From LR to DXO Photolabs 4 Elite (Sony)

D

dancook

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Name
Dan
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Just finished processing Squash, Fives, Netball, Hockey and Football from yesterday

It took longer than it would have in Lightroom, my main bug bear was cropping & straightening images. In DXO these are two separate actions, neither of which felt natural. For straightening you draw a line and see what it gives, If you have rotated the image adding black triangles to the 'canvas' then cropping them off takes fiddly precision.

I far prefer the crop & rotate of Lightroom.

The image quality is what makes DXO worth it though,

Deep Prime Noise reduction, is so much better than lightroom and so much faster and more convenient than Topaz DeNoise - this is such a great feature for me.

Sharpening & Unsharp Mask options - I don't know how to use the most effectively, but apply a small amount of each looked good.

Colour profiles - Adobe 'color' for the Sony A9 is heavy on the magenta, DXO default looks much better to me - but you can also choose profiles from other cameras to apply to your raws... I picked out the Leica M9 colour profile as was very happy with the results.


Going to stick with DXO for now!
 
I have been using DXO for years now, I know what you mean about the cropping though, very annoying isn't it.

Much prefer the IQ DXO 4 gives though and the noise reduction is excellent although I only use deep prime on the odd occasion something is really noisy.
 
Mike.P said:
I have been using DXO for years now, I know what you mean about the cropping though, very annoying isn't it.

Much prefer the IQ DXO 4 gives though and the noise reduction is excellent although I only use deep prime on the odd occasion something is really noisy.
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Ah was half hoping for a solution :)

I've used deep prime on some ISO 6400 cropped football shots and they come out looking like ISO 100 :D my clients will be so happy..
 
What do you use to manage your images Dan?
 
Harlequin565 said:
What do you use to manage your images Dan?
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Not very well :)

My professional work I import to a named folder starting with the year.
I then run through photo mechanic to 5 star any picks
I then import those into LR/Photolab, process or reject as I go, export JPGs and backup raws to NAS

Personal photography imported via Lightroom's default date structure, which all get moved away when the hdd gets full.

I don't tag, label or anything..
 
I guess that's my dilemma. I have a really streamlined workflow with LR for managing images - both their processing but also cataloguing and print. I quite liked DXO when I tried it but the lack of decent image management tools (collections in particular) let it down. I was wondering if they'd given it any attention recently...
 
I bought viewpoint - so not sure if this is core photolab

dxocrop.png

You can enable the horizon tab, and the crop tab with auto based on keystoning / .. etc

Then you just need to move the horizon slider to auto crop as you level.

I copy and pasted it across many items in a set and then just need to fix the horizon for each.
 
Mike.P said:
I was out this morning and was just shooting stuff ... as you do.

This Sparrow was ISO 6400 on my 7D MKII ... noisy as hell. Deep prime noise reduction in DXO did a pretty good job.



Sparrow by Michael Pursey, on Flickr
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For professional work, I'm now second guessing myself for wanting to use primes for the ISO advantage when shooting indoors.

When you're given 10 minutes per sport (including travel time between them) - I don't need to be wasting time changing lenses
 
I have also moved from Lightroom to Photolab this last year. I do far less processing than I used to, often just cropping and straightening. Deep Prime is just brilliant.

I agree about the crop and straighten tools, and also it doesn't constrain the crop - the black triangles! I reckon this might get rectified in the next version as there have been a few posts about it. Fingers crossed!! I usually just hit R for the crop tool.

I'd forgotten about the Viewpoint options. Thanks for reminding me. If I'm dealing with something like waves on the horizon, the horizon is often not straight and eyeballing seems to work better for me, so I'd like to be able to grab a corner and rotate it. I shall try nudging it in Viewpoint.

Also I'm hoping in the next iteration that it will deal better with xmp files. I also use Photo Mechanic first. If you rate it in there after having opened it in Photolab, Photolab won't then 'see' any changes. I suspect this will change in future as Photolab did a survey asking opinions on sidecar files.

I usually browse in Photo Mechanic and then click through to Photolab as I find Photolab a bit slow for browsing. Photo Mechanic is just great for speedily rating and culling.

Harlequin565 said:
I guess that's my dilemma. I have a really streamlined workflow with LR for managing images - both their processing but also cataloguing and print. I quite liked DXO when I tried it but the lack of decent image management tools (collections in particular) let it down. I was wondering if they'd given it any attention recently...
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I can still use Lightroom's catalog function - you can still import and keyword, even though you can no longer develop. The other day I discovered that I am still able to use my Lightroom develop presets in the Quick Develop tab - that was a surprise! You can't then tweak them though. I can no longer properly softproof, so I have been using Affinity for that, which seems to work well.

You can have 'Projects' in Photolab. Presumably these are to group photos together. It is something I have never explored, and I'm not sure whether it physically or virtually groups them.
 
Bebop said:
I agree about the crop and straighten tools, and also it doesn't constrain the crop - the black triangles! I reckon this might get rectified in the next version as there have been a few posts about it. Fingers crossed!! I usually just hit R for the crop tool.
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That's just the LR shortcut yes? I can't seem to find a shortcut in Photolab - I just read through the shortcuts list under help, can't see it there.
 
dancook said:
That's just the LR shortcut yes? I can't seem to find a shortcut in Photolab - I just read through the shortcuts list under help, can't see it there.
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It works - try it! I have a link to shortcuts somewhere. I will find it for you

Edit: https://help-photolab4.dxo.com/en/keyboard-shortcuts

Edit again: actually I can't see it on that list either, but on a Mac, R definitely opens the Crop tool for me. I must have discovered it accidentally!
 
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Bebop said:
It works - try it! I have a link to shortcuts somewhere. I will find it for you

Edit: https://help-photolab4.dxo.com/en/keyboard-shortcuts

Edit again: actually I can't see it on that list either, but on a Mac R definitely opens the Crop tool for me.
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Yea I'm working on photolab at the moment, R doesn't do anything

Also something when exporting, I like to export to fit 3600x3600 - but there is no option to 'not enlarge image'
 
dancook said:
Yea I'm working on photolab at the moment, R doesn't do anything

Also something when exporting, I like to export to fit 3600x3600 - but there is no option to 'not enlarge image'
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Ah that must be one of the differences between the Windows and Mac versions then - I think there are a few, and neither is 'better'.

If you know your image is smaller then you could just export without resizing, If it's larger you could try the long edge (which is what I usually use). I'm not quite sure what 'fit' does - presumably gives you a maximum of the sizes you input.
 
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Bebop said:
If you know your image is smaller then you could just export without resizing, If it's larger you could try the long edge (which is what I usually use). I'm not quite sure what 'fit' does - presumably gives you a maximum of the sizes you input.
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Fit prevents the dimensions exceeding your specification (3600px X 3600px), it keeps it proportional though.

When I'm exporting 300 sports images, I don't know which if any have been cropped down below 3600px - so it'll automatically enlarge those to fit 3600px
 
I think I might have settled on my professional look for schools - Agfa Vista 200 :)

colorrendering.png

The rich saturated green grass gets replaced with something a lot less saturated - really like the skin tones and contrast - all in all it helps pop people in a sports environment.
 
dancook said:
Fit prevents the dimensions exceeding your specification (3600px X 3600px), it keeps it proportional though.

When I'm exporting 300 sports images, I don't know which if any have been cropped down below 3600px - so it'll automatically enlarge those to fit 3600px
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Hmm that is annoying. You could add it in as a feature request on the forum. I would vote for it. The only thing I could think, is to somehow flag those that have a smaller crop as you go through them and export those ones separately. (You probably know that you can see the dimensions underneath when you crop).

I often shoot sport for myself or the odd football match or event for local press where I will be processing lots of images. I was nervous about making the switch to Photolab particularly because of the time pressure. I only did one match before Covid stopped play and it went okay. I miss being able to colour code them and the filter options are a bit cumbersome. I reckon they will update these in the next version ( again fingers crossed!). I was really disappointed this didn't get updated this time.
 
Bebop said:
Hmm that is annoying. You could add it in as a feature request on the forum. I would vote for it. The only thing I could think, is to somehow flag those that have a smaller crop as you go through them and export those ones separately. (You probably know that you can see the dimensions underneath when you crop).
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feedback.dxo.com

Export to Disk - Add Option to Prevent Enlargement when Resizing

When exporting to disk, PhotoLab provides the option to “Allow image resampling” which opens up the option to specify the size of the Longest side in pixels. The trouble is that if the longest side of the image to be exported is smaller than the value specified, then the image that is exported...
feedback.dxo.com feedback.dxo.com

found one, have voted
 
dancook said:
feedback.dxo.com

Export to Disk - Add Option to Prevent Enlargement when Resizing

When exporting to disk, PhotoLab provides the option to “Allow image resampling” which opens up the option to specify the size of the Longest side in pixels. The trouble is that if the longest side of the image to be exported is smaller than the value specified, then the image that is exported...
feedback.dxo.com feedback.dxo.com

found one, have voted
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Well done. I have voted too! (y)
Edit: Just realised it's in the Windows section - I hope they update the Mac version too!!
 
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I love DXO PL4

Reminds me in many ways of Aperture 3 - no nonsense RAW converter but with a far more powerful image processing.

With sharpening - use the lens sharpness tool - you need to download the lens/camera module but I find a good setting is sharpness -0.8 and details 20, bokeh 20.

My one crit is the curves tool doesn't have a very good point picker - but the gamma slider works very well within the tool emulating the mid point tool in PS "Levels". Also with curves it could do with a histogram underlay but find using the histogram tool on the left of the workspace works well for judging your colour shifts. If you don't use curves the tone tool with the blacks, shadows, mid tones and highlights gives you pretty decent control also.

HSL wheel is ace as is everything else about it - and far less complex than C1pro.

Bar curves I cannot praise it high enough.
 
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