DXO announces Photolab 4, save 30% on new purchases and upgrades

usern4cr

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I've now done a test of PRIME vs DeepPRIME on a real image. It's a Migrant Hawker Dragonfly taken on the R5 with the 100-400mm II, 2xTC, f/11, 1/160s iso 1000. I did this a week or two ago using Adobe LR, followed by Topaz Sharpen-Stabilize and Topaz Denoise to get the best image then. Now, I did better straight off with DxO PL4, and very quickly. The two full images are at the bottom, reduced by the site to fit. At the top, is a comparison of the eyes at 100% crop. For PRIME alone, the very top (or on the left if your screen is narrow), you can just make out the individual lenses. Below (or on the right), they are less distinct with DeepPRIME. It fits in with my chart testing last night, DeepPRIME does remove the tiniest of detail, but still damn good.

View attachment 193498View attachment 193499
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Beautiful photos, AlanF!

The 1st (Prime) definitely looks better than the 2nd (DeepPrime). But it may be because they are using higher values for sharpening/contrast etc. Whatever the reason, to me Prime looks much better when pixel peeping.

Thanks for the post!
 
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usern4cr

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Quite some difference in your example indeed. Very interesting and a very nice picture!

Here's an example of the moiré I was talking about. Left/first picture is DeepPrime, bottom/right is normal Prime.
It is 100% crop of a dress. Be sure to watch in original size.

Edit: Taken with R5, 85mm 1.2, 500 ISO.

View attachment 193507 View attachment 193508
Thanks for the post, CobraSoft.
That's quite an improvement in moire reduction with the DeepPrime!
 
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usern4cr

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It opens CRAW - that's all I shoot in. Canon did a great job creating CRAW, with what appears to be lossless compression to all intents and purposes.
So all of your photo posts were from a compressed raw image? Impressive. I've been wondering which format I should use (raw or Craw) to shoot in, knowing I'll use DXO to initially process them. If you think Craw is the thing to use then it's really good to hear. Those 45MP files can get really big, especially if you take lots of them.
 
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Bert63

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The Dragonfly was a low iso image. I just took some horrible shots at iso 5000 and 800mm and took extreme crops of a few hundred pixels. Don't take the quality seriously, just look at the noise. You can see which is the DeepPRIME, the smaller one. PRIME is really good but DeepPRIME is even better very noisy images. So, for me, at low iso, PRIME, high iso (and Moire) DeepPRIME.

View attachment 193509View attachment 193510


Alan - thanks for taking the time to do this for all of us. I agree with your assessment (for what that’s worth) but wanted to say thanks - you always provide solid emotion-free information and it’s very much appreciated.
 
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Bert63

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So after spending most of the evening (and into the night) yesterday using the new version I’m ready to say it’s the best RAW developer I’ve ever used.

- I love the ability to move all the adjustment palettes wherever I like. I moved all the tools I use to the right side - histogram on top, then my custom user palette, then the metadata information module (minimized), and then finally the preset editor palette (minimized). This leaves the entire left side and bottom of my monitor open for a huge view of the photo being developed. I have my thumbnail loupe detached and running in my left monitor.

- I love how they‘ve categorized the different sections of the developing process into different palette ’tabs’ that you can quickly click through. This might be the best thing they’ve done for this program since it’s inception. It’s perfect.

- I love how you can switch between your user palette and all active modules with one click.

- I think the addition of the DeepPrime tech is legitimate. I was skeptical that there would be a real difference between DeepPrime and Prime, but there is. The three modes of noise reduction available reaffirms my opinion that DxO has the best noise reduction available in a RAW developer ‘suite’..

- Local adjustment features seem to work faster and smoother. Previously if I had used the local adjustment tools to any significant degree the program would lag a bit. Not anymore. I purposely overused the repair tool to see if I could recreate the effect and it never lagged to any degree. It was never a major issue - my machine is purpose-built and more than capable of processing pretty much anything you can throw at it, but what I perceived as lag in the local adjustments isn’t there anymore.

- My only con is that there is still no option to export your custom user palette.

Share your thoughts, likes and dislikes.
 
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bbasiaga

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@Bert63

I downloaded the free trial a couple days ago. This is the first raw developer i've used, besides DPP 4.x.

I'm not a major editor. On the scale from straight-out-of-camera to digital art, I'm way to the left. So I don't have any experience beyond exposure, some highlight/shadow adjustments, white balance, and other basic stuff like that.

I took a stab at editing an image that I really liked and had done my 'best' editing job ever on with DPP and CS6. The auto feature of this software did all that for me and made an almost identical image in about a half second. WIth a few of the built in tools, I made something even better. It brought a portion of the shadow area up too much for my taste, but I may be able how to figure out how to reduce that.

So my first experience was 'wow'. I tried a few more images, and was able to easily pull a lot of detail from a groundhog picture I had, and I messed with a twilight/sky image of the recent comet that came out pretty well using the clarity tool it has built in.

A question I would ask others...since I have tried not other software like this, how does it compare to like Corel Aftershot, On 1, Capture One and others?

-Brian
 
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zim

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The Dragonfly was a low iso image. I just took some horrible shots at iso 5000 and 800mm and took extreme crops of a few hundred pixels. Don't take the quality seriously, just look at the noise. You can see which is the DeepPRIME, the smaller one. PRIME is really good but DeepPRIME is even better very noisy images. So, for me, at low iso, PRIME, high iso (and Moire) DeepPRIME.

View attachment 193509View attachment 193510
This

Horses for courses, great to have these options

Thanks all that have taken the time to do these comparisons, really helpful.
 
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COBRASoft

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Mar 21, 2014
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@Bert63

I downloaded the free trial a couple days ago. This is the first raw developer i've used, besides DPP 4.x.

I'm not a major editor. On the scale from straight-out-of-camera to digital art, I'm way to the left. So I don't have any experience beyond exposure, some highlight/shadow adjustments, white balance, and other basic stuff like that.

I took a stab at editing an image that I really liked and had done my 'best' editing job ever on with DPP and CS6. The auto feature of this software did all that for me and made an almost identical image in about a half second. WIth a few of the built in tools, I made something even better. It brought a portion of the shadow area up too much for my taste, but I may be able how to figure out how to reduce that.

So my first experience was 'wow'. I tried a few more images, and was able to easily pull a lot of detail from a groundhog picture I had, and I messed with a twilight/sky image of the recent comet that came out pretty well using the clarity tool it has built in.

A question I would ask others...since I have tried not other software like this, how does it compare to like Corel Aftershot, On 1, Capture One and others?

-Brian
Perhaps it was the default smart lighting set to 25.you can reduce that slider to 10 or so.

Edit: be sure to try the clearview tool. Start with 10,try 50...you'll probably end up somewhere in between.
 
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zim

CR Pro
Oct 18, 2011
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@Bert63

I downloaded the free trial a couple days ago. This is the first raw developer i've used, besides DPP 4.x.

I'm not a major editor. On the scale from straight-out-of-camera to digital art, I'm way to the left. So I don't have any experience beyond exposure, some highlight/shadow adjustments, white balance, and other basic stuff like that.

I took a stab at editing an image that I really liked and had done my 'best' editing job ever on with DPP and CS6. The auto feature of this software did all that for me and made an almost identical image in about a half second. WIth a few of the built in tools, I made something even better. It brought a portion of the shadow area up too much for my taste, but I may be able how to figure out how to reduce that.

So my first experience was 'wow'. I tried a few more images, and was able to easily pull a lot of detail from a groundhog picture I had, and I messed with a twilight/sky image of the recent comet that came out pretty well using the clarity tool it has built in.

A question I would ask others...since I have tried not other software like this, how does it compare to like Corel Aftershot, On 1, Capture One and others?

-Brian
Can't say about the others but my experience of C1 is that it to is excellent, some find the interface a bit 'quirky' I love it. The big thing is the way it handles colour though, particularly skin tones. If I was regularly doing portraiture there would be no other choice for me.
 
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usern4cr

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EDIT: Never mind regarding the query below - I just heard back from DXO and there is no way to do this currently.

HELP (please): I bought the PL4 upgrade. But I still can't do a simple thing I keep asking them for. Maybe someone here knows how to better do this:

Currently, when you enter the "Customize" tab you see your small thumbnail images on the bottom area. On the top left of that bottom area is an icon for "Select item to display". If you click on it and scroll down to the bottom of the list, you'll see the 6 lines of 0:5 stars and a checkbox for each of them which you want to display. If you toggle one of them (on or off) it will do so but then closes that screen. If you want to toggle another one of the 6 display star choices you have to repeat the whole procedure to do it, one at a time. I change all of these options all the time, and it really irritates me that it takes so long to do this. I don't see any new "tool" to display the 6 display star lines in the tools area on the right so they could be quickly changed, or any way to make the 6 display star lines be at the top of the long list of lines instead of at the bottom of the list.

Does anyone know if there is any other quicker way to change these display star settings?

EDIT: Never mind regarding the above query - I just heard back from DXO and there is no way to do this currently.
 
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Bert63

What’s in da box?
CR Pro
Dec 3, 2017
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@Bert63

I downloaded the free trial a couple days ago. This is the first raw developer i've used, besides DPP 4.x.

I'm not a major editor. On the scale from straight-out-of-camera to digital art, I'm way to the left. So I don't have any experience beyond exposure, some highlight/shadow adjustments, white balance, and other basic stuff like that.

I took a stab at editing an image that I really liked and had done my 'best' editing job ever on with DPP and CS6. The auto feature of this software did all that for me and made an almost identical image in about a half second. WIth a few of the built in tools, I made something even better. It brought a portion of the shadow area up too much for my taste, but I may be able how to figure out how to reduce that.

So my first experience was 'wow'. I tried a few more images, and was able to easily pull a lot of detail from a groundhog picture I had, and I messed with a twilight/sky image of the recent comet that came out pretty well using the clarity tool it has built in.

A question I would ask others...since I have tried not other software like this, how does it compare to like Corel Aftershot, On 1, Capture One and others?

-Brian


For me, as I said, this is the best one out there. If you need cataloging then Lightroom could be better. Lightroom also has more presets if you’re into that kind of thing.

I think Capture One is nice, but DxO is better, faster, and more intuitive FOR ME.

I’ve tried ON1 but prefer DxO, then Capture One in that order.

I’ve never used Corel Aftershot. After a quick read of its features I can’t imagine it being as good as DxO - even the previous version.
 
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HenryL

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Apr 1, 2020
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@Bert63

A question I would ask others...since I have tried not other software like this, how does it compare to like Corel Aftershot, On 1, Capture One and others?

-Brian
Hi, Brian. I've not used Aftershot, but have officially ditched ON1 because of higher than acceptable crashes, glitches and lockups. This was on multiple versions, and across two iMacs, one MacBook Pro, and one Windows 10 machine. Never did get a complete Lightroom migration despite weeks of back and forth with their support team. Performance was mediocre speed wise. I'm not just deleting their emails every day with upgrade offers to yet another version.

Capture One and DXO are my favorite new tools. In my opinion C1 is more capable overall, but DXO is close. I still use Lightroom for cataloging, printing and such, and the current update is pretty good but for the fact that it still takes custom profiles to get the best output. I hope to one day ditch Lightroom, but I've yet to find a better asset manager. During the import process it creates a folder structure that is also easily usable in the other two programs. I cull here so if/when I go to C1/DXO there are only the keepers.

I'm still learning C1 and DXO, especially DXO because since I got the R5 it's been useless for me. Looking forward to digging in deeper on both and hopefully coming out with one to rule them all.
 
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pj1974

80D, M5, 7D, & lots of glass and accessories!
Oct 18, 2011
691
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I have been using DxO "Optics Pro" (as the version of their software was then called) since 2006. I have bought maybe 3 versions since, basically whenever I upgraded my main DSLR. That has saved me a lot of money compared to both the Adobe software license and their subsequent subscription model..

Over the past 14 years, I have found DxO really does a great job in me batch-processing images (e.g. portraits, landscapes, high ISO, macro, astro, etc). So yes, I don't buy new DxO software for the new 'features' as much as when it is only the new version that will support new cameras/lens combinations. (I also have and occasionally use DxO ViewPoint).

I expect to upgrade to the latest version of DxO after I purchase a R5 and RF lenses. My current version of DxO Optics Pro works great for my existing range of DSLRs, M5 and suite of lenses. (Indeed, to confirm, I have not bought a PhotoLab version yet). I can understand some people's frustration at just having recently purchased a previous version and then either needing, or feeling like they need the new version.

FWIW, my interaction with DxO customer service (admittedly 10+ years ago) was v positive. Keep in mind the big picture, for the majority of photographers, there's no need to purchase every version unless there are compatibility issues (which would also mean they are updating their photography gear on a constant basis).

My preferred mode of operation for post processing is to organise photos using a folder structure (chronological and by favourites, and then best of the best into genre). Then back up onto external HDDs in that format (both RAWs and JPEG). The viewing software I prefer is ACDSee. For detailed post-processing work I use Affinity Photo, which I also use that for stitching panoramas and other aspects (e.g. focus stacking, etc). I also only will purchase new versions of ACDSee and Affinity Photo when the existing versions I use no longer support my current photography gear (e.g. previewing raws, etc).

I look forward to DxO continuing as a great option. Their raw processing, noise reduction (esp PRIME) are very effective. I look forward to the noise and de-aliasing combined option, and potentially enhanced user system, though I find their existing one is pretty good - it has some areas of weakness, but overall it's functional.

PJ
 
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Yeah, I think Adobe ruined it for us with the subscription thing. At least with the permanent license stuff what ou have will work forever with its current feature set. As far as I understand it, if you stop paying Adobe, you can't even open the program, no matter how many thousands you have spent over the years.

I'd still mostly rather pay to have something, knowing I may have to pay to upgrade versions in the future if I get new gear. But for some I could see how the subscription model is better. Maybe akin to lease vs/ buy on a car - normally its a great deal for the car company, and occasionally its a good deal for the driver.

-Brian

Not really. If you do not pay Adobe any further you can continue to open Lightroom, see and browse your pictures, export them and make only basic development adjustments without detailed control. All in library view only. Development pane is disabled (so Camera RAW is disabled). What will happen to the other Lightroom panes and Photoshop I don't know, I guess Photoshop will not start.

Cheers
Jens
 
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SeeManRun

CR Pro
Sep 14, 2020
4
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If you want a program to manage your files somehow, I'm glad you're happy. But I want to manage my own files in my own folder structures. It's the *only* way to organize them to me. That's one of the reasons I was willing to look into DXO in the first place.
That isn't quite what I mean. I would like a one time re-org of my photos to move them into a folder structure I define. I have thousands, and windows import does a poor job with iphone photos. I would like to fix them all so they get sorted into shot date regardless of the camera that took them. It is proving nigh impossible to find something that will do this.
 
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SecureGSM

2 x 5D IV
Feb 26, 2017
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That isn't quite what I mean. I would like a one time re-org of my photos to move them into a folder structure I define. I have thousands, and windows import does a poor job with iphone photos. I would like to fix them all so they get sorted into shot date regardless of the camera that took them. It is proving nigh impossible to find something that will do this.
Take a look at this little app:


One of the features:
Auto-create multi-level folder structure based on file type, extension or date. It seems that this is what you are after.
 
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SteveC

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That isn't quite what I mean. I would like a one time re-org of my photos to move them into a folder structure I define. I have thousands, and windows import does a poor job with iphone photos. I would like to fix them all so they get sorted into shot date regardless of the camera that took them. It is proving nigh impossible to find something that will do this.

I believe Lightroom lets you mass "tag" pictures. you could select 20 of them and put in, say, the name of the person in the picture ("Billy Bob"), the location ("Uluru") and so on, then later on search for Billy Bob and get not just the pics from Uluru (from that folder) but the pics of him in East Slobbovia, Alabama as well, from some other folder, as long as you tagged them with his name as well. Or maybe search for all chimpanzee photos from different trips to different zoos. (Hopefully Billy Bob isn't one of the chimps.)

I'd like to find a way to do that tagging, then searching later.
 
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zim

CR Pro
Oct 18, 2011
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OK so I thought I'd check v4 out and this is my thoughts so far 'upgrading' from v1 fwiw
1. When I went into my account I got this
Untitled.png
Confused I continued to the download, installed and applied activation code, looks like I've got the full licenced version, can't see any 30 day trial stuff which is what I was expecting?
2. I's a separate install location so have both v1 and v4 again I'd have expected it to 'see' the previous install and do an upgrade so I can't help but assume this is a 30 day trial but it's really not obvious.
3. Really like the new layout and those little smart workspace buttons, nice logical progression, don't think I need to create my own workspaces any more.
4. Deep Prime. This is going to take me a lot more time to work out when to use Prime or Deep Prime. Looks like you can be a lot more aggressive with the luminous settings on Deep Prime but there's a balance to be had and I'm still working through that (between unsharp mask, micro contrast and lens sharpness)
but so far comparing previous renderings with Prime I'm pretty impressed especially when there is a lot of sky (Aircraft are one of my main subjects)
Have to say first that everything I do is for print so they are probably over sharp for other use, anyway
Two examples (renders unaltered in Affinity Photo) from a 7D, the Prime jpg is the original render I used which requires a fair amount of work in Affinity Photo to get it to a printable state. The Deep Prime is clearly cleaner but just as sharp, still needs a bit of work to get it to a the same printable state but a lot lot less work.
slice1_Prime.jpg slice1_DeepPrime.jpg
5. Not an ounce of trouble with the install or when in use.

I also really enjoy doing pano stitching so I'm going to check those out next but happy so far!
 
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COBRASoft

EOS R5
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Mar 21, 2014
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That isn't quite what I mean. I would like a one time re-org of my photos to move them into a folder structure I define. I have thousands, and windows import does a poor job with iphone photos. I would like to fix them all so they get sorted into shot date regardless of the camera that took them. It is proving nigh impossible to find something that will do this.
What about Adobe Bridge?
 
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Mar 17, 2020
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Think DxO has a lot to offer to those who just want to "get the job done". Currently not a user as I have the full Adobe package. But I may revert later as I find less and less time to edit my shots. To me the biggest improvement DxO (and others) could do was to offer modules in the more specialized processing market i.e. things like astro, underwater, gifs, arcitecture etc. Things doable with other software but can be made much easier. Basic postprocessing is widely covered by now. And soon everyone will be offering AI solutions as well.
 
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