Your thoughts on DXO PhotoLab?

[huwnothugh]

In the few years I have taken an interest in photography, I have only used OM Workspace for post processing. The exasperating problems over the last week prompted me to look at alternatives. I’m drawn to DXO PhotoLab 7 (Elite version) because it seems like a more sophisticated version of OMWS, with noise reduction and photo editing combined in one application. I like the fact that it is photo-centric, keeps the entire process ‘in house’, avoids having to use bloated TIFF files, and can be owned outright. So far, so good.

However, if all the videos I’ve watched are to be believed, PL7 is mainly used for landscape photography. When it comes to wildlife, people seem to use DXO’s PureRaw for lens corrections and noise reduction, but not PhotoLab for editing. Is there a good reason for this? If so, I'd appreciate your thoughts and experiences.

[BDennis]

When it comes to wildlife, people seem to use DXO’s PureRaw for lens corrections and noise reduction, but not PhotoLab for editing. Is there a good reason for this? If so, I'd appreciate your thoughts and experiences.

I've considered this but not used it or trialled it yet. The lens corrections and denoising in DxO PureRaw are included in PhotoLab, you will have the same thing. See here:

https://www.dxo.com/dxo-photolab/features/

It says:

"Noise reduction powered by machine learning: DeepPRIME and DeepPRIME XD eliminate noise, recover detail, and improve color reproduction. Two other modes of denoising are available:PRIME and High Quality (HQ) for faster processing. Use automatic settings or set manually with the help of the preview window."

Why not download a free trial and see if you like it?

I am using DxO PureRaw then doing further edits in CaptureOne at the moment.

Bill

[huwnothugh]

I'm aware that Bill; that's why I am considering the Elite version. I can imagine that many people already had C1 or PS and simply added PureRaw for its NR capabilities. My concern is that there may be something about PL that deterred them, in which case I'd like to know about it !

[drmarkf]

I’m in the same position as Bill. The main reason for me not switching to DXO throughout is my 12-year experience with CO, and I really don’t want to start yet another software learning curve!
I use DNGs as output from PureRaw taken into CO. Yes, DNGs are quite large, but I only use PureRaw for my critical-use images (eg for printing or as possible projection competition images), plus storage these days is ridiculously cheap. I recently bought an 8Tb WD desktop backup disk pack for £156!
I can’t see any reason for wildlife photographers to choose any raw converter over any other: several top notch wildlife guys and girls in our club use PureRaw with Lr, for example.

[huwnothugh]

That's a perfectly good reason for sticking with CO. This is all helping me to see the bigger picture.

[KennyC]

I bought PL7 elite on the recent black Friday deal. I like it a lot and use it for all my photography including wild life and birding. However I still sometimes use my old version of Photoshop CS6 at times for things that PL7 cannot do or for things that I am more familiar with. I would not like to go back to not having PL7.

[huwnothugh]

Thanks Kenny, that's reassuring. I also had an old version of Photoshop, and I liked the ability to use layers and graphics, but it's not something I've missed in my photography.

[peak4]

I've been using DxO for almost everything since about DxO Optic pro 2, , the series before photolab, so quite a while. It doesn't recognise the very early Olympus raw files, such as the 4/3s E-1, or some early Panasonic 4/3s
I've no great interest in spending a huge amount of time perfecting a single image, as I'm hobby, rather than commercial, so it works well for me, but lacks some little niceties like a circular crop for a fisheye lens.

As regards the noise reduction side, make sure your hardware us up to it, particularly the video card; I'm now using a second hand 8GB one which seems to work OK on Windows 10.
They offer a free month's trial, but like any new (to you) package, it will take a while to get your head around it.
They do host some good video guides, so I'd suggest watching a few before installing the package, so you get best use out of the free trial.
Also, it's non destructive, so doesn't alter the original jpg/orf at all
See also videos by Chris Wright & Photo Joseph

Other than a vaguely historic or specialist camera, it's fair to say I wouldn't buy a camera that it doesn't support (unless just playing catchup with a brand new model

[rustyarrow]

I use DXO Pure Raw for any noise moved over from Topaz about 3 years ago, it does a super job, the optical corrections are excellent, I use Affinity Photo for the rest- why because I dont do much to my pics mostly a crop for wildlife, it is very good and affordable.

[wornish]

Take a look at ON1 Photo Raw Max 2024. It is certainly up there with the leaders imho.

[shakyHands]

I use PureRaw and Lightroom. When I changed from shooting jpeg to raw I started with lightroom, when I became more interested in birds I decided I needed something to help with the noise and added in PureRaw. It works neatly as an add-in to lightroom so it was pretty convenient. As others have said, the DNG's are quite large (glad I don't have a 60Megapixel camera) and the denoise is quite resource intensive - some kind of supported GPU is a necessity. Having LR first is the main reason for not investigating Photolab.

[antpitta]

I pretty much only do wildlife/bird photography and have used DxO Photolab since just after moving from Canon to Olympus (late 2019) and found it easy and intuitive from day one. I tend to upgrade alternate years timing the update to coincide with one or other Black Friday or other sales events which brings the costs down significantly (I updated to DxO PL7 Elite in November having skipped PL6 the previous year). I also use ON1 Photo Raw 2024 having picked up an almost unbelievably cheap deal 2 years before which - entirely by chance - entitled me to the following years release as a free upgrade! I manage/structure/tag all my retained photos in PL7 but am finding the processing of a lot of my bird photos is both faster and gives to my eye better results in ON1. Whatever, I'm happy using both products side-by-side: both handle high ISO very well and produce results I'm happy with despite (I suspect) the fact that I'm not using anything like the full range of features available.

There are usually free trials available on these and other brands of software so well worth giving one or more a shot to see how you find it works for you.

[RobEW]

For me, DXO PhotoLab gives a good combination of quality of output, ease of use and availability of features. I tried other systems which were ridiculously feature-rich but also ridiculously complex to learn, understand and use.. I use the Elite Edition and make use of some of the extra features (including Clearview Plus) a lot. I also have ViewPoint which I use a lot to tidy up perspective distortions etc.

The idea of outright ownership rather than software rental appealed to me, but I do get seduced into buying upgrades occasionally but not every year)

[KennyC]

Be advised that a good video card will speed up Photolab7 and without a dedicated card it will be slow or unusable. I have recently changed from a 4 gb to 12gb card and the dxo AI denoise became 5x faster, measured over a batch of 10 files.

[R99C99]

I use PhotoLab 7 Elite as a whole package to replace OM workspace. I don’t use Adobe or any other big company product.

I find it great to do photo management and batch editing. And of course to use the inbuilt Pure Raw noise reduction. It can do a great job with specific spot editing although I don’t use that much.

[shenstone]

i love it, I use it for everything I need to process i.e. that means i'm not happy with the OOC JPG file for some reason or I took something knowing I would be processing it afterwards