DxO Photolab 4 is out now

[StefanKruse]

DxO pureRAW applies the DxO algorithms with the default settings only.
You cannot modify the level of correction to your personnal taste.

The default DxO settings are too strong for me.
As a PhotoLab user, it's not a problem, as I can choose whatever level of correction I prefer (I set DeepPrime to 30 instead of 40, optical sharpness to -1 instead of 0, and vignetting to 50% as 100% tends to overcorrect a little bit).
Your prefered settings would be probably different from mine.
With DxO PureRAW, everyone gets the same

That's not necessarily a problem, but the limits have to be clear.
There seems to be no possible further upgrade to PhotoLab.

Thanks, that makes a huge difference for me. I was about to pull the trigger, but now I hesitate. Why would they cripple PureRaw to that extent. Too bad, now I may have to wait to Black Friday and get Photolab instead.

 

[SojiOkita]

You can try the software 30 days to see if it suits your needs.
The default settings are not far from what I like so it may works (it's probably set to please the most).

PureRaw is designed to be very simple with almost no parameter, probably for people that find photolab too complex.

 

[RichardC]

Workflow is straightforward with Lightroom and PureRaw. No need to process everything in PureRaw first. No need to fill up a HDD with .dngs.

Import raw files to Lightroom as normal, delete the rejects, drag keepers straight on to PureRaw and the original unprocessed .orf will open in the DXO program. Works on a Mac - not tested on a PC.

The .dng files are saved to a separate folder. I import the new folder to lightroom, process half a dozen or so, then flag unwanted ones as rejected and delete from disc.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[SojiOkita]

For Lightroom, I think it's best to generate the output in the original folder, it allows to get a proper stack.

 

[RichardC]

For Lightroom, I think it's best to generate the output in the original folder, it allows to get a proper stack.

It does make more sense to do that.

 

[Jeroen81]

I use Lightroom 6 to organize my photos and to edit it. Dxo Photo lab looks awesome to me as editer. But can I use it to totally replace Lightroom 6?

 

[Ghostbuggy]

I use Lightroom 6 to organize my photos and to edit it. Dxo Photo lab looks awesome to me as editer. But can I use it to totally replace Lightroom 6?

I guess that's a question only you can answer. Personally I never really used Lightroom at all, because I have a strong distaste for their subscription-only licensing system. From what I've seen, most Lightroom users seem to be looking for an alternative which looks like LR, handles like LR, is as powerful, but is just from a different developer - however such a software doesn't exist.

I strongly recommend you to download the free 30-day trial: It is feature complete, which means for 30 days you get the full package of Photolab 4 Elite to run it through the paces. It's the best way to figure out how the software works out for you. If you got any question, you can always try seeking help, either asking around here, looking at the DXO forums, on websites or even Youtube.

Too bad, now I may have to wait to Black Friday and get Photolab instead.

Well the benefit of waiting to next Black Friday: You'd get Photolab 5 instead of 4
However you could also try the free trial for PureRAW and see how it works out.

 

[RichardC]

"most Lightroom users seem to be looking for an alternative"

The trouble with forums (and all social media) is that they can be echo chambers. If you post that you are very dissatisfied with a piece of software, a number of equally dissatisfied people can jump on the thread because it's of interest to them. Of course, they all agree with each other, but it's not necessarily representative.

There are merits for and against subscription models.

I got Lightroom because it came with Photoshop. I wanted photoshop and was happy that I no longer had to pay £500+ for a legally licensed copy and £150 for updates.

The catalogue system is excellent as long as you remember never to move anything unless you do it from within the Lightroom library module. If you are concerned that you will lose your edits, archive a tiff.

I have the opposite problem. I don't want to end my subscriptions because I have just spent all of lockdown learning how to use the Adobe products with any degree of skill!

 

[SojiOkita]

Workflow is straightforward with Lightroom and PureRaw. No need to process everything in PureRaw first. No need to fill up a HDD with .dngs.

Import raw files to Lightroom as normal, delete the rejects, drag keepers straight on to PureRaw and the original unprocessed .orf will open in the DXO program. Works on a Mac - not tested on a PC.

Just tested this... drag&drop doesn't work on windows.

That's something they should work on, because if you have a folder with 100 photos and want to process 15 of them in Photolab, this is not really easy (or I've missed something).

 

[RichardC]

That's annoying.

Have you tried dragging from the filmstrip at the bottom of the Lightroom window, rather than the grid?

 

[RevBob]

I use Lightroom 6 to organize my photos and to edit it. Dxo Photo lab looks awesome to me as editer. But can I use it to totally replace Lightroom 6?

I used Lr for years but started looking for a replacement when they moved it to a subscription base. For me, DXO PL4 Elite does everything that I used Lightroom to accomplish with the added bonus of Clearview and Deep Prime. There was a bit of an adjustment period but it's nothing major. I downloaded the trial the last time it was 30% off and knew within a couple of days that I would buy. I'm more than satisfied with it.

 

[SojiOkita]

That's annoying.

Have you tried dragging from the filmstrip at the bottom of the Lightroom window, rather than the grid?

Yes, and it doesn't work either.

I've tried to compare PhotoLab and PureRAW and they don't produce the exactly same images (I took default settings on PhotoLab).
-> DNG from PureRAW have protected highlights, and little bit of shadow recovery.
-> DNG from PureRAW are WAY much sharpened than DNG from Photolab.

From my point of view, so much sharpening on a pre-processor doesn't make much sense. But it's only my point of view

 

[RichardC]

Yes, and it doesn't work either.

I've tried to compare PhotoLab and PureRAW and they don't produce the exactly same images (I took default settings on PhotoLab).
-> DNG from PureRAW have protected highlights, and little bit of shadow recovery.
-> DNG from PureRAW are WAY much sharpened than DNG from Photolab.

From my point of view, so much sharpening on a pre-processor doesn't make much sense. But it's only my point of view

I don't have PhotoLab to compare it to, but I agree that I wouldn't want them sharpened any more than they are in PureRaw.

Product photos are especially 'crisp'.

I don't have many bird photos, but the feathers of an already sharp image are, well, who knows? Maybe too sharp? I don't know what bird photographers are looking for in an image.

The image below is a raw file, put through PureRaw, colour corrected and exported as a jpg from Photoshop (50% crop, down scaled to 1600px on the long edge, bicubic sharper). No other sharpening applied other than by Pureraw and whatever Adobe does to it to turn it into a jpeg. From my point of view it's already sharp enough.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

For comparison, the image below is the same raw file loaded into Lightroom, sharpness of 30, luminance noise reduction 10, colour noise reduction 10. Sent to Photoshop and exported with the same jpeg settings. Density and colour are a bit off from the top picture.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

I am seeing colour noise in the bottom version. I'm inclined to sharpen some more using smart sharpen in Photoshop and apply more colour noise reduction.

As far as this picture is concerned, PureRaw has sharpened it to the limit of what I would do manually and has done a fine job of noise reduction with no intervention from me.

I shall experiment with ways to reduce sharpness without reducing the image to mush!

 

[SojiOkita]

The amount of sharpening you want is a personal choice.
My preference is not too much sharpening to begin with, and a little sharpening on output, depending on where it will be used.

For portraits, and especially group portraits (when faces are a smaller in the picture), I find the settings from PureRAW way too much.
Once again, it's what I think... not necessarily the truth for everyone
The best is to try it on different types of images to be sure.

 

[RichardC]

It would be nice to have more control than HQ vs Prime vs DeepPrime.

A simple 'opacity' slider would do. Any more than that and I expect they would like you to buy Photolab.

 

[SojiOkita]

-> DNG from PureRAW have protected highlights, and little bit of shadow recovery.

In fact, the highlights are similar to what PhotoLab produces when chosing "noise and optical corrections only" on the DNG creation.
Highlights are clipped when chosing "all corrections" (which is strange because I have only DeepPrime & optical corrections selected).

I tended to choose "all corrections" in order to preserve the aspect ratio, but I won't in the future.
(I never experienced it before... don't know if it's a bug introduced in version 4.2.1)

 

[Jeroen81]

I've installed the trail version.
The way it works is very intuitive, at least that's my first impression.

What I don't like is that it loads very slow. Maybe I've set something wrong.
The photo editing is fast enough, it's the time it takes to open a few photo's in a map. I believen LR makes small icons of photo's to load a overview fast,
I have all of my photo's stored on a Western Digital My Cloud NAS. And I don't want to change that part. Can anyone give some advice?

 

[Jeroen81]

It seems that in the background it was still loading the photo library. It's stable and faster now.
I've edited a family photo that was dear to me, but wasn't sharp enough. It still isn't that sharp but it's much better now. Also edited a indoor high ISO photo with to much noise. It's clearly better and usable for print now. I'm pretty happy with the results I'm getting.

 

[Ghostbuggy]

Jeroen, keep in mind Photolab doesn't display certain settings and adjustments in live view: Some are only shown when you zoom in to at least 75% of the image, those settings have a small "Eye"-icon next to their name, for example Lens Sharpness and Chromatic Aberration. Other settings, especially PRIME and DeepPRIME noise reduction aren't shown at all on live view, instead you have a small preview window and have to select the preview area on the picture using the small crosshair icon.

 

[SojiOkita]

In the context of using DxO with LrC, you must choose DNG export with all corrections in order to get the correct cropping in LrC. If you select "lens correction and noise reduction only" then the ratio gets messed up and only the horizontal dimension has more pixels. It is likely a bug.

When clicking on the Export to Lightroom button, you have two options:
a) Export as DNG (All Corrections Applied)
b) Export as DNG (Denoise and Optical Corrections Applied)

Using option b) results in an image that is a bit wider than the 4:3 ratio.
I assume you can reset all corrections before choosing option a) or crop in LrC to 4:3 if choosing option b).

That's what I thought until today, when I saw there was a "keep aspect ratio" box to tick in the "Distorsion" Tool (unticked by default)
I was sure it wasn't here before, but it seems it has always been there...

Anyway, by ticking the box and chosing (b) Export as DNG (Denoise and Optical Corrections Applied), I get the picture I want with a 4:3 aspect ratio preserved.
I've observed that option (a) sometimes messes up the highlights (I still have to make some tests before reporting it to dxo, though).
Option (b) keeps the highlights as on the RAW (if you tone down the vigneting can be a little too enthusiastic and burn the highlights...).