DxO pro elite

[Adrian]

Does anyone have practical experience with this processing software?

I came across it on the Ken Rockwell site for correcting lens distortion in certain circumstances. I downloaded the trial, but circumstances (business travel) conspired such that I had little opportunity to test it.

I tend to shoot mainly in raw and want to streamline my basic workflow so that all images receive a degree of processing en masse so that I can sort them by grade and determine which ones are worth working on / which to discard.

I am not a big fan of lightroom (though I do have it) and tend to use Aperture mainly because of familiarity. I don't really like the Aperture auto enhance settings. This is not my day job so time is limited.

The primary use is for travel, landscape and general shooting (portraiture is processed differently and I am with with my workflow on that). I tend not to shoot JPEGs at all, mainly because I want to avoid software library clutter.

Any thoughts on DXO Pro 8. I need the Elite edition apparently for 5DIII plus L glass profiles. Around £230 in the UK. I am not worried about price, just the functionality and usefulness.

Adrian

[Donald]

I don't need the Elite version because I use a 40D.

DxO Optics Pro 8 is, in my humble opinion, a fantastic tool. Pretty much all of my workflow, other than the B & W conversions with Nik Silver Efex Pro2 and output sharpening (I still think the GIMP's Wavelet Sharpen tool is the best thing since sliced bread for that final sharpening), is done at the RAW processing stage with DxO Optics.

The Adobe fans will, I'm sure, contest that ACR is every bit as good, if not better. I've never really explored ACR in any meaningful way, but I cannot believe that I would find it a better tool than DxO Optics Pro.

Noise management is wonderful. Download the various body/lens modules and all really key corrections are done automatically. I think the Dust Removal tool works much better than the Content Aware tool for getting rid of electricity cables, awkward lampposts etc. The Smart Lighting workspace is great for fill lighting and subtlety in adjusting lighting balances. The Lens Softness workspace is my sharpening tool of choice right through to output sharpening. As it says in the Manual, "Unlike the Unsharp Mask tool, enhancing details with the DxO Lens Softness tool does not create white edges around the sharpened areas."

I'll read any criticism that people offer up, but I won't accept it. I am a big, big fan.

Some folk bemoan the fact that it can't take in DNG files. If the moaning keeps up for long enough, I think we'll see DxO take the message on board.

Hope others comment, because you shouldn't make decisions based on my enthusiasm alone.

I do note you indicating that you want to do bulk processing. For that you need to make a custom preset from one image and then just click to apply it all the others to which you want to apply the same settings.

[Manfred M]

Adrian - I do have the software. The elite version is required for certain cameras (nicely said, if you have a pro camera, you have to buy the elite, rather than standard version). When all is said and done, it is a Raw converter with an excellent lens correction feature.

You get similar functionality with ACR and Lightroom under the lens correction tab.

The upside is that it does a better job correcting lens defects than either of the Adobe products, and I find it does a better raw conversion as well (if colour accuracy is important). The downside is that the workflow is a bit painful and the conversion process is fairly slow; it can take over a minute to correct a file. The other downside is that it does not allow you to use DNG files; you have to have native raw files out of your camera.

I generally only use it when I am printing to large sizes; too much of a pain to use otherwise.

[Glenn NK]

I have heard of it and know of others that use it.

Manfred: It seems from your comments that it works on RAW files. Are they then converted to another format when "fixed" in DXO or left as RAW?

Glenn

[Donald]

I have heard of it and know of others that use it.

Manfred: It seems from your comments that it works on RAW files. Are they then converted to another format when "fixed" in DXO or left as RAW?

Glenn

Glenn
It is a RAW processing tool. You can save the processed file in a number of formats. Given that conversion from RAW is the first step in post-processing, I think the vast majority of people would be saving the file as a TIFF, to then be further processed in something like Photoshop, Lightroom, Elements, the GIMP, etc. However, you could do everything you wanted in DxO Optics and then save as a JPEG.

[Manfred M]

Glenn - I can output to jpg, tiff (8 or 16 bit) or dng files. I believe I can also write to sidecar files, but haven't used that functionality. I normally output to 16-bit tiff and use that in Photoshop.

[Donald]

Adrian - There are more people than me think it's great.

It's just one Best Photo Software in the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) awards.

[nickjohnson]

Hello Adrian,
FWIW I've used DXO since at least V5 – likely V4 – and I've been very happy with it. I'm fortunate in that all my lens / camera body combo's have correction profiles available.
I use DXO only as a RAW converter. I use Lightroom to sort through what I want to process, and export RAW files to DXO. I then use DXO to do highlight recovery, lens correction, and output to DNG. I then import the DNG files back into Lightroom. I'm sure that many will find that workflow inexplicably complicated. Whatever – it works well for me and allows me to use DXO and Lightroom for the things that each does best – IMHO.
The DXO lens correction profiles I find are very good. For example, my EF 17-40mm L has a lot of distortion and a fair bit of CA. DXO takes care of that and I never have to worry about it.

HTH.

[proseak]

I have DxO and find it invaluable, mainly for "problem" images; it's lens correction abilities are remarkable, as is it's ability to control noise at high ISO.

The reason that I don't use it all the time is that it's slow, very slow. I find that using Bridge/ACR is fine for almost everything RAW. As a DAM system, which I think is what you're after, I think that you need to look elsewhere - perhaps Faststone would do for the initial cull, and then use DxO for the keepers.

HTH

Peter

[Adrian]

Thanks all. Do you think the slowness is due to the software or is simply processor intensive? If the latter I am not so bothered, since I have excessively specced computing power (for other reasons relating to mathematical modelling).

Unfortunately I can't see myself processing in LR (or equivalent) then exporting elsewhere, then back again. Too lazy / too short of time unless by some chance I get an amazing image (rare for me!).

I have never heard of Faststone before so I will check that out.

I can bulk process in Aperture, but there is something about the way it processes raw images that I find less than attractive. I can't put my finger on exactly what, but I feel the images often do not look quite natural. I probably spend too much time looking at other people's work and wondering why my does not look like that

Adrian

[proseak]

Adrian, it's slow - when batching (say) 100 RAW in ACR, I have time to make tea while with DxO I have time to cook a light meal.

HTH

Peter

[Donald]

If speed is the most important factor, then indeed there seem to be processors that process the RAW file faster.

[proseak]

Here's the link for Faststone -

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

HTH

Peter

[Manfred M]

It is painfully slow even with a reasonably modern i7 4 core (8-thread) processor running on a machine with 16GB of RAM.

That is why I pick and choose what I use it for. You can't beat the quality, but fast, it's not.

[Adrian]

OK. Thanks, everyone. Ultimately it is quality I am after (I need all the help I can get) and so DXO Pro 8 Elite will be downloaded on Monday. I will see how we get on hooking it in with either LR4 or Aperture workflow.

Adrian

[Steve S]

OK. Thanks, everyone. Ultimately it is quality I am after (I need all the help I can get) and so DXO Pro 8 Elite will be downloaded on Monday. I will see how we get on hooking it in with either LR4 or Aperture workflow.

Adrian

It will flow seamlessly with lightroom. Edit in DXO, and then export straight to lightroom...............DXO is hands down the best raw editor I've ever used. ( A bit slow , as said, but well worth the wait)

[Rainer]

Without getting in to a large Essay on this simple question. In short; DXO Pro is too time consuming to navigate through unless you been at it for some time. For someone who just tried it for a couple of hours it was becoming frustrating. I'll stick to the Lightroom4. easier to work with.