Impression in Studio

Yes, it is. My issue is that I own Impression and it’s showing up as black instead of blue. Blue would indicate I own it.

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There are a lot of moving parts to get the Validate Plugin process to work, so if your accounts aren’t in order, for any reason, it will fail. It doesn’t mean the process is broken, as the vast majority of folks have no problem whatsoever. As with any big new feature like this Validate Plugin process, there will be rare edge cases that prevent the feature from working. We sew those up as they are reported to us, and eventually, it just works for everyone. We’re getting closer to tidying this feature up, and we’re only at our second pass (Clarity, now Impression). The process will improve for each new product we put through it.

For anyone that is still having issues, please submit a ticket, and allow us time to correct your account and notify you, before attempting it again. Constantly trying to validate your plugins over and over, only adds to the server load. However, we did upgrade our Topaz Studio server today, adding a 5x increase in processing power. It should keep up with the busiest of request periods, going forward, but we’ll be keeping an eye on it to make sure it truly is sufficient.

We’re also working through a large ticket load, thanks to the Impression in Studio update announcement, which means there will be some delay in getting back to everyone. We’re doing our best to make sure everyone at least gets an initial reply from one of us, in a timely manner. If we cannot address it in one message, you’re going to be joining 500+ other people right now, that are awaiting a second message. We’re a small team, and can only work so fast, but we never stop working. We don’t count hours, we just work until we must rest, find a bit of rest, and get back to it. You’d be surprised to learn just how many hours we do put into it. In the last 2.5 years, I’ve handled over 42,000 requests, myself. You can do the math if you’d like, but that’s a LOT for just one person. We’ve expanded support to include myself and Rose, but we’re still shorthanded when faced with ~1,500 tickets in a period of a week or two. It takes time to answer everyone, especially because we take the time to answer each request personally.

Never worry, we answer everyone. If you’re having problems, we have been able to fix 100% of the people that haven’t been able to validate so far, and have reached out. If you’re still waiting on us to respond and fix your validate plugins process for your account, you’ll be a part of that 100% in no time.

Don’t forget, you can always use the previous version of Impression 2 while you wait, which can be downloaded here:

Thanks for all your support, and to anyone still having trouble, I look forward to getting you fixed up. Free upgrades are the best!

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Hadn’t noticed that! Mine is blue so I must be ok.

Yeah, something on the back end; I’ve submitted a ticket #126304. With dual accounts (Topaz Labs and Topaz Studios) it appears something is amiss.

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It was mentioned on Facebook that there was a communication backlog, in your case you were trying to get Impression to appear as an adjustment in v1.1.9 which was never going to happen as it was introduced in v1.2.7

Same problem. I own all the topaz plugins. Updated Studio to v1.2.8. Validated the plugins. Impression adjustments or brushes not showing in the right hand panel. Only try pro in the drop down menu.

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Tried that. But it is not working. I own all of the topaz plug ins. They are under my products. Add Impression to the shopping cart but the price was not 0 but 59.99. Removed it from the shopping cart.

The full instructions for upgrading Impression is here:

I followed the full instructions as mentioned in the link but it is not working.

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For the time being use try pro and submit a Technical Support request … make sure that you are only using the production version, that means you need to shutdown PS, LR and any other apps that are using the plugin and run the standalone version before validating.

I was using the standalone version, Submitted a ticket.

AiDon

Even after updating to v.1.28 (I did read your prior post) Impression didn’t appear until the corrupted database for accounts was repaired, some of which was mentioned by Joe.
You keep insisting the problems that have appeared with this update have to be the users fault and that is extremely annoying and not helpful at all. But you seem to need to have the last word in putting the blame on the user.

AiDon is not a Topaz employee but a user like the rest of us. He is very knowledgeable and his input has been very helpful in many instances. Most of the time, problems are caused by a users particular individual setup and not at the Topaz level.

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I had all these problems and had tried all the suggestions for solving the problem. Strangely I gave up deciding that I had spent enough time trying to get this to work. (All of my efforts had been in Studio stand-alone) I then opened PS and opened Topaz Studio as a plug-in. A pop-up appeared and I followed it’s suggestions (all of which I had already done in the stand alone) but it now works, both within PS and in the Stand-alone. I have no answer as to why this should be but accept the fact that it is. But strangely I did receive an email to say that it was the receipt for my purchases - cost £0.00! As Alice might say weirder and weirder.

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Here is what I did

  • Login to Topaz Plug-ins account
  • Login to Topaz Studio account
  • Launch Studio and Validate Plugins

My logins to both account are the same. After validation completed, I got an email that showed order is completed. However, the order did not contain any impression info. So Impression still did not work in Studio. If you noticed the steps above, you will see I followed the instructions suggested by Topaz. Then I went back to Studio account and noticed Impression is listed on My Products so I put it on the cart where the price showed 0. After I submitted the order, I got an order completed email. This time, Impression is listed and worked in studio.

I believe Topaz does an internal order for us owners of plugins after logging in to both accounts and verifying the ownership. I did the same when ordering ProPack to make the pack work. I, like you, submitted a ticket. I found a way to make Impression work, yet the ticket is still OPEN. @JoeFedric-TL mentioned the volumes of similar tickets they have to deal with so do not expect a quick fix.

Topaz got to find a way to save us some frustrations. I did not experience the Clarity issue as the ProPack already has the two Clarity adjustments. I know developers are working hard but QA process is just not there in my view. Personally, I still use Impression as a plug-in.

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He’s a user, too. Please note, AiDon is a moderator, not a Topaz Employee. Only forum members like me will have the Topaz Logo, as you can see on my post.

That has no bearing on gaining ownership in the new Studio site. [quote=“letitbe, post:35, topic:1854”]
I found a way to make Impression work, yet the ticket is still OPEN. @JoeFedric-TL mentioned the volumes of similar tickets they have to deal with so do not expect a quick fix.
[/quote]

We’ve been focusing on fixing various issues we’ve found with the validation process, as this is only our second pass at it (Clarity, now Impression). It will improve each time we update a product in this manner. [quote=“letitbe, post:35, topic:1854”]
I know developers are working hard but QA process is just not there in my view.
[/quote]

Hi - head of QA here! Let me know what tests you’d recommend us run, to catch these edge cases, and I’ll gladly implement them! So far, the problems we’ve found have been pretty obscure, and not as simple as “just fix it”, to address. I’m all ears if you have a testing tool that you’d suggest that could catch these specific kinds of issues :slight_smile:

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I just replied to your request, @Kathy_9

The process did not work for you, because your Impression license key was not listed on our account. I’ve corrected that, and updated your tickets. Please submit only one next time, as multiple tickets slows us down (#126374 & #126119).

You should now be able to go through the validation process.

It’s now showing as owned (blue) - thank you.

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@JoeFedric-TL Thanks for your reply. Here are my views on this thread.

  1. I had the same issue raised in this thread which is why I offered my “workaround”. I am not sure how you do ownership validation and I indeed received an order completed email with nothing there after validation (Order #81555). The empty confirmation led me believe an internal purchase order was placed after validation so I put Impression in the cart and submitted the order. Another order confirmation email came in (#TS-10046409) and Impression suddenly worked in Studio. I was fine with Clarity because the ProPack already has the adjustment components.

  2. I know what you mean regarding my statement about QA and I feel for you. I am a software developer too and know how hard to do feature integration testing (different OS platforms, browsers, accounts and database syncing etc.). However, I would not call the issue we experienced here as edge or obscure. Clearly there is a pattern here, first Clarity then Impression integration with Studio. I know things are getting better and your staff are working hard. But I feel the whole process is rushed. Three update releases in a day previously told me something about your QA process. I am not sure about the Studio and future PlugIns support road map. It appears all the plugins will be integrated with Studio. So why not taking time and moving plugins into Studio all together. Opening a beta testing process or having these beta testers try them so you can work out all the issues.

I like Topaz products and bought ProPack (was very frustrated to make the pro tools work then) when Studio was launched. I have all the plugins but only use some. I believe a slow update process can reduce supporting tickets and give us a great updating experience.

Thanks for your hard work.

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