DXO PhotoLab thread

LCPete

LCPete

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Morning everyone thought it would be interesting to hear from people who use PhotoLab for raw conversion etc :)
I have recently started using it in conjunction with Affinity
I use DXO for Raw conversion then Affinity for any edits
At the moment I’m using the standard preset and deep prime for Raws, would be interesting to hear what settings others are using
My cameras are R5 and 6D 2
I’m finding that deep prime sharpens as well and I’m not needing to sharpen further in affinity
The quality of the raw conversion is amazing even though I’m normally at ISO 1600 and above
 
I adopted PL as part of my switch from Canon to Olympus system....... entirely down to its noise control.

It has a long learning curve which I am still a novice even some time on.

But FWIW at this time PL is my first step as I still do my final output in Photoshop. I do have affinity photo as well but not used much so far..........though it's "inpaint" tool is on my list to master for some specific images.
 
Yea the noise control in DXO is amazing
At the moment I just use the raw converter presets in DXO I haven’t treid experimenting yet

the inpaint tool in affinity is excellent I think it’s better than the one in photoshop although I haven’t used that for ages
It’s especially good for out of focus areas that have things like a stem or wire that needs removed
 
Similarly I use PL5 then export to Affinity for any tiny tweaks before using 'Export as' to save suitable size/format.
I use the basic setting and `deep Prime (which is excellent) and sometimes use the sharpen slider dedicated to the lens profile but I find it only need a very small tweak or it overdoes it.
I sometimes use Topaz (old version) or NIK from within PL5 to give me better results/mono conversion etc.
 
Another thumbs up for using dxo pl for Olympus raw files. Out of interest is anyone else getting the deep prime preview window? Having put Monterey on my Mac, I then lost the preview window, dxo do acknowledge this and there is a suggestion that it will be rectified at some point. It doesn’t matter too much as deep prime seems to work all the same. I do find I have to turn down the ’clear view’. (I’m not on my computer at the moment, so can’t quite remember what it is called) a bit, as it can be an extreme effect, it does however review masses of details though! I will be interested to know if anyone pairs this with a photo management programme?
 
Olly B said:
Another thumbs up for using dxo pl for Olympus raw files. Out of interest is anyone else getting the deep prime preview window? Having put Monterey on my Mac, I then lost the preview window, dxo do acknowledge this and there is a suggestion that it will be rectified at some point. It doesn’t matter too much as deep prime seems to work all the same. I do find I have to turn down the ’clear view’. (I’m not on my computer at the moment, so can’t quite remember what it is called) a bit, as it can be an extreme effect, it does however review masses of details though! I will be interested to know if anyone pairs this with a photo management programme?
Click to expand...
I'm using Catalina so no problems with the preview window.
As for Clearview it can be switched on or off and adjusted by slider, I only use it occasionally as it's only rarely needed ... when it isn't needed it can really overdo things. :)
 
I've been using it for a year almost - photolab 4.

I cannot rate it highly enough. It's absolutely perfect for everything that I do.

The "lens sharpen" module nails sharpening every time. I find I tend to use curves or the selective tone tool - or a combination of to get the results along with the saturation/HSL.

The local adjustments are fine and the clone/repair won't rival adobes content aware fill - but for simple retouching and sensor dirt removal it does the job perfectly.
 
Olly B said:
Another thumbs up for using dxo pl for Olympus raw files. Out of interest is anyone else getting the deep prime preview window? Having put Monterey on my Mac, I then lost the preview window, dxo do acknowledge this and there is a suggestion that it will be rectified at some point. It doesn’t matter too much as deep prime seems to work all the same. I do find I have to turn down the ’clear view’. (I’m not on my computer at the moment, so can’t quite remember what it is called) a bit, as it can be an extreme effect, it does however review masses of details though! I will be interested to know if anyone pairs this with a photo management programme?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use clearview - or at least keep the slider no more than 20 - it makes things very gritty looking. You are best setting your black/white points in curves and sorting it out that way.

It isn't a digital asset management system - but if you can organise your work into folders in IOS or Win10 - the browse tool will work almost like a catalogue in LR.
 
I moved to Photolab (now 5) from Lightroom and find I spend far less time processing now - on Canon and Olympus files. Deep Prime is brilliant for high ISO shots. I use Affinity for things like stacking or more complex cloning, and soft proofing for printing.

The default preset for the lens and camera combo works really well. The only change I make, is often to pull back or remove the vignette correction. I have starred the vignette option, so it’s easy to find. I wish you could grab a corner for levelling horizons rather than having to draw a line.

The control points are powerful as they are dependent on the tone of the place where you position them - really worth checking the mask box to see what is affected, and there is even more control now with the control line using the chroma and luma options.

I found it was slow to browse, so I ended up investing in Photo Mechanic - at times I was needing to quickly rate and cull large numbers of photos. Fast Raw Viewer is a cheaper option that is similar. I’ve now upgraded to Photo Mechanic Plus - still finding my way around that.

Photolab 5 has added more key wording and IPTC editing facilities, although I do that in Photo Mechanic now.
 
Bebop said:
I moved to Photolab (now 5) from Lightroom and find I spend far less time processing now - on Canon and Olympus files. Deep Prime is brilliant for high ISO shots. I use Affinity for things like stacking or more complex cloning, and soft proofing for printing.

The default preset for the lens and camera combo works really well. The only change I make, is often to pull back or remove the vignette correction. I have starred the vignette option, so it’s easy to find. I wish you could grab a corner for levelling horizons rather than having to draw a line.

The control points are powerful as they are dependent on the tone of the place where you position them - really worth checking the mask box to see what is affected, and there is even more control now with the control line using the chroma and luma options.

I found it was slow to browse, so I ended up investing in Photo Mechanic - at times I was needing to quickly rate and cull large numbers of photos. Fast Raw Viewer is a cheaper option that is similar. I’ve now upgraded to Photo Mechanic Plus - still finding my way around that.

Photolab 5 has added more key wording and IPTC editing facilities, although I do that in Photo Mechanic now.
Click to expand...

That’s what I find as well, I spend a lot less time colour correcting / editing to be honest at the moment I’m just using the default preset it happens to be spot on mostly for what I’m doing (wildlife and zoo animals)
I ought to learn more about what you can do with photolab
And affinity is excellent for image stacking I use it for macro
I do find browsing in DXO slow but I can’t complain as my PC is under spec for what DXO recommends and my camera is an R5
I’m saving for a new PC or laptop
 
LCPete said:
… I’m just using the default preset it happens to be spot on mostly for what I’m doing (wildlife and zoo animals)
Click to expand...
I’m exactly the same. I barely do anything.

My laptop is old and at the limit of recommended spec and I’m using an R5 also.
 
How long does a R5 or similar large file raw size deep prime conversion to a tiff take on an M1 mac, has anyone timed it ?
For comparison my elderly Dell PC takes 7 minutes :oops: :$
Planning to get an M1 MacBook Pro when funds allow :)
 
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LCPete said:
How long does a R5 or similar large file raw size deep prime conversion to a tiff take on an M1 mac, has anyone timed it ?
For comparison my elderly Dell PC takes 7 minutes :oops: :$
Planning to get an M1 MacBook Pro when funds allow :)
Click to expand...
Less than a minute
 
I'm just starting my Photolab journey. I've been watching a few Youtube videos and am getting the hang of the basics.

In LR I use(d) a combination of the blacks, whites, shadows and highlights sliders for basic processing of raw files,. I rarely used Contrast because I found/find the results unpredictable, and frankly weird sometimes. But in PL v5 there is no whites slider! Has anyone else found this a problem and if so, how have you worked around it?

As a long-term user, LR will be my "go-to" software for a long while yet, but hopefully I will get started on the PL learning curve before I'm forced to leave LR (for whatever reason).
 
jerry12953 said:
I'm just starting my Photolab journey. I've been watching a few Youtube videos and am getting the hang of the basics.

In LR I use(d) a combination of the blacks, whites, shadows and highlights sliders for basic processing of raw files,. I rarely used Contrast because I found/find the results unpredictable, and frankly weird sometimes. But in PL v5 there is no whites slider! Has anyone else found this a problem and if so, how have you worked around it?

As a long-term user, LR will be my "go-to" software for a long while yet, but hopefully I will get started on the PL learning curve before I'm forced to leave LR (for whatever reason).
Click to expand...
Hi I don’t remember a specific whites slider in LR but it’s been a long while since I used it
I’m still learning PL5 myself and normally find the preset is close to correct but you can do fine adjustments including highlights on raws before conversion
 
LCPete said:
Hi I don’t remember a specific whites slider in LR but it’s been a long while since I used it
I’m still learning PL5 myself and normally find the preset is close to correct but you can do fine adjustments including highlights on raws before conversion
Click to expand...


Hi, When the whites slider first came in in Lightroom I couldn't understand the point of it when there was already a highlights slider. But changing the white point brings life to so many photographs and if it blows the highlights you have the highlights slider to counteract it. But that was LR!

Maybe the contrast slider in PL5 is more predictable and i'll get used to using that instead.
 
jerry12953 said:
Hi, When the whites slider first came in in Lightroom I couldn't understand the point of it when there was already a highlights slider. But changing the white point brings life to so many photographs and if it blows the highlights you have the highlights slider to counteract it. But that was LR!

Maybe the contrast slider in PL5 is more predictable and i'll get used to using that instead.
Click to expand...
Oh yes I know what you mean with the white point, I did used to adjust the white point in curves with the eye dropper (Photoshop), it could transform a photo
I use affinity now and it’s the only thing I miss being able todo that but I find that with DXO that the colours don’t need as much adjustment
I shoot wildlife and macro insects so can’t always choose the best light
 
jerry12953 said:
I'm just starting my Photolab journey. I've been watching a few Youtube videos and am getting the hang of the basics.

In LR I use(d) a combination of the blacks, whites, shadows and highlights sliders for basic processing of raw files,. I rarely used Contrast because I found/find the results unpredictable, and frankly weird sometimes. But in PL v5 there is no whites slider! Has anyone else found this a problem and if so, how have you worked around it?

As a long-term user, LR will be my "go-to" software for a long while yet, but hopefully I will get started on the PL learning curve before I'm forced to leave LR (for whatever reason).
Click to expand...
I'm not a PL user but have had a play with it. You should be able to get the same results with curves.
 
Funny, curves were a staple tool in Photoshop since the year dot, and only borrowed forwards into Lightroom. ??????
 
This looks very interesting for those moving from Lightroom.

I wasn't aware of it at the time I bought into DXO but the big benefits of Photolab seem to be at the pre-processing stage, ie the actual RAW conversions. DXO also does an app called PureRAW which deals with that side of things; after using it you then export the resulting file into eg Lightroom to do the rest of the processing. It is possible to combine the four processes that are combined in PureRAW into a preset in Photolab, export the resulting file into LR and continue processing it there in your normal fashion.

This guy explains it far better than I could!

https://lenscraft.co.uk/photography-blog/photolab-vs-pureraw/
 
I'm looking to use DXO Pure Raw as pre-process noise reduction prior to importing into LR & PS. I have been holding off as currently the computer systems processing power is somewhat lacking, hopefully fixed by the aqusition of a mac mini M1. It's taken me a long while to get the hang of LS & PS so shifting to another Raw conversion package is something I'm not prepared to do ... my memory could'nt stand it.
 
This is the review of DXO Pure Raw which explains his workflow process ...

https://lenscraft.co.uk/photography-blog/dxo-pureraw-review/

The thing I need to resolve now is whether my camera/lens combinations are supported by DXO Pure Raw. Are the corrections per lens, per camera or combined for both ... hey ho more digging
 
Didn't have to dig that far ... heres the answer to the camera/lens combinations ...

https://www.dxo.com/supported-cameras/

So DxO PureRAW v1.0.0 supports my camera/lens combinations
So I'm just waiting for the delivery of the new mac and I'll download the free trial and give it a go
 
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Chevin said:
This is the review of DXO Pure Raw which explains his workflow process ...

https://lenscraft.co.uk/photography-blog/dxo-pureraw-review/

The thing I need to resolve now is whether my camera/lens combinations are supported by DXO Pure Raw. Are the corrections per lens, per camera or combined for both ... hey ho more digging
Click to expand...

In this he says -

  • "The resulting DNG is around 4 times the size of the original RAW file. This may or may not be a problem for you but it’s worth mentioning."
So it may not be a good option for all one's files........
 
I bought it the other day when it was on offer. I mainly use C1 and Affinity. I was really only interested in Deep Prime which is already available cheaper with DXO's Pure RAW, but the idea of saving money cost me a few quid! I'm obvisouly just starting out with it.
 
jerry12953 said:
In this he says -

  • "The resulting DNG is around 4 times the size of the original RAW file. This may or may not be a problem for you but it’s worth mentioning."
So it may not be a good option for all one's files........
Click to expand...
Missed that ... new glasses required ;) ... My planned workflow using DXO was to import into DXO > process > export to lightroom. Due to the file size ... I do have a few 50mb images I may revise that to import into lightroom > select keep or cut > export to DXO > process > re-import to lightroom. That should reduce the number of potentally large files I've to handle.
Will give that a tryout on the free trial.
 
This is how Robin Whalley does it - see post no 29 above -

I start by importing the RAW files from my memory card to Lightroom which adds them to my Lightroom Catalog. After that I sort and rate the images to find the best ones to process further. Once I know the images I want to process, I export them to DxO PhotoLab using a Lightroom plugin. I then apply my default RAW file adjustment in DxO PhotoLab before exporting the images back to Lightroom as DNG files. I can then process the DNG files in Lightroom and/or Photoshop to produce a finished image. This tends to produce a better-quality image than if I had only processed the RAW files using Lightroom.

DxO PhotoLab Lightroom Integration in Detail​

The key to making this integration work between DxO PhotoLab and Lightroom is the DxO PhotoLab Lightroom Plugin. This Plugin handles passing the selected RAW file from Lightroom to DxO PhotoLab so that you process the RAW files. If instead you use the Lightroom “Edit in…” option from the menu (or by right clicking an image) Lightroom will process the RAW file and pass the processed image to PhotoLab.
You always know when Lightroom is processing the image because you see the “Edit Photo” dialog.
Lightroom Edit Photo dialog

When you see this dialog, Lightroom convert the RAW file and send the results to DxO PhotoLab. This isn’t what you want to happen and will negate the benefit of using DxO PhotoLab.

Instead, you should select the file or files you want to process in the Lightroom Library module and then use the PhotoLab Plugin. You can do this from the Lightroom menu by selecting “File | Plug-in Extras | Transfer to DxO PhotoLab”. This opens PhotoLab and passes the RAW file or files for processing.

After applying your adjustments in PhotoLab you can use the “Export to Lightroom” option to send the images back to Lightroom. To do this, DxO PhotoLab uses a second Lightroom Plugin which is calls to handle the import, adding the new images into the Lightroom Catalog.

Due to the massive increase in file size when it has been through Photolab/PureRaw, presumably one would be selective about which ones to put through this process.
 
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jerry12953 said:
This is how Robin Whalley does it - see post no 29 above -

I start by importing the RAW files from my memory card to Lightroom which adds them to my Lightroom Catalog. After that I sort and rate the images to find the best ones to process further. Once I know the images I want to process, I export them to DxO PhotoLab using a Lightroom plugin. I then apply my default RAW file adjustment in DxO PhotoLab before exporting the images back to Lightroom as DNG files. I can then process the DNG files in Lightroom and/or Photoshop to produce a finished image. This tends to produce a better-quality image than if I had only processed the RAW files using Lightroom.

DxO PhotoLab Lightroom Integration in Detail​

The key to making this integration work between DxO PhotoLab and Lightroom is the DxO PhotoLab Lightroom Plugin. This Plugin handles passing the selected RAW file from Lightroom to DxO PhotoLab so that you process the RAW files. If instead you use the Lightroom “Edit in…” option from the menu (or by right clicking an image) Lightroom will process the RAW file and pass the processed image to PhotoLab.
You always know when Lightroom is processing the image because you see the “Edit Photo” dialog.
Lightroom Edit Photo dialog

When you see this dialog, Lightroom convert the RAW file and send the results to DxO PhotoLab. This isn’t what you want to happen and will negate the benefit of using DxO PhotoLab.

Instead, you should select the file or files you want to process in the Lightroom Library module and then use the PhotoLab Plugin. You can do this from the Lightroom menu by selecting “File | Plug-in Extras | Transfer to DxO PhotoLab”. This opens PhotoLab and passes the RAW file or files for processing.

After applying your adjustments in PhotoLab you can use the “Export to Lightroom” option to send the images back to Lightroom. To do this, DxO PhotoLab uses a second Lightroom Plugin which is calls to handle the import, adding the new images into the Lightroom Catalog.

Due to the massive increase in file size when it has been through Photolab/PureRaw, presumably one would be selective about which ones to put through this process.
Click to expand...

This is how I use it. Only select images are processed through Pure Raw. If they are particularly noisy or images that would benefit from the sharpening of Pure Raw.
 
Interesting using DXO for deep prime convert to DNG and then into Lightroom a lot of people use DXO that way
I actually use it instead of Lightroom just need to get the colours/ white balance right and do most editing such as cloning stacking etc in Affinity
I guess it depends on what people photograph , I do mostly macro and wildlife so don’t need to do anything too complicated :)
 
jerry12953 said:
Has anyone had reason to contact DXO customer support? They don't seem very responsive at all.
Click to expand...
Perhaps start by trying on the community forum.....on my phone posting this, so will link when on the PC.

Are you Mac or PC, as they have separate sub fora for each ' flavour' .
 
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