeat that on this same machine both Ultimate 2020 and 2021 had no problem at all (bar variable measures of slowness).


Any suggestions? Thank you.


(Please, forgive my English. Italian is my mother tongue.)

[Regor250]

I believe there was a release after the initial one (2795) that fixed some win8.1 issues but I never paid attention to it since it didn't apply to me. It doesn't show as available if you do Check for Updates (which to the best of my knowledge does nothing, it won't even show that U2022 is available in U2021!) and I am not sure what build version that is, but something for you to investigate further perhaps to make sure that at least you have the right version (contact support). Your build is newer, so that looks like the most recent one. Other thing; not sure if it affect develop mode, but in Edit Mode options you can select Use primary - GPU. Try that. Can you post a screen capture so we see what you are talking about?

[Jurek V]

Thanks for asking for pictures, since it made me discover that the mess is getting labyrinthine. Indeed, I cannot export anything else than the embedded jpg (I always shoot only RAW). Whatever I see on screen, I always get the same exported picture (both as jpg or as tiff). So here are two couples of screen captures, which show exactly what I'm seeing on my screen.


Concerning the choice of screen card, I'm aware of it, but I couldn't see any difference between the two options, not even in speed. Usually I keep the Nvdia card selected. Also, I'm probably messing a bit with the Default Input Profile, but if I change it (for these picture it's set on sRGB IEC6) I see differences in colors but not in glow.


Concerning my version of Win 8.1, I don't plan touching it, because everything else works perfectly on my PC, and in a few months time I'll probably upgrade it to Win 10/11 or buy a new desktop.


Last but not least, please remember that Ultimate 2020 and 2021 behaved perfectly on the same PC, with the same options selected.

[Regor250]

Does this happen on all types of RAW files, or just a specific one?

[Jurek V]

All types (I have Oly ORF, Fuji RAF, Sony ARW).

[Regor250]

Then I'd venture to speculate that this new NR function doesn't agree with the video driver/setup on your win8.1 system. Does it also happen with JPEGs? Do you have a recent video driver installed? Have you tried tweaking video driver options from your Nvidia control app? That's the only option I can think of that you have control over, otherwise the solution rest on ACDSee developers to fix.

[Jurek V]

I updated the video drivers from Nvidia's site 2 or 3 months ago. I saw no change whatsoever then, so they probably were rather old drivers, not much different from what I already had onboard (my card has 6 or 7 years). No, I didn't think about tweaking them, but I've browsed them now. Nothing to see, just the usual gamma and dimensions and the like. Once more, please remember that I already had these same "new" drivers when I happily tested Ultimate 2020 and 2021. And also that the same glow appears on the laptop with Win 8.1 installed, which of course is a very different machine. They only have in common being Lenovo and running on Win 8.1.

Concerning jpegs, I never open them in Develop (I just produce them 'out' of Develop), but I tested them now and saw no change. Being in the program, I tested a few different RAWs. As already said, recent RAWs already elaborated with previous versions of Ultimate can be opened without glow, only RAWs opened for the first time with 2022 produce it. Now I noticed also that older RAWs, on which I worked with other programs (Lightroom, CaptureOne, RawTherapy) react now like new RAWs, i.e. producing that glow.

Thank you for your interest and suggestions.

[Regor250]

I am pretty sure the old edited RAW work because the old denoise model is applied in backward compatibility until the parameters are changed at which point the new model is applied. If the RAW was processed with another application, the development parameters stored in the XMP would not show that the old NR model was applied, hence the new model is applied. This is how this works according to ACDSee in a previous discussion thread. Thus the issue it seems resides with the new NR model. The issue occuring on different win8.1 machine would suggest the "bug" is with one of the native windows drivers, not the GPU driver, the odd chance being that both machines have the same GPU drivers.

[Jurek V]

Thanks for the information. I could imagine some process of that kind, good to know for sure that it actually works that way.

In both PCs I've selected Edit Mode -> GPU selection -> Use primary, which in my case means the Nvidia cards. They're a discrete GeForce GTX 750 in the desktop and a GeForce 840M in the laptop. I don't know if such selection actually forces the program to use them, and not the Intel graphics. According to the respective Device Managers -> Display adapters, both cards have the most recent drivers and are 'working properly'. :-(

[Regor250]

If I were you I'd definitely raise a support ticket on that one. In win10, you can set applications to run with the GPU as an option, not sure if you can do that in win8.1.

[Jurek V]

I'm pretty sure that Nvdia is managing graphics and screen on both PCs. Actually, my desktop's Device Manager shows only that, no Intel graphics available as an alternative as in the laptop.

On January 1, I received a kind email from ACDSee, which I presume is sent automatically to all potential customers who requested a trial. I was invited to report any problem or request of further informations. Two days later I answered reporting my problem and linking my post in the forum for more detailed informations about it. I even suggested I could be interested in buying the 2021 version, if still possible and after a short trial. Unfortunately, two more days later I still haven't received any reply.

Today the year end promotion expired, so now I'll take my time. My short but accurate experience with Photo Studio 2021 was a real pleasure, deeply convincing. Unfortunately, I couldn't check whether 2022 is as good as 2021, so I see no reason to buy it for the time being. In a few months time I'll probably switch to Win 10, maybe with a new desktop, and one of the very first thing I'll do will be a new trial of 2022, or maybe 2023.

Thanks again for your kind support.

[S.hussain]

Hello,

Thanks for reporting the issue. Sorry about the delay, but we have identified the problem and a fix is coming soon.

Sincerely,

Shakil H.
ACD Systems