Heads up DxO PL6 is out

JohnMcL7 · 21 Feb 2023

sjh2008 said:
@JohnMcL7 yes I went and purchased photolabs 6 as it was on offer for Black Friday. I also have the RX 100 mark six and using the deep prime feature works really well with high-ish iso files.

Thanks for the response, how are you getting on with it in general?

sjh2008 · 22 Feb 2023

PL 6 is really good, i setup a preset with sharpening / lens corrections etc applied then just add it to the raw photo and tweak exposure / crop as needed then export as jpeg.
If its a high iso shot then Deep Prime XD is used which takes a bit of time on my older pc but the results are impressive
Same as LR 6 process really in terms of workflow.

Suggest downloading the trial of PL 6 and going through the tutorials.

Tulipone · 4 Mar 2023

Wondering if anyone did the jump from PL 4 to PL6. Were there enough differences to warrant the update?

droj · 4 Mar 2023

Tulipone said:
Wondering if anyone did the jump from PL 4 to PL6. Were there enough differences to warrant the update?

I have a distinct impression that it works noticeably faster (same operation on same hardware). Larger working colour space. Fuji raws for those that care. Various tweaks of course. Very happy that I took the jump. It's become my default raw processor.

Tulipone · 4 Mar 2023

Thanks. It seems that an upgrade from 4 to 6 is still £89 - but no upgrades from 3 to 6, that'd be full price. My dilemma is that 4 is okay for me but it'd be cheaper - assuming it remains as is - to upgrade twice every two years than to slip and then need to pay full to renew. It'd be good to have a noticeable upgrade to help swallow the bill. Thank you for your insight.

droj · 4 Mar 2023

There are quirks (all apps have them!). You can back up its database (catalogue) but they claim that it's non-transferable to another machine because of drive mapping. I don't know how true this is - surely if the drive letters were the same ...? But if you save .dop sidecars with your processed raws, and access them from a new installation of PL, it will automatically rebuild a new database from them. I understand though that library functions, such as they are, would be lost in that circumstance.

The thing heading my wishlist is for the right hand adjustments panel(s) to be wider, which would make the sliders more sensitive - more on a par with LR & C1.

Peter123 · 18 Mar 2023

I've got version 5. I wonder if it is worth the upgrade?

Peter123 · 18 Mar 2023

It appears they want £199 to upgrade!

Edit - it's actually £89.

Tulipone · 18 Mar 2023

I just went from 4 to 6 (as above) and I'd love to tell you that it is a massive difference and after several shortish sessions - I have found some changes but nothing that changed my world. The additional deep prime looks nice but as I’ve not shot anything that noisy, yet to use it. It does irritate me that I buy the upgrade then the next week get an email trying to flog me another enhancement. Make up your own mind but there is no update route from version 3, 4 is the oldest. Unless there is something really impressive, I doubt I will go to 7, maybe 8. If you wait for 7 maybe the update route will still be open - else have a look at the enhancements and see if they work for you. If I recall there is a 2 week demo you can try. I downloaded that and it had expired prior to me trying it out.

Bebop · 21 Mar 2023

Peter123 said:
I've got version 5. I wonder if it is worth the upgrade?

I might have posted before in this thread - apologies if so. For me there are a few things I really like about 6 over 5, but it really depends on whether they would be useful to you. The top 4 that spring to mind....

- I love that in the crop tool you can now grab the corner handles to rotate the image a little instead of having to use the horizon tool.

- I really like being able to colour code my images. It can really help me pick out certain images, eg all ones belonging to a stack.

- 6 now offers softproofing which I find useful.

- I have a micro four thirds camera so the XD prime reduction is very welcome. I think it is superb although it does take a long time on my ageing MacBook pro. In fact generally I find Photolab slow but I am probably well under specced!

Edit to add - another thing which could be useful although I haven't needed it yet, is that if you use the healing tool, you can then transform the source so that you don't get repeated cloning patterns.

Peter123 · 21 Mar 2023

Thanks BB.
I only use it for NR so its a no from me.

JohnMcL7 · 28 Sep 2023

I've finally given this software a go and I'm really impressed with the automatic image processing it does before I start so I can just do a bit of tweaking after which is pretty much exactly what I wanted. I'm having significant problems with the software dealing with large photo collections though, it seems to take hours the first time I go to one of my cameras and after that it's unpredictable how long it's going to be. It seems to want to count up every single image in the folder before I can access the new images and I've tried setting filters but it doesn't seem to help the issue, is there any way around this?

Edit - Thought I should play around with the NR a bit since that seems to be the main recommendation for the software and wow, I can't believe how much it cleaned up a test image.

Tulipone · 28 Sep 2023

JohnMcL7 said:
I'm having significant problems with the software dealing with large photo collections though, it seems to take hours the first time I go to one of my cameras and after that it's unpredictable how long it's going to be. It seems to want to count up every single image in the folder before I can access the new images and I've tried setting filters but it doesn't seem to help the issue, is there any way around this?

I haven’t seen as you describe - I don’t ingest photos with DXO and probably my folder sizes have a maximum of 200 images in each on my aging iMac. It sounds like your computer is struggling with putting thumbnails up?

sjh2008 · 28 Sep 2023

@JohnMcL7 Check in preferences that you are not applying a default preset when it is indexing the images as i have read that leaving it set to none means it does not try and display the thumbnails with the default preset applied, which is what is slowing things down.

I then when i have imported the image into PL6 just apply the exact preset i want to use

sjh2008 · 28 Sep 2023

photo lab version 7 now out, no major new features that I would use so sticking with version 6

Box Brownie · 28 Sep 2023

sjh2008 said:
photo lab version 7 now out, no major new features that I would use so sticking with version 6

I did find this short video quite informative

View: https://youtu.be/Ek45YQYf_0Q?si=mS68mHp3Pd5dTkVm

The workflow has become IMO more conventional/user friendly???

JohnMcL7 · 28 Sep 2023

sjh2008 said:
@JohnMcL7 Check in preferences that you are not applying a default preset when it is indexing the images as i have read that leaving it set to none means it does not try and display the thumbnails with the default preset applied, which is what is slowing things down.

I then when i have imported the image into PL6 just apply the exact preset i want to use

Is that the setting listed here:

PhotoLab Preference Settings

Greetings, I’m shooting RAW and importing directly from my camera. Wanted to see what settings others were using, and why. I am not using any adobe products in my workflow. Also not running any monitor calibration software. I’m using Standard now. Preferences > General tab > Correction DxO...

feedback.dxo.com

I've tried that and not seeing much difference but I've maybe got the wrong setting. I think it's doing some sort of scan to look for new files rather than a manual sync like Lightroom does and that's what is causing the issue but because it's counting up from the first alphabetical file it's taking some time before I can get access to the newest ones. I store raw+jpeg and keep all the original files sorted by camera which has worked fine so far but I might have to rethink that if I stick with Photolab. It's definitely been behaving better today so it's not as bad as it was looking last night and I'm still impressed with the editing, I've been trying a few different editing packages to get away from Lightroom and it's been by far the easiest to do the editing.

I've a couple of other questions you might know off the top of your head, can view the metadata when in the customise tab or do you have to go back to the PhotoLibrary tab? Is there a way to apply the camera's own colour profile, in other software there's usually a range of the camera's own colour profiles (standard, profile etc.) but I can only seem to apply one profile for the camera and when I choose Camera Body it gives me a list of different cameras. I was finding some images a bit over saturated by default although I've tried bringing the saturation slider down a bit further down in the HSL section so that maybe sorts that issue.

Box Brownie · 28 Sep 2023

John

You may find this 'acknowledged official ' tutorial site of some aid.

Accueil - TuTo DxO

SommaireTous les tutorielsBienvenue sur TuToDxO.comLes nouveaux articlesActualités de TuToDxO.com et de PhotoLabFAQContactRessources externes Tous les tutoriels Bienvenue sur TuToDxO.com « Le plus beau cadeau que tu puisses faire à quelqu’un, c’est ton temps.Parce que tu lui donnes une partie de...

tutodxo.com

My Android phone auto switches to English but IIRC so does MS Edge browser

He has yet to update for PL7

Tulipone · 29 Sep 2023

I see that one of the new features with PL7 is the ability to have a camera profile based on a colour checker image. This seems to be a benefit and I’m wondering if it is worth considering buying one. I assumed that each lighting senario requires a picture taken with the colour checker but a little confused now. Is it a once only thing? Thoughts on benefits please.

gramps · 30 Sep 2023

Tulipone said:
I see that one of the new features with PL7 is the ability to have a camera profile based on a colour checker image. This seems to be a benefit and I’m wondering if it is worth considering buying one. I assumed that each lighting senario requires a picture taken with the colour checker but a little confused now. Is it a once only thing? Thoughts on benefits please.

Found this from an Amazon review:-

How to use:
1. First, you need to take a picture from the location of where your camera is, in the environment its in. Unfortunately, to keep color grading and white balance accurate, you need to redo this every time something changes about your photo/video shoot. When you take a picture of it, you'll want to fill as much of the frame as you can with it, and keep it square or parallel as close as possible to the camera.
2. Now, import your files into lightroom (or whatever your choice of editing software is)
3. Find the file(s) you took a photo of the spydercheckr24 and crop down and rotate it so it has the greyscale at the bottom row. Export this as JPG, and exit your editing software.
4. Open the Spyderchekr24 program, and browse to your JPG export, and import it. At this point you should see little boxes to square up. Move these boxes so they fit within the image, and process the color correction and export it as a preset to lightroom with whatever preferred settings you want. Once done, you can exit Spydercheckr24 app.
5. Relaunch lightroom, then you should find under "user presets" under the development module the preset to color correct accurately your environment. You can right click and move this to another folder or location if you choose.

I think I'll stick to the eyedropper!

Tulipone · 30 Sep 2023

gramps said:
Found this from an Amazon review:-

I think I'll stick to the eyedropper!

Hmmm…think you are right.

Box Brownie · 30 Sep 2023

gramps said:
Found this from an Amazon review:-

I think I'll stick to the eyedropper!

If you watch the "What's new" video here ...

Learn DxO PhotoLab 9 — tutorials, user guide, FAQs

Discover system requirements, user guide, technical FAQs, supported camera equipment, and an active community forum.

www.dxo.com

At approx 1min 20 secs in they talk about the method of using the colour checker. Seems very straightforward.

Though not mentioned, it was my understanding that (from elsewhere) that the checking image needs to be taken each time based on the lighting conditions e.g. in sun or shade. Perhaps not too onerous?

Edit....
A more accessible list of info videos here...

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuxFOzoD26jMJau_wFD8iN3g8z6quRf6S

PS there is one poster on DPReview, where PL7 is being discussed who is quite critical about DxO's claims, statement & implementation of the colour checker profiles created. No one (to date) appears to have corroborated his postings and so far more have any reviewers commented about it???

gramps · 30 Sep 2023

Box Brownie said:
Though not mentioned, it was my understanding that (from elsewhere) that the checking image needs to be taken each time based on the lighting conditions e.g. in sun or shade. Perhaps not too onerous?

Maybe not but I attended a wedding earlier in the week (not as THE tog but as a guest) - the light varied from outside overcast to outside bright sun (and everything in between!), inside fluorescent to inside bulb and subdued dance/variable colour lights. Eyedropper worked for me.

LCPete · 30 Sep 2023

I’m still using DXO 5 does anyone know if there’s a significant or noticeable image quality difference between 5 and the new version at higher ISO (1600 plus ) ?
Remember someone saying that there was a very slight improvement going from 5 to version 6 on high ISO images when they are cropped
if the only difference is the colour checker thing I’ll stay with my current version, 5

Box Brownie · 30 Sep 2023

LCPete said:
I’m still using DXO 5 does anyone know if there’s a significant or noticeable image quality difference between 5 and the new version at higher ISO (1600 plus ) ?
Remember someone saying that there was a very slight improvement going from 5 to version 6 on high ISO images when they are cropped
if the only difference is the colour checker thing I’ll stay with my current version, 5

Setting aside 'how beneficial are the benefits' going from 5 to 7. AFAIK with skipping one update e.g. 5 to 7 means you get an upgrade discount price .

However, IIRC when 8 comes due in 2024, going from 5 to 8 will not attract an upgrade discount price.

LCPete · 30 Sep 2023

Box Brownie said:
Setting aside 'how beneficial are the benefits' going from 5 to 7. AFAIK with skipping one update e.g. 5 to 7 means you get an upgrade discount price .

However, IIRC when 8 comes due in 2024, going from 5 to 8 will not attract an upgrade discount price.

Ahh I see thanks didn’t know about that

Box Brownie · 30 Sep 2023

gramps said:
Maybe not but I attended a wedding earlier in the week (not as THE tog but as a guest) - the light varied from outside overcast to outside bright sun (and everything in between!), inside fluorescent to inside bulb and subdued dance/variable colour lights. Eyedropper worked for me.

A fair comment but in such changing light situation is there a benefit with both in use i.e. you create a daylight profile but still use the eyedropper as needed for finer tuning???

Box Brownie · 30 Sep 2023

LCPete said:
Ahh I see thanks didn’t know about that

I think it is somewhere in their terms and/or FAQs about upgrade pricing?

LCPete · 1 Oct 2023

LCPete said:
I’m still using DXO 5 does anyone know if there’s a significant or noticeable image quality difference between 5 and the new version at higher ISO (1600 plus ) ?
Remember someone saying that there was a very slight improvement going from 5 to version 6 on high ISO images when they are cropped
if the only difference is the colour checker thing I’ll stay with my current version, 5

have just found out that there is apparently no change in the Deep Prime noise reduction technology than what is currently available in Photolab 6 (from a US forum FredMiranda ) just the improvements already listed on here
I definitely won’t be upgrading there’s no point as I mainly use DXO as a raw converter , which it’s excellent at , then do my main editing in Affinity Photo
In fact if I understand it correctly they have changed the interface for the Deep Prime part and I’ve got used to the current layout don’t want to learn it all again

d00d · 5 Oct 2023

JohnMcL7 said:
I've finally given this software a go and I'm really impressed with the automatic image processing it does before I start so I can just do a bit of tweaking after which is pretty much exactly what I wanted.

That sounds a good idea, and there's a lot to choose from on PL7, I believe.

Thank you John. Do you or anyone know of a simple Raw Converter that does it all for you offering a selection of inspiring presets?

JohnMcL7 · 5 Oct 2023

d00d said:
That sounds a good idea, and there's a lot to choose from on PL7, I believe.

Thank you John. Do you or anyone know of a simple Raw Converter that does it all for you offering a selection of inspiring presets?

That's a good question and something I'm interested in as well with a raw converter as I'm not very artistic with mine. I would create a separate topic in this forum to ask because you should hopefully get a better spread of answers. So far I've only tried Lightroom, Capture One, ON1 and PhotoLab, of those I liked the default options Photolab offered but from what I can see there's not much range in its initial presets. ON1 had more presets but they seemed more artistic ones with very strong tones and styles but I've very limited experience with them so could well be wrong here.

d00d · 8 Oct 2023

JohnMcL7 said:
That's a good question and something I'm interested in as well with a raw converter as I'm not very artistic with mine. I would create a separate topic in this forum to ask because you should hopefully get a better spread of answers. So far I've only tried Lightroom, Capture One, ON1 and PhotoLab, of those I liked the default options Photolab offered but from what I can see there's not much range in its initial presets. ON1 had more presets but they seemed more artistic ones with very strong tones and styles but I've very limited experience with them so could well be wrong here.

Thanks John, but I've decided to go for PL7, learn how to use it and forget about presets (for now).

Just one/two questions at this stage, anyone,

What's this about filmpack & nik collection? More £?

And after paying the £209 (or more) can I download my copy to 2 or 3 computers?

Thanks

gramps · 8 Oct 2023

d00d said:
.Just one/two questions at this stage, anyone,

What's this about filmpack & nik collection? More £?

And after paying the £209 (or more) can I download my copy to 2 or 3 computers?

Thanks

Filmpack & Nik are ‘extras’.
Use on 3 x computers IIRC

Tulipone · 8 Oct 2023

d00d said:
Thanks John, but I've decided to go for PL7, learn how to use it and forget about presets (for now).

Just one/two questions at this stage, anyone,

What's this about filmpack & nik collection? More £?

And after paying the £209 (or more) can I download my copy to 2 or 3 computers?

Thanks

I am sure that others can give better guidance, but I kind of see Filmpack and Nik as presets. PL7 can also make use of LUTs - which seem to me to be a different but similar sort of preset.

Plainly each got us has our own budget for these things - I own Filmpack 1 from back in the day when it was affordable. I never really found the use for it nor NIK but have only had the latter of various trials - I don't think I really 'see' presets but occasionally use the ones built in to PL6. I do have and use regularly the previous Viewpoint (3).

piper · 9 Oct 2023

LCPete said:
have just found out that there is apparently no change in the Deep Prime noise reduction technology than what is currently available in Photolab 6 (from a US forum FredMiranda ) just the improvements already listed on here
I definitely won’t be upgrading there’s no point as I mainly use DXO as a raw converter , which it’s excellent at , then do my main editing in Affinity Photo
In fact if I understand it correctly they have changed the interface for the Deep Prime part and I’ve got used to the current layout don’t want to learn it all again

I am probably in the same boat currently using PL6 but see little point in upgrading for £99.

Also, realised that I can't force manually anything like a lens profile when I am using adapted FE lenses on a Z6 in PL Can do it in Affinity ( LensFun Db ? ) and LR ( only have LR6 so no camera or lens profiles later than its demise ) so maybe about the same £100 ish /yr for LR sub. Just thinking about it at the moment.

Tulipone · 9 Oct 2023

With the update to Affinity this year along with the annual incremental PL7 update I am starting to wonder why I leapt from Lightroom / Photoshop subscription. Probably costing about the same.

jerry12953 · 9 Oct 2023

DXO usually have a special deal around Black Friday. IIRC it was 30% off last year (50% the previous year.....)

Tulipone · 9 Oct 2023

jerry12953 said:
DXO usually have a special deal around Black Friday. IIRC it was 30% off last year (50% the previous year.....)

I have held off updating both PL6 and Affinity and will if they give a better deal than currently offered. If they do, will update - if they don't will make a decision on PL8 else go back to Adobe.

JohnMcL7 · 10 Oct 2023

piper said:
I am probably in the same boat currently using PL6 but see little point in upgrading for £99.

Also, realised that I can't force manually anything like a lens profile when I am using adapted FE lenses on a Z6 in PL Can do it in Affinity ( LensFun Db ? ) and LR ( only have LR6 so no camera or lens profiles later than its demise ) so maybe about the same £100 ish /yr for LR sub. Just thinking about it at the moment.

There's a super helpful post on here that shows you how to copy camera and lens profiles from ACR to use with Lightroom 6:

DxO PhotoLab 6, Lightroom Classic subscription, or DxO PureRaw 3 exporting into an old Lightroom version?

New on here, been an amateur photographer for close to 20 years. Looking for some advice from the collective wisdom on here, as I've realised I'm rather out-of-date on the software side. I've been soldiering on with an old version of Lr for several years (Lr 5.6, if you can believe that)...

www.talkphotography.co.uk

I've tried it with the Z8 profile on my Lightroom 6 and appeared to work perfectly.

Speaking about upgrading and support, how are future cameras supported in Photolab? With Lightroom once they went onto a newer version they would no longer support any newer cameras on the previous version of Lightroom, will PL6 no longer support newer cameras released from this point on due to PL7 has been released?

piper · 12 Oct 2023

JohnMcL7 said:
There's a super helpful post on here that shows you how to copy camera and lens profiles from ACR to use with Lightroom 6:

DxO PhotoLab 6, Lightroom Classic subscription, or DxO PureRaw 3 exporting into an old Lightroom version?

New on here, been an amateur photographer for close to 20 years. Looking for some advice from the collective wisdom on here, as I've realised I'm rather out-of-date on the software side. I've been soldiering on with an old version of Lr for several years (Lr 5.6, if you can believe that)...

www.talkphotography.co.uk

I've tried it with the Z8 profile on my Lightroom 6 and appeared to work perfectly.

Speaking about upgrading and support, how are future cameras supported in Photolab? With Lightroom once they went onto a newer version they would no longer support any newer cameras on the previous version of Lightroom, will PL6 no longer support newer cameras released from this point on due to PL7 has been released?

Really helpful - thank you

I will delve into it