Upgrading Lifetime License

[psybear]

Hi.

New here. I've been waiting patiently for Black Friday to purchase HF having previously used the free demo version.

I've read the list of differences between the Lite and the Pro, but I'm still not sure which I should buy. I can see that the Pro version allows 'saving to .dng' so I initially thought that the Lite must only output jpegs, but no, it can output jpegs and .TIFF files. I'm not sure if I need the 'Specialized retouching tools', the "OpenCL hardware acceleration' or the 'Batch mode and stack autosplitting'.

I'd welcome any advice from experienced users on which to go for.

I'd also like to hear from the HF folk - if I opted for the Lite and later discover that it's not sufficient for my needs, could I upgrade to the Pro and just pay the $60-odd difference in the current BF prices (hope that's not too cheeky)?

[Catherine]

Hi,

You can upgrade at any time using links in your Helicon Help Desk, but the price will change depending on whether or not there is currently a sale going on.

OpenCL makes rendering faster, but functionally does not change anything. Just a quality of life improvement.

[psybear]

Okay thanks.

So I could order the Lite today and test between now and Monday, and if necessary upgrade to Pro on Monday for the current price difference?

[Catherine]

Yes, you could definitely do that, but if you miss the end of the sale it will be back to regular price.

[shutterbug]

IMO it depends on how frequently you use it.
If you do a lot of stacks - and very deep stacks with +100 images - it's certainly a lot quicker using hardware acceleration, especially on something like a Mac M1. And batch/split stacking is quite useful for very deep stacks too.

As for DNG - personally I think it's far better than JPEG/TIFF as you can still edit the image like a regular RAW file, the dynamic range is retained and I don't have to export the images to JPEG/TIFF beforehand. Yes, it's a bit slower but with hardware acceleration it's quick enough.