DxO anyone?

DiddyDave

DiddyDave

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Hi all

I'm considering buying the DxO 'award winning' software and wondered about the views of those of you already using it? :help:

Ken Rockwell's certainly had a rave about it recently on his site (strangely, now a lover of both Nikon & Canon!!), but just wondering what 'normal' people's views are?

[Abnormal people's views are welcome too if you're using it!]

Cheers
 
Nivver 'erd of it. Warrizzit, whassit do? :shrug:
 
Well the website flash demo looked pretty impressive.

Will have a look at it properly tonight and feedback. It has a list of compatible cameras and lenses so I'm guessing that it takes into account what the lens is and what it can do and how your camera captures the image.

This could be very interesting indeed.
 
I too am still trying to get to grips with CS2. I even bought The Idiots Guide but still don't get it. :shrug:

That DxO looks ok though.
 
Jason

Load itunes and do a search for photoshop TV. Its a new show each week that has tutorials. I have learnt a lot from it but have still only scratched the surface

Steve
 
Thanks for that Steve, i'll download it tonight when i get home. :thumbs:
 
The_old_man said:
Jason

Load itunes and do a search for photoshop TV. Its a new show each week that has tutorials. I have learnt a lot from it but have still only scratched the surface

Steve
Click to expand...

Ooh - good ti[ - I'll be downloading that when i get home. Get more frustrated by the day with my lack of CS2 ability!!! :bang:
 
This DxO looks expensive for whats on offer (certainly milking the 5D upwards users with only having Raw support in the Elite version @£199)

For lens distortion there a programme called PTlens - much cheaper and exists as a photoshop plugin and stand alone. I'm yet to be convinced that 'blown highlights' can be recovered! Over exposed maybe, but not blown.......... If i'm wrong let me know as £199 then looks reasonable if it performs miracles :shrug:
 
It's pretty good. I trialed it for comparison at work, and tested the main features: geometric distortion correction, vignetting, blur or image softness, lighting corrections and noise corrections. There are pronounced improvements. I would say that it is very good and easy to use and saves you having to do the work in Photoshop, but if you have the skill and time, it is do-able in Photoshop. DxO does the magic in 1 minute or so on an 8MP image (for all corrections, or less than 1 minute if you're just doing one or two corrections). Doing it by hand in Photoshop would take you hours. :)

I think you can request or get a trial version to try out, right? Try it for yourself.
 
You're right - a trial wouldn't hurt I guess.

Trouble is, I already have a PC crammed with software; lightroom, CS2, bibble, raw shooter, PT lens, Canon professional doodah-whotsit and who knows what else hidden away in the rark corners...... Just feels like another £199 isn't a step in the right direction, particularly with an upgrade from CS2 to CS3 on the horizon :'(
 
Thanks for your comments so far - Ken, here http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/dxo/optics-pro.htm raves about it enormously, and shows how it works in practise too.

But then he says he loves Canon's too now, so not sure how much to trust his opinion! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I have now downloaded their trial version, but of course it'll run out before I can really assess it properly, so I was just wondering if anyone here had longer term experience to report on?

The Elite version is more expensive for no apparent reason other than as "you have to have spent a tonne on the camera/lens anyway, so why not cream money more off you" seems to be their idea. But as a Pro, reclaiming the VAT and offsetting against 40% Income Tax, it makes it effectively half-price anyway - so you can see their point. Just penalises amateurs with deep pockets!
 
Colour me impressed. I think if you use it as an extra step before Photoshop it could be quite good. The lens distortion feature is very cool.
 
Here's an animated GIF showing the geometric distortion correction on an image taken with the Canon 350D with 18-55mm kit lens. (Hope the animaged GIF works! And pardon the larger than allowed image file size.)

Distortion.gif
 
Here's the lens and camera softness correction. First image is the original, second image is DxO corrected.

IMG_0735_red_car.jpg


IMG_0735_red_car_Lens_Softness.jpg
 
And another comparison for the softness correction.

IMG_0735_Tower.jpg


IMG_0735_Tower_LensSoftness.jpg
 
Its the little things you'd not really mind that makes it clever. The first image there looks fine till its fixed.
 
Here's a comparison montage for DxO noise correction.
From left to right: ISO 100, ISO 400, ISO 1600 (DxO corrected), ISO 1600.

ISONoiseComparison.jpg


As you can see the DxO corrected ISO 1600 version is less noisy than the original and about the same as ISO 400, but the image is much softer (see the 'Tektronix' wording).

Also, please note that all the DxO corrected pictures I have shown have only ONE type of correction applied on them to highlight that particularly feature.

So maybe the "lens softness" correction switched on together with the "noise" correction might have helped.
 
petemc said:
Its the little things you'd not really mind that makes it clever. The first image there looks fine till its fixed.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If I haven't used an "animated" GIF, a side by side comparison would not have revealed the difference easily.
 
kamion said:
Exactly. If I haven't used an "animated" GIF, a side by side comparison would not have revealed the difference easily.
Click to expand...
Does that not serve to ask the question " If you can't really notice it why buy it?"


It's not strange to see that one of DXO's test images is the architecture shot (of the columns) using a 15mm fish eye :thinking: sorry but who's not going to get barrel distortion with that combination??

Tried the demo/trial myself and TBH found that it did exactly what it said on the tin but:

The lens distortion correction never reared it head as I has taken predominantly landscapes or portrait shots where nearly all the information was in the centre of the viewfinder.

Lens softness wasn't a problem as I was (lucky enough) to be using a mixture of canon 'L' lenses with both a 20D and a 5D

Colour correction and or levels was not quite to my liking :shrug: so I ended up with the images in CS2 at the end of the day anyway.

I don't batch process all my images from a days shoot. Never have, always go through and pick the keepers. So the idea of this saving me processing time by setting it off running and watching it process three hundred images doesn't appeal to me.

All in all doesn't for me appear to do much more than what Rawshooter Premium can do.

But if your a photographer who takes a lot of architeture shots with poor fisheye lenses and needs to process every shot on your return to base then I reckon this will do the same as many other products on the market but a little bit quicker

As said earlier I thought the idea of being ripped off for a few dollar more just because I decided to by a better camera is a bit of a joke.
 
Pity RawShooter Premium isn't available any longer, and the last version doesn't support the D2xs!

Still hunting the RAW tool ideal for my Nikon and I'd snap up DxO were it not £300

Kamion, have you copies these excellent examples from somewhere or are they from your own experience of it?
 
The photos I have posted are my own creation while using the trial version of DxO about a year or so ago.
 
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