DXO half price

rookies

rookies

Messages
8,063
Name
Andrew
Edit My Images
No
Anyone here using it as it half price Till end of today.

Another I am thinking off with on1 2019 trying to decide which
 
Thank I agree have taken DXO off just didn't like it at all.. Adjustment was poor i think
 
Just downloaded Photolab 2. Installation was a breeze, but we'll see about the app(s). LR has been my benchmark up to stand-alone V5.7 but I'm resistant to subscription models.

Cataloguing is not vital to me, & I still have LR if necessary for that as long as it works on OS upgrades (nothing works for ever).

I've opened Photolab and set a few preferences, one being to not produce sidecars (I find their presence irritating, and do all my work on a single desktop machine so can just back up the Photolab database (I don't need my adjustments to be portable). I've already set the database to a custom location in my pictures folder so that apart from frequent local backups, it'll get backed up externally each time I do incremental backups there).

Once I've tweaked the prefs & interface a bit more, I'll get stuck in and report back.

I tried the last iteration of its predecessor and liked it enough to pursue this forwards.
 
Have you purchased it while it is on offer then or you just trying it first
 
I bit the bullet, Andrew, based on my previous introduction. So now I've got a vested interest and have to prove the pudding! Watch this space. But I'll be ruthless - my standards are set high.

A bit more context is that I looked briefly at On1, but don't feel drawn to the American culture that it comes packaged with ('awesome', ffs?) - since I'm a bit beyond childhood and like a bit of dignity in products that I interface with.

I also glanced at Affinity photo, but it doesn't seem to be fully-featured as a raw processor (yet), and I already have a late perpetual version of PS for operations beyond raw conversion.
 
Last edited:
Well I cant seem to bite the bullet as I just find the slider very limited and not really much to play with compare to like LR and On1 so it looks as if I will miss out on offers
 
Photolab lacks downloadable lens profiles for several of my manual focus lenses, but this was true of LR too and isn't an issue because I can make up my own presets for such as barrel distortion and chromatic aberration.

Don't know what you mean about the slider(s?) - they seem pretty sensitive and to have good range and interaction, to me. On brief acquaintance Photolab seems very quick & capable. I have LR image versions to compare. I think the PL version might be better than the LR version of the raw image I've just been tweaking, but that's a lightning assessment.


.
 
Last edited:
How are you finder the processing side of it with the sliders on the right.. I dont find them very appealing
 
The sliders are on the right in LR anyway, which is what I'm used to. Or do you mean how do I find the sliders themselves in operation?
 
I'll be reviewing the adjustment panel layout to see what I can put where to suit my usage and have readily available, but most of what I want seems to come under 'essential tools' - colour temp, overall exposure, highlights, mid-tones, shadows, and contrast, micro-contrast ... and curves for special tweaking.

It's looking good but I'll know more in a week, and more than that in a month!

For reference, I have a 24" screen that can display Adobe rgb, am used to sending image files to print, and expect processed files to be of exhibition quality, whatever that means. I mean that I'm tough on stuff (I think), but not anal about it - meaning that I hold that the guts of an image are more important than its supposed 'perfection'. Also, having long had other craft skills, I have a notion of efficiency. I don't want to p*** about - results are the thing.

My quick take is that PL can equal or better LR for raw processing.

Haven't tried brush or gradients yet, which I would use quite a lot - and PL doesn't have layers as far as I know, but I can live w/o those in raw processing I think, and I have them in PS if I want to do stuff to tiffs later on in the workflow.
 
Last edited:
Yes I mean the slider them self they don’t seem to adjust much. Vignettes doesn’t do dark from what I seen. I just find the sliders not group together or work as well as LR?
 
Looks on quick glance that the vignetting tool (slider) is just for lens correction, ie lifting edge tone only, and not the application of a dark vignette to an image as an effect. So looks like you're right.

My take is that the sliders work excellently though - they do what they should.

Gradually, I'll be looking into what tools are visible and how they're grouped.
 
Last edited:
I look forward to hearing you though after you had a good play with it etc.. Also it be good to see and before and after image if you dont mind?
 
There's a tool in the Film Pack add-on for vignette darkening ...
 
rookies said:
Also it be good to see and before and after image
Click to expand...
Don't know if I'll get around to posting images - we'll see, but it'll be interesting to me comparing images that I've processed from raw in LR and the same ones done in PL.
 
Yes it be very interesting.
 
How far you got with your testing dude.
 
I keep having a little play now and again when I'm in the mood. I do have a life already!

My method is to open raw's w/o adjustments - I'm not the preset type for tonal etc processing, I like to do it myself. So there are automated defaults that I turn off, including the production of sidecar files. Then I adjust wb if it's not right out of camera (that's just occasionally), overall exposure (occasionally), then do contrast, highlights & shadows, microcontrast ...

All controls work sweetly, no issues, i don't feel that I'm missing anything yet.

Just now I went a bit further and opened local adjustments - added a gradient and altered contrast & tone in it. Neat and smooth. The test image is looking good. And looking good is the acid test.

This is all on Win10 64-bit (of course). I'm finding it very usable & easy to grasp.

Suppose next I should open a demanding file, one that's a bit more tonally extreme. The crucial hinge of any processing app for me (though of course it begins in camera) is highlight recovery.

Pity you chickened out Andrew. Did you go for On1?
 
Not gone for any yet still very undecided lol
 
I guess they all work.

Export from PhotoLab after adjustments seems a bit slower than from LR for a similar size & spec file (full size 16-bit tif). I'll have to stopwatch them to put a handle on that.

I could have gone for C1, (I like the thought of layers in a raw processor), but decided that I just wasn't wealthy enough.
 
Last edited:
As a side-by-side comparison on one out-of-camera raw, processed & exported as tiff previously from LR5.7 & now from PL2, at this minute I prefer the PL2 version.

That's not a scientific test - it's subjective and of the moment. There was no attempt to copy - the PL2 version was done live from a fresh start.

It looks that on-screen operations happen quickly in real time (which is useful & satisfying), and the hit might be the export being slower than LR. Swings & roundabouts? The app DOES seem sweet to use.

I think that's it for tonight.

I don't think that functionality is in doubt. With an app, it's not just what it does, it helps if you like the interface, just as with a camera it helps if you like the viewfinder & the grip as well as the controls and output. So some of this is, again, subjective.

Knowing LR gave me a head start in knowing what to do.
 
Last edited:
Today - I'm struggling with it. I loaded a difficult, high-contrast raw, and tried various processing methods in PL2. If I wasn't happy, I reverted to the original and started again.

All I've done at this point is to move a few sliders to affect the whole image -
highlights -100
mid-tones -29
shadows -11
blacks +9

Something weird is happening to the structure of the image. When I export a 16-bit tif from PL2 to PS, & view it at 100% alongside a version previously exported from LR5.7, the results are radically different. The PL2 version lacks definition.

Try again. Tones as before. Add a smidge of microcontast boost, and a healthy dose of unsharp mask.

The result is closer to that from LR, but still noticeably inferior.

(As reference, I allow LR to apply its default amount of sharpening on raw import, but no other sharpening is applied.)

Oh well, must get on, other things to do ...
 
Hi Ron, I used to ring similar exporting to lr from dxo op, where the images looked crisp in dxo but all washed out in lr. The only 'fix' I found was to export as a full res jpg at 100%, and even that was only better, rather than perfect. Could it be caused by using a different internal colourspace?
 
ancient_mariner said:
Hi Ron, I used to ring similar exporting to lr from dxo op, where the images looked crisp in dxo but all washed out in lr. The only 'fix' I found was to export as a full res jpg at 100%, and even that was only better, rather than perfect. Could it be caused by using a different internal colourspace?
Click to expand...
Rog. Spill chucker. [emoji14]
 
Hello Toni, & thanks. No, everything's set to Adobe rgb, from in-camera raws through to all app workspaces.
 
Thought I would contribute to this thread...

I have been using DXO Photolab 2 for the past few days.... I love the NR on D810 files. For portrait work, it's excellent - not an all rounder like Lightroom, but I love using it for my portrait work.

I will be running both as of now, using LR for sport and general stuff and DXO for portraits.
 
I noticed that this week's copy of Amateur Photographer (not that I buy or read that limp rag of a thing) seems to have a hands-on review of Photolab 2.

I'd assume that it's a taster rather than anything in depth, but it might get somebody started.

My own experiments are on hold for the moment - just too much to do.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top