A fair question

Today or tomorrow we will upload the second Remix update in two weeks that consists almost entirely of "bug fixes". Some of our users would like to know why this is necessary, even if Remix is still "beta software". It’s a fair question.

Before we answer, bear in mind that we act on your bugs and suggestions really quickly. That's why we release updates every week, and any deal-breakers you uncover go straight to the head of the line.

So here goes (and sorry for the length) …

We believe professional photography as a whole is well supported by great software, starting with Photoshop.

But that’s NOT true of specialty software for the portrait and wedding sector.

There are maybe a hundred thousand photographers across North America, the UK, Ireland and Australasia. That would be a small market for a major application even if everybody got in behind it, which they haven’t! Instead we have a software vacuum that has been filled largely by well meaning but under-resourced IT enthusiasts writing software as a sideline, and individual vendors producing solutions to their own workflow problems as best they can.

We believe that’s a second-rate solution.

Our goal is to build an outstanding application, powerful enough to deliver to all wedding and portrait photographers, and their vendors, a professional solution to their image processing needs.

An example of our "path to release" is Parallels (which allows users to run Windows on Intel Macs). Parallels was released in beta form at reduced prices, as we are doing, and the program evolved through several releases before going to “final”. It was thanks to the beta testers that a great program was developed. I know. I use it, and I was a beta tester.

But here’s an interesting point. If PJ Remix ends up with as many users as Parallels had while it was still in beta, we would be very happy. What does that mean? At any given step along the way there are likely to be more bugs “as yet undiscovered”, simply because software evolves and consolidates as more users explore and use it. We wish it wasn’t so!

There is no law saying you have use beta software, or suffer its occasional frustrations, and that’s why we are so grateful to those who do it anyway!

Happy holidays - from Ian and all the PJ Team