A workflow conundrum now that PureRaw has XD

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I purchased DxO PL6 and have asked their support more than 3 times to include the Nikkor Z100-400 zoom and the Z TC1.4. It has been more than 4 months and their reply is either nothing or it is "when we feel like it".

I'm pretty sure both of those are now supported. I have my doubts any customer service reps are going to reply "when we feel like it." Are you perhaps paraphrasing?
 
I'm pretty sure both of those are now supported. I have my doubts any customer service reps are going to reply "when we feel like it." Are you perhaps paraphrasing?
I just downloaded the new version 6.4 and FYI I own the Elite version. Now it does have the Nikkor Z100-400 zoom and the Z TC1.4 which makes me happy as this combination has become my go-to for most bird photos. I was paraphrasing previously but what they actually wrote was even more evasive and customer unfriendly; they had written that they make no warranties or guarantees that they will add or ever support any camera + lens requested by a customer and furthermore they will not ever state the amount of time that one must wait for action on a request.

I do find that the raw converter and tools are very useful for some difficult photos. It is not necessarily better for generally well exposed and relatively low noise photos. In fact DxO always seems to add unwanted and unnecessary extra color saturation to every photo it converts and I must edit that in LR or PS to make it look real again. If you use DxO deep raw in PhotoLab6 and you know of the way to keep the saturation from increasing, please do reply to me.
 
I just downloaded the new version 6.4 and FYI I own the Elite version. Now it does have the Nikkor Z100-400 zoom and the Z TC1.4 which makes me happy as this combination has become my go-to for most bird photos. I was paraphrasing previously but what they actually wrote was even more evasive and customer unfriendly; they had written that they make no warranties or guarantees that they will add or ever support any camera + lens requested by a customer and furthermore they will not ever state the amount of time that one must wait for action on a request.
For one thing they are a tiny company with very limited resources. Secondly English is not their primary language so in their response something may be lost in translation both in language and culture. Fortunately for them they sell a product that is best in class.

...DxO always seems to add unwanted and unnecessary extra color saturation to every photo it converts and I must edit that in LR or PS to make it look real again. If you use DxO deep raw in PhotoLab6 and you know of the way to keep the saturation from increasing, please do reply to me.
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DxO PL 6.4 now supports Nikon Z9 HE* raw files. Does anyone know if PureRaw 3 supports HE* raw files? I could not find the answer yesterday on the DxO website. Of course I can download the trial version to check.

One difference between them is, I think, that PureRaw will do batch processing and PL does not?
 
DxO PL 6.4 now supports Nikon Z9 HE* raw files. Does anyone know if PureRaw 3 supports HE* raw files? I could not find the answer yesterday on the DxO website. Of course I can download the trial version to check.

One difference between them is, I think, that PureRaw will do batch processing and PL does not?
Looks like every file type supported in one is supported in both. I know I Photolab I can send a group of files over from lightroom, edit one and copy and paste the settings to all then export the batch. I'm not sure how automated it could be. I imagine a preset could be used, I'm just not much of a preset user.


 
There is no single application that provides me with the best culling, best image Raw file conversion, best image editing, and best file management. Lightroom is like the Swiss Army knife that has many tools but none are particularly good. It is like the old Japanese saying "he has many knives, none sharp".

Lightroom has become much better over the years with regard to image processing but it still is designed for a single user with a single computer and for this reason I have sought other applications. I use FastRawViewer for culling, NX Studio and ACR for file conversion, Photoshop and Affinity for image editing, and iMatch for DAM. One key advantage of this approach is that I can use the iMatch for my audio and video files as well as my still image files.
 
I'm demo'ing DXO PureRaw3 at the moment, roundtripping it over from LR. Very impressed w/ the NR so far, the resulting DNG files make for a nice clean palette from which to start edits. Only question I have is: since the RAW files are now DNG/TIFF, aren't I losing the latitude to make changes to WB, tint, shadows/highlights? I'm just used to getting everything right in LR, and then doing NR in Topaz, which incorporates any changes you make in LR.
 
I'm demo'ing DXO PureRaw3 at the moment, roundtripping it over from LR. Very impressed w/ the NR so far, the resulting DNG files make for a nice clean palette from which to start edits. Only question I have is: since the RAW files are now DNG/TIFF, aren't I losing the latitude to make changes to WB, tint, shadows/highlights? I'm just used to getting everything right in LR, and then doing NR in Topaz, which incorporates any changes you make in LR.

You don't lose any latitude as a DNG. As I understand it a DNG is a container for image files and other data. In this case I think the image part that is embedded is based on a lossless tiff but not exactly, so all the lightroom sliders are available. Just turn off the lens corrections and noise reduction since it is already done by Pure Raw. I don't know about the additional step of noise reduction in Topaz, since you already did noise reduction in Pure Raw. I wouldn't repeat noise reduction. Some people do sharpening with Topaz after Pure Raw. For example the Jan Wegener video above, they show using Topaz sharpen in photoshop after the Pure Raw is applied in Lightroom, but in that case it is in a layer where the opacity of the sharpening layer is reduced to make it less dramatic.
 
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Thanks Bill!

So far, I'm really liking the results I'm getting w/ PureRaw, more consistent vs. Topaz products. Files look more natural, with finer detail is being retained without looking too digital. Think I may switch up!
 
did a quick and dirty test yesterday with deep prime xd and the results seemed pretty on-par with topaz denoise. i think it's good to have a couple of competing options so you can find the best tool for the specific image so i'm glad to have the option, but it didn't seem to obsolete topaz either
 
Looks like every file type supported in one is supported in both. I know I Photolab I can send a group of files over from lightroom, edit one and copy and paste the settings to all then export the batch. I'm not sure how automated it could be. I imagine a preset could be used, I'm just not much of a preset user.


I downloaded the trial version of PureRaw Version 3 this morning and used it to process a Nikon Z9 HE* Raw file. Seemed to work fine. It did take a 33 mb HE* Raw file and turn it into a 165 mb DNG!

That was just a quick test to see if PureRaw 3 would accept HE* Raw files. I will need to try it with some noisier files to compare the results using PureRaw 3, DxO PL 6.4 and Topaz DeNoise.
 
i should probably do further testing. this was based on my one time use where i pulled it into my workflow for my current event.

i selected about 1500 images, sent them to deepprime. they all got processed, but not all of them made it back in. i selected sync folder (on the DXO folders) to get them back

theoretically they should have been imported automatically. but i'm guessing most folks don't process such large numbers of files at once

[edit, just trying one image, it seems to have lost the rating and keywords in lightroom]
 
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I used XD yesterday and immediately went back to using deep prime — I simply did not like what deep prime XD did to my images
looks like xd cranks up the contrast a fair amount which i didn't really expect, but i'm not sure i like or dislike that aspect. i see that deep prime leaves a bit of grain in the brackground where prime xd seems to wipe all the grain out of the background. again, i'm not sure that i like or dislike that. otoh, they give us both, so we can choose
 
looks like xd cranks up the contrast a fair amount which i didn't really expect, but i'm not sure i like or dislike that aspect. i see that deep prime leaves a bit of grain in the background where prime xd seems to wipe all the grain out of the background. again, i'm not sure that i like or dislike that. otoh, they give us both, so we can choose

I am in the field at the moment and cannot complete a deep review - but I am fairly sure XD does much more than that AND for my wildlife shots it is not appealing.

I prefer to use DxO PR3-DP to convert the RAW files into DNG and then process them in LRC - if there is excessive noise or sharpening then a run through Topaz DeNoise AI with appropriate settings fixes most issues.

My only "issue" beyond this is the fact that I am using lenses that DxO has not delivered optical modules for YET.
 
I am in the field at the moment and cannot complete a deep review - but I am fairly sure XD does much more than that AND for my wildlife shots it is not appealing.

I prefer to use DxO PR3-DP to convert the RAW files into DNG and then process them in LRC - if there is excessive noise or sharpening then a run through Topaz DeNoise AI with appropriate settings fixes most issues.

My only "issue" beyond this is the fact that I am using lenses that DxO has not delivered optical modules for YET.
yah, i wasn’t meaning to suggest that was the totality of it, it just was what smacked me in the face 🤣
 
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