DxO Photolab 4 is out now

[littlefish]

Does PL have a decent library management function? I currently use digikam which meets my needs (+ raw therapee for the little editing I do)
but wouldn't mind paying to consolidate

Nope, sorry. DxO is primarily a RAW converter. It has a couple of organisational tools but they are very crude compared to, say, Lightroom.

Is DXO 4 really good. Will it work at low ISO. I appreciated the extra detail and lower noise in the photos posted above. What are the min specs on Windows 10 computers that work for people. Is it likely to be fast with an i7, 16gb ram and a 4gb graphics card in a 12 month old Dell xps15”?

I'm running a 5 year old PC with 32GBRAM, i7 4790K Haswell CPU and a 2GB nVidia GTX Titan Black GPU. Exporting a denoised file back to LR from DxO takes about 40 seconds.
The differences between the Essential and Elite versions are laid out on DxO's site here. Only Elite has advanced denoising.

 

[BosseBe]

Thanks for that. I did look at their specs, they seem to suit my equipment, plus I can always double the ram to 32gb. Dissapointed to see two versions. Essential and Elite. I shall ask around a couple of my photo-groups on zoom, one guy has everything, if not 2 copies.

To get the full advantage of DxO PL4 you should also get DxO Filmpack and DxO Viewpoint, for film emulations and corrections of perspective and more, but they can always be added afterwards when you find a need for them.

The easiest way to find out if it is fast enough for you is to download the trial, that is the fullblown version limited to 30-days use.

In the past DxO has given away an older version after they have launched a new version, I think this has been the Essential variant.

 

[JLGF1]

Is it likely to be fast with an i7, 16gb ram and a 4gb graphics card in a 12 month old Dell xps15”?

That should be fine with an adequate GPU, as that is more than my current specs and PL runs fine (PL4 faster > PL3).

However, it is easy enough to find out for sure by downloading the no-cost trial version. Note that both NR's, Prime and Deep-Prime, are relatively processor intensive. So, result time also depends on your image size.

 

[Ghostbuggy]

Heads up! DXO just began their Black Friday sales and, just as last year, they're offering a flat 50% discount on all their software. I'll take the chance to finally buy the Film Pack and maybe, not sure yet, I'll throw PL4 in as well.

 

[StefanKruse]

Heads up! DXO just began their Black Friday sales and, just as last year, they're offering a flat 50% discount on all their software. I'll take the chance to finally buy the Film Pack and maybe, not sure yet, I'll throw PL4 in as well.

Thanks for the heads up, might just take a chance and see what all the fuzz is about regarding their noise reduction

 

[RS86]

Heads up! DXO just began their Black Friday sales and, just as last year, they're offering a flat 50% discount on all their software. I'll take the chance to finally buy the Film Pack and maybe, not sure yet, I'll throw PL4 in as well.

The upgrade price to Photolab 4 was 60 €, so I think it was about 10 € cheaper than the launch price.

Can someone tell me if the Film Pack Elite is worth buying? It's 65 € now. I have heard it has some important features other than the film renderings etc.

 

[RichardC]

Thanks for the heads up, might just take a chance and see what all the fuzz is about regarding their noise reduction

Make sure you buy the right version. Seems that some of the posher Deep Prime features are only available in the 'elite' edition.

(I made this mistake with Silverfast - bought the software only to discover that the features I needed were only in the version which cost 4 times as much.)

 

[Ghostbuggy]

The upgrade price to Photolab 4 was 60 €, so I think it was about 10 € cheaper than the launch price.

Can someone tell me if the Film Pack Elite is worth buying? It's 65 € now. I have heard it has some important features other than the film renderings etc.

I like the Film Pack, because I'm not a fan of endlessly trying to tweak colors myself. As with all other products from DXO, you can already download a 30-day trial and check it out yourself before buying. Since the Black Friday Sale is valid for almost five days still, you should have some time left to make a decision for you. The Elite version offers more films as well as split toning.

 

[StefanKruse]

Make sure you buy the right version. Seems that some of the posher Deep Prime features are only available in the 'elite' edition.

(I made this mistake with Silverfast - bought the software only to discover that the features I needed were only in the version which cost 4 times as much.)

Thanks,

Just checked and seems you are correct Deep Prime is only available in the Elite version. That is a showstopper for me I think, even with the sale it is 120 Euro, hmm.

 

[RS86]

Thanks,

Just checked and seems you are correct Deep Prime is only available in the Elite version. That is a showstopper for me I think, even with the sale it is 120 Euro, hmm.

Topaz Denoise AI is 80 dollars (I think 80 euros), and it is basically only for denoising. Dxo Photolab is one of the best RAW converters. Very easy to use.

 

[Fuzzdog]

Conveniently, my trial ran out just as they announced the sale. Yoink!

Honestly, the Deep Prime NR is an absolute game changer for M43 (and a lot of my old shots from cameras with larger sensors!) as far as I'm concerned, and is far, far above any of the other NR options for higher ISO shots, so worth every penny.

Such a shame it still won't handle Fuji raws, but hardly anything does that well, so I can see why they've held off. Picked up Affinity Photo in a sale too, so I can finally kiss Adobe goodbye.

 

[littlefish]

Conveniently, my trial ran out just as they announced the sale. Yoink!

Honestly, the Deep Prime NR is an absolute game changer for M43 (and a lot of my old shots from cameras with larger sensors!) as far as I'm concerned, and is far, far above any of the other NR options for higher ISO shots, so worth every penny.

Such a shame it still won't handle Fuji raws, but hardly anything does that well, so I can see why they've held off. Picked up Affinity Photo in a sale too, so I can finally kiss Adobe goodbye.

Agree about DxO's Deep Prime NR. It's breathed new life into many of my older, high ISO M43 images. I've just upgraded to PL4 from a very early version, even so it was £10 cheaper than yesterday.

Sadly I'm still locked into Adobe for LR: nothing else manages images in the way I like. Yet. Waiting for Serif's DAM.

 

[Drdul]

Heads up! DXO just began their Black Friday sales and, just as last year, they're offering a flat 50% discount on all their software. I'll take the chance to finally buy the Film Pack and maybe, not sure yet, I'll throw PL4 in as well.

This year the Black Friday discount is "up to 50%." I just upgraded my PhotoLab Elite and the price was USD $59.99, a discount of $29.01 = 32.6%. I believe the upgrade on the non-Elite version is the full 50%, but as noted above the non-Elite version doesn't include DeepPrime. In previous years the discount on the Elite upgrade was 50%, but I suspect that this year DxO figured that DeepPrime is such a compelling new feature they could get away with less of a discount.

 

[RS86]

This year the Black Friday discount is "up to 50%." I just upgraded my PhotoLab Elite and the price was USD $59.99, a discount of $29.01 = 32.6%. I believe the upgrade on the non-Elite version is the full 50%, but as noted above the non-Elite version doesn't include DeepPrime. In previous years the discount on the Elite upgrade was 50%, but I suspect that this year DxO figured that DeepPrime is such a compelling new feature they could get away with less of a discount.

Maybe they also listened to the complaints of people who bought it with the release discount of under -30 %. Everyone happy now.

 

[BosseBe]

Just read the mail from DxO 50% off on everything, buy new and upgrade!
So I have paid €10 extra for being able to use it for the last month!
Well worth it, in my opinion!

So now the question is, do I upgrade to NIK Collection3 for €40?

Oh, I have fallen in the trap and ordered a new PC:

Chassie	Fractal Design Define R7	$150
PSU	Corsair RM750X 750W v2 Gold	$162
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D15	$109
MB	MSI X570 MAG TOMAHAWK WIFI	$279
M2 disk	WD Black SN850 Gen 4 SSD 1TB	$290
Graphics	MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB Mech OC	$278
RAM	Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 32GB (2x16GB)	$170
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3,6MHz 36MB	$348
Cost	Total	$1785

 

[littlefish]

Quick heads up. Just bought the PL4 upgrade but had to complete the transaction with Chrome (under Windows 10) as the (new) Edge browser refused to process it.

 

[coffeecat]

Caved and upgraded to PL4

 

[billca]

Oh, I have fallen in the trap and ordered a new PC:

Chassie	Fractal Design Define R7	$150
PSU	Corsair RM750X 750W v2 Gold	$162
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D15	$109
MB	MSI X570 MAG TOMAHAWK WIFI	$279
M2 disk	WD Black SN850 Gen 4 SSD 1TB	$290
Graphics	MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB Mech OC	$278
RAM	Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 32GB (2x16GB)	$170
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3,6MHz 36MB	$348
Cost	Total	$1785

DXO 4 pushed me into that trap also. Similar build, but a step below. Prices in Canadian $ ( add 13% HST for final price).

PSU, Corsair RM750X 750W Gold $170

MB, MSI B450 Tomahawk Max $150

RAM, Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16gb $90

CPU, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 $280

GPU, Asus GeForce GTX 1660 super OC $311 Out of stock. Pre ordered from Amazon.

Computers up and running I threw my old WD 1TB hard drive in it for the time being. Thinking about adding a SSD M2 1TB for the operating system and any programs that are slow to load
Expect I may push the ram to 32mb.
Using my old graphics card till the 1660s comes in.
Already checking out Noctua CPU coolers. When the Ryzen 5 3600 is asked to handle a 50mb hi res Oly file using deep prime and convert to a 16bit Tiff with no help from the GPU, it gets hot.

 

[BosseBe]

DXO 4 pushed me into that trap also. Similar build, but a step below. Prices in Canadian $ ( add 13% HST for final price).

Corsair RM750X 750W Gold $170

MSI B450 Tomahawk Max $150

Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16gb $90

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 $280

Asus GeForce GTX 1660 super OC $311 Out of stock. Pre ordered from Amazon.

Computers up and running I threw my old WD 1TB hard drive in it for the time being. Thinking about adding a SSD M2 1TB for the operating system and any programs that are slow to load
Expect I may push the ram to 32mb.
Using my old graphics card till the 1660s comes in.
Already checking out Noctua CPU coolers. When the Ryzen 5 3600 is asked to handle a 50mb hi res Oly file using deep prime and convert to a 16bit Tiff with no help from the GPU, it gets hot.

I went for X570 chipset because I wanted to be future proof for some years, PCIe4 for M2 drive gives (What they say) >5000MB/s and PCIe >3000MB/s, I am sure I would have been satisfied with PCIe3, but since I am building new I want to use the newest tech, maybe not the absolute newest as that is expensive and deprecates fast, but at the level below somewhere.
For the PSU I wanted to have the Fractal Design Ion 760W as it is Platinum, but that will not be in stock anywhere until February, so i went with the Corsair. (I like to buy Swedish if I can.)
32GB RAM is certainly overkill today, but it should be future proof.
The Noctua NH-D15 is definitely overkill! I have a NH-U12S on my FX8350 and that is enough for that power hungry CPU, so something like the Noctua NH-D14 should be enough. but I like silent so D15 it was. The NH-D15 is high, so you must be sure your chassis can handle it.
I have been forced to buy from 3 different shops to get the best prices and for them to have it in stock, so on Tuesday or so I will get the final components, then the build will probably be next weekend.

I will report back with some comparison number for DeepPrime.

 

[PeeBee]

The Black Friday 50% discount is exactly what I was expecting. I've just upgrade to PL4 Elite and NIK 3