DxO Photolab 4 is out now

[Fuzzdog]

Having played around with it a bit more with some high ISO raw files, I'm going to walk back my comment a little and say that the Deep Prime NR really is staggeringly good, and it's almost good enough that I'm willing trust it and live without full previews. Definitely going to stick with using it for the length of the trial and see what happens.

 

[ThereAndBackAgain]

How well does it work with low-light gig photography? Could you perhaps share an example from a lowlight indoor event? I am considering a noise reduction tool but I am worried whether the loss of details in hair or facial expression will be too much.
Would be much appreciated.

Haven't had the chance to put it to the test properly yet, just going on initial impressions. I think Fuzzdog's comment above is enough to reassure both of us!

 

[Fuzzdog]

Haven't had the chance to put it to the test properly yet, just going on initial impressions. I think Fuzzdog's comment above is enough to reassure both of us!

It's not infallible, but in terms of not smooshing out detail while still taming the noise, it's definitely up there with the best I've used.

Very impressed indeed with how it handles high ISO raw files from my old Canon 7D, which was an absolute nightmare above about 1600 and outright unusable above 3200. This was an underexposed ISO 4000 shot I had previously deemed completely beyond recovery -

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[BosseBe]

Here is some pictures comparing NR from PL4
HQ

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PRIME

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DeepPRIME

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HQ

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PRIME

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DeepPRIME

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HQ

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PRIME

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DeepPRIME

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Hope this is to some help!

 

[doxa750]

Just done processing some recent shots with PL4, etc, I have to say if you already have Topaz DN AI, I see no real reason to upgrade. However, if you don't have it and NR is critical to your workflow, it is worth it to upgrade my couple pennies worth.

Cheers

 

[Mack]

What I like about DxO Photolab is the ability to correct distortion of wide angle lenses that are not read/corrected by the camera like the manual Laowa 7.5mm. More so, if a photo is shot from a drone's camera with all sorts of distortion of vertical areas.

Easy to call up DCP color profiles I've made too. It's become my primary RAW editor, once past the culling in FastRawViewer for sharpness and exposure determination.

Wish it could read an x-rite Digital SG card or Colorchecker Passport directly from RAW and batch apply all corrections to a folder at once without doing the intermediary DNG thing. Maybe someday someone will write the program to do that since some video editing software can do it now, e.g. "Davinci Resolve," but seems the still photo softwares often take another software step or two to do it.

 

[cnyap]

Does it do more than remove noise? Chromatic aberration, vignetting? My GF7 raw files needed so much work in PS that I gave up and just take jpegs. With my Canion XSi/450d, I often edited raw with good results.
The m43 cameras fix a lot of lens issues in the jpegs “in camera”...

Took awhile, but I found the list of supported cameras and lenses, and the DJI Mavic Air2 will be supported in December...pretty cool!

 

[Fuzzdog]

Does it do more than remove noise? Chromatic aberration, vignetting?

All of the above and more, and very well too. The DxO lens profiles are rather nifty, particularly in the profiled sharpness department. It's a bit weird handling shots taken with the EC-14 teleconverter and my 50-200 SWD though, as it'll use the profile for the bare lens until the focal length hits 200mm, then gives up entirely. No profile for the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye on M43 either.

Also worth noting there is absolutely zero support for Fuji cameras, which is a bit of a niggle for me, as I have a lot of old Fuji shots!

 

[BosseBe]

@cnyap The best way to find out if it works for you is to try it! There is a 30 day trial AFAIK.
But as @Fuzzdog says the lens profile solves a lot of problems and there are controls for CA and Vignetting.
It might be good to know that no manual lenses has profiles. (I think the equipment they use to create a profile uses the electrical contacs on the lens.)

 

[grcolts]

The URL to the product page is broken now but here is the screenshot from their product announcement. Introductory upgrade price is 69.99.

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I forget. Was the Black Friday upgrade price better than the early upgrade price last time?

While it looks like a nice upgrade it is a no go for me as there still is no slide show option which I find very useful.
GQR

 

[OldRadioGuy]

There are two versions -- Essentials and Elite (covers more cameras). Introductory upgrade prices are $49 and $69 USD. DxO here.

PhotoLab 4 is a significant improvement. Much faster, better organization, more editing tools, and DeepPRIME is an amazing denoise tool.

 

[BosseBe]

There are two versions -- Essentials and Elite (covers more cameras).

Sorry, I have to disagree, the Essential and Elite versions have the same lens/camera profiles and AFAIK both versions can use all the available profiles.
The difference is in other advanced functions like PRIME NR and DeepPRIME NR for the Elite version.

 

[Vermont3133]

This seems to be a fairly balanced comparison between PL4 Deep Prime and Topaz DeNoise A1.
Gives a firm, but conditional nod to PL4 .
https://www.squarepixel.photography/article/201022001-photolab4-deepprime/

 

[bahamot]

Looking at the DeepPrime results really tempted to upgrade ... but last black Friday deal still hold me to take introductory promo.
Oh well, let's see if I can hold myself from upgrade for now.

Since pandemic I only used my camera 3 times , I guess that can hold myself from upgrade.

 

[ouldsmobile]

Here's another comparison with Topaz - https://www.andybellphotography.com/blog/2020/10/21/dxo-photo-lab-4-the-return-of-the-king/

 

[BDR-529]

Here's another comparison with Topaz - https://www.andybellphotography.com/blog/2020/10/21/dxo-photo-lab-4-the-return-of-the-king/

I'm sort of lost with this test setup: " Technically, this is not a fair test. DxO is a RAW converter but Topaz is a post processing tool. As noise removal is best done during RAW conversion, it should be advantage DxO. But the last time I tested it, Topaz was better… "

And again in this recent test:

"However, DxO’s DeepPrime noise reduction only works on RAW files. DxO has to use its regular HQ noise reduction on JPEGs and TIFs and Topaz is better than DxO HQ. I don’t think DxO DeepPRIME noise reduction makes Topaz DeNoise AI redundant. We sometimes introduce noise during post processing, and Topaz is the best tool for removing that. If you don’t shoot RAW, then Topaz is still the better noise reduction program. "

I have been using Topaz (latest version 2.3.2) exactly the other way around: first denoise and sharpen camera RAW (panny RW2, Canon CR2 and even DNG from my Samsung mobile) with Denoise AI, save results as DNG and then do the rest of processing with Darktable which seems to be only editing SW I have that can actually work perfectly with Topaz DNG files (which end up being enormous aka 23MB -> 128MB and are not even recognized as RAW by Darktable).

I have posted few ISO 25600 samples on Topaz thread and the bottom line is that when everything else in m4/3 RAW image is spot on and the only problem is ISO noise, Topaz will provide amazing results especially on Low Light mode when settings are fine-tuned manually. This is, however, all it does unlike DxO and you always need to process Denoise DNG files with something else and Topaz will mess up colours and exposure which need to be re-adjusted.

Unfortunately the full version of DxO4 with their AI denoise is 160€, which is too much to buy that one too just for testing.

 

[AlterKnabe]

@BDR-529
Just a hint: DXO offers a free trial version.
https://www.dxo.com/dxo-photolab/download/

 

[BDR-529]

@BDR-529
Just a hint: DXO offers a free trial version.
https://www.dxo.com/dxo-photolab/download/

I noticed but since I have a very bad habbit of actually buying every half decent image editing SW that I have installed on my PC, I try to avoid downloading yet another "free trial" version

It's pretty much like trying to explain to your girlfriend/wife/whatever that she has already 35 pairs of shoes so there's absolutely no need to go and just try one more pair even when they are on sale...

On a related note: the more I learn to use free Darktable the more obvious it becomes that I have no need whatsoever for anything else than said Denoise AI and Darktable (maybe Gimp occasionally). Since AI denoise is now added to DxO4 Elite it looks an afwull lot like a SW package that's once again "all that I actually need for most photo editing" *must resist* .

 

[Bob T]

Is it just me, or is rev 4 much faster than rev 3?

I've owned rev 3 for some time, but never got comfortable with it. It is considerable different than LR, ON1, or Exposure, which I am much more comfortable with. Even so, I went ahead and bought the upgrade anyway. The improvements, deep prime and the history window especially, seem worth giving it a serious go this time.

Now....to figure out a workflow....

 

[Ghostbuggy]

How well does it work with low-light gig photography? Could you perhaps share an example from a lowlight indoor event? I am considering a noise reduction tool but I am worried whether the loss of details in hair or facial expression will be too much.
Would be much appreciated.

You can always give it a try for yourself:
DXO offers a fully featured 30-day trial of Photolab 4, which is also valid if you tried previous versions in the past. This way you can actually a great hands-on experience and check whether the software might be worth it for you.