DxO Photolab -- time to bail?

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Soopahmahn

Soopahmahn

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Wondering what the community here thinks. I turned up my nose at Adobe when I first got serious about post-processing, and settled on DxO PhotoLab (PL) because it was a one-time fee for the license and I actually owned the software. The RAW image processing, denoise and intelligent sharpening and dehaze functions are extremely well done. It also bought some excellent film presets.

However, I wanted to try my hand at some composites, so I got an Adobe subscription to try Photoshop, and then fell in love with Lightroom Classic and Mobile...

I could continue to use PL as my RAW file processor and denoiser, but I just really like the workflow and masking tools in LRC. And, unfortunately, PL just isn't supported at the same level as LRC, in terms of creation of new tools in response to user request etc. It's not dead in the water, but they still don't have any kind of subject or sky detection, mask intersection tools...

Should I just forget about it and stick with LRC? I'm going to keep the subscription regardless.
 
I use photolab with Adobe products. A usual workflow would be to start in lightroom then use the plug in extras menu to send the image to photolab. Sometimes I will do the denoise and lens corrections only in photolab and return to lightroom to use lightroom tools and then on to photoshop. More often I will do a more extensive raw edit in photolab and export the resulting tiff to photoshop to finish, then save back to lightroom to keep it in the library for easy organizing.

There are a lot of options to integrate it into a lightroom/photoshop workflow.
 
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I will always recommend Adobe Photoshop = not because I am an Adobe fan-girl, but because of the support and advancement on a very regular basis. I dont see the point in using any other program because of this.
And not to mention how absolutely phenomenal the program is. .

Edit:
I only give my opinion - and dont expect anyone to agree just because I say so - but those are my thoughts on the subject
 
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Soopahmahn said:
Wondering what the community here thinks. I turned up my nose at Adobe when I first got serious about post-processing, and settled on DxO PhotoLab (PL) because it was a one-time fee for the license and I actually owned the software. The RAW image processing, denoise and intelligent sharpening and dehaze functions are extremely well done. It also bought some excellent film presets.

However, I wanted to try my hand at some composites, so I got an Adobe subscription to try Photoshop, and then fell in love with Lightroom Classic and Mobile...

I could continue to use PL as my RAW file processor and denoiser, but I just really like the workflow and masking tools in LRC. And, unfortunately, PL just isn't supported at the same level as LRC, in terms of creation of new tools in response to user request etc. It's not dead in the water, but they still don't have any kind of subject or sky detection, mask intersection tools...

Should I just forget about it and stick with LRC? I'm going to keep the subscription regardless.
Click to expand...

I am pretty much in the same boat as Bill. DxO for denoise and lens sharpening and then Adobe products for editing (ACR - Adobe Camera Raw). The magic in DxO for denoising is unmatched as of today IMHO. There can be good arguments with using one product and not jumping around with various software. Can't go wrong with Adobe per Elsa.
 
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Looks like I can use DxO PureRaw as a plug-in in LRC, as described here in scenario 1:

www.dxo.com

DxO PureRAW - Simply better RAW files

Improve quality from DSLR, mirrorless, compact, or drone. This unique Photoshop & Lightroom plugin adds sharpness, corrects optical flaws & denoises high ISO RAW files
www.dxo.com www.dxo.com

I've never used a Lightroom plug-in but maybe now is the time to try!

The denoise and lens corrections in DxO are really quite excellent. Looks like I could denoise and add moderate Lens Sharpness before beginning the general exposure and color corrections.
 
Soopahmahn said:
Looks like I can use DxO PureRaw as a plug-in in LRC, as described here in scenario 1:

www.dxo.com

DxO PureRAW - Simply better RAW files

Improve quality from DSLR, mirrorless, compact, or drone. This unique Photoshop & Lightroom plugin adds sharpness, corrects optical flaws & denoises high ISO RAW files
www.dxo.com www.dxo.com

I've never used a Lightroom plug-in but maybe now is the time to try!


The denoise and lens corrections in DxO are really quite excellent. Looks like I could denoise and add moderate Lens Sharpness before beginning the general exposure and color corrections
Click to expand...

The dxo photolab also is a lightroom plug-in. Same denoise and lens correction for both. Pureraw is simpler but photolab gives more sliders and other options besides denoise and lens correction if desired.
. In photolab you get a tiny little window and sliders to judge the impact of denoise and lens correction.


The dxo photolab manual says if you have a matching lens module then you would use the denoise and the lens correction, which in itself is sharpening depending on how you dial the slider, but they say in that case don't also do the separate sharpening slider which is just unsharp mask. When you choose denoise and lens correction only as the dxo output it does not include that additional sharpening.

You could later add additional sharpening in lightroom or photoshop. I often add a touch of topaz sharpen in a layer in photoshop.
 
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I switched from pureraw to photolab because I like tinkering with the sliders and seeing the results in the little preview window. Some people use pureraw for the opposite reason, they just want to run the automatic and get back to lightroom. Both have their good points. Though with photolab one could limit to running the denoise and lens correction preset and be back in lightroom just as fast as pureraw.
 
I agree, and what photolab calls fine contrast is a nice alternative to lightrooms clarity slider.
 
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Pulled the trigger and purchased Pure Raw 4. I tried each version of Pure Raw and thought the results were impressive at times, but I hated having to process the file before seeing what the settings (or lack of settings) would achieve. To me the main reason for purchasing Pure Raw 4 is the new large (resizable) preview window. Now you are able to tweak settings and see the result before you process the file.

I have DXO PhotoLab 7, but hate the tiny preview window when using noise reduction and sharpening. I also use Topaz DeNoise, Lightroom Classic, Topaz Photo AI, On1 Photo Raw, and Photoshop. Gave up on keeping Capture One updated. No app is perfect, and there are always work arounds to fix whatever issues you run into, but I keep looking for a "simple" way to process images and get excellent (to me at least) results.
 
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Adobe's sub service put me off too but PhotoLab's paid updates are regular and expensive.

Certainly they've improved it but there are enough frictions in use - bugs and labour-intensive processes - to warrant not calling it a professional application. The one thing that keeps me using (and cursing) it is that it handles very well the NR and sharpening of high ISO Z8 files. 25,600 is perfectly usable.
 
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I've tried PureRaw 4, which recently came out. A few more adjustments than in the past, although not as many as in Photolab 7 Elite.

PureRaw 4 has a newly updated noise reduction algorithm. Assume that will be added to the next version of Photolab.

And PureRaw 4 has a fairly large preview window to see the impact of changes. Wonder if this might show up in the next version of Photolab?
 
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