DxO Pro 8 Quality and Workflow

[gerryp123]

I recently received a copy of DxO Pro 8 (which provides support for my camera).

I've been using ACR and/or LR4 for my RAW conversions (and for my preliminary JPG edits), and have been generally satisfied. Does DxO (matched to my camera) offer any benefits in quality or workflow?

If Dxo adds value, I plan to use it as my front-end RAW converter before moving its tiff output into PS-CS6 + NIK for final editing.

Please share your views on DxO and suggested workflow. Thanks.

[Manfred M]

I use DxO as a RAW converter because it does a better job than ACR in terms of both colour accuracy and removing lens abberations. This does come at a price; the workflow is awkward and speed of DxO are not great.

I ran some side by side tests of ACR vs. DxO, and while ACR reduced CA, DxO pretty well completely eliminated it. The same goes for cleaning up distortion and lens vignetting. One downside is tha DxO will not take Adobe DNG files, so you need to stick with the RAW files straight out of your camera.

What that means in practice, is that I only use it when I really need this level of quality because the user interface is really not that good.

[Donald]

The problem is, Gerry, that you will get those who passionately advocate the use of ACR and those who passionately advocate the use of DxO.

It gets a bit like the Canon v Nikon thing. The fact is that both are high quality tools.

Manfred sets out some objective commentary for you to consider. For what it's worth, I'm a passionate DxO advocate!

[gerryp123]

Thanks.
Are your DxO comments regarding Vers.8 ?
I thought they had fixed the DNG thing in this release, as well as improving the interface and adding some new tools.

[Adrian]

I am not a heavy duty user (just a keen amateur) and I took advice here on DXO, being warned that it slows down workflow. I use Aperture at home and we use ACR in my business (which is not photography). As a "normal" user I can't say that the workflow aspect of DXO bothers me (I agree the interface is poorly designed compared with either of the others) but I do feel that DXO produces better final results especially when a fair degree of correction is required. Therefor I use it selectively as very useful tool.

[Donald]

Thanks.
Are your DxO comments regarding Vers.8 ?
I thought they had fixed the DNG thing in this release, as well as improving the interface and adding some new tools.

I think we're probably all referring to DxO Optics 8.

DxO will work on DNGs that are created 'in-camera'. However, it will not accept converted DNGs. Now, my technical knowledge doesn't run far enough to know what cameras will make DNGs as the native RAW format. I know my Canon produces .cr2 files. If I convert them to DNG, then DxO won't handle them.

I sometimes look in to the DxO Optics forum, just to see of there are any issues being discussed that I should be aware of. On a fairly regular basis there are posts put up about the DNG issue. On 1st February this year, the DxO Labs Team, in response to another post, replied:

"Hello!

We understand the issue with this format and here is an explanation: a DNG file cannot be used as just another RAW input file, since it does not contain all the calibration data Optics Pro uses when processing RAW files (especially, but not only, for the denoising algorithm).

Therefore, even if Optics Pro could process DNG files without the data it requires, it could not achieve the same quality level as with an original RAW file, and we do not believe people who shoot RAW would be interested in such a substandard solution...

This is the reason why Optics Pro only supports the DNG files generated by the cameras we calibrated in our labs, and for now we’d rather focus on extending our camera coverage than working on generic support for DNG files.

As a proof of this, we planned to support the Leica M-E in March (together with the M9 and M9-P), as you can see on the following page: http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_op...your_equipment.

Best regards,

Emilie"

[Manfred M]

So far as I recall, only some of the smaller players support native DNG right out of the camera; Leica, Samsung, Ricoh, Pentax, etc. and there are some very niche products that do so as well. The players with the bulk of the camera market; Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, etc. have never supported it.

Please don't get me wrong; DxO Optics is and excellent product. I have been using it starting with DxO Optics 6. I will go to it immediately if I am planning to do a large format print or if I do an ACR conversion and the colours are not quite right, I will usually use it.

[kris]

Yes, at the moment there are very few cameras that support native DNG file. So if you want to save the development data you are stick with raw+sidecar files method. The use of DxO generated DNG is prohibitive because they are three times larger than the original raw file. The reason, according DxO, is that DxO saves data after demosaicing, that is the three channels data.

As Manfred, I use DxO Optics since version 6, and I must admit that the speed and workflow are largely improved. Yet they are not at the same level as ACR. Thus I also use DxO Optics 8 only when needed.

[kris]

For same strange reason my post appeared twice.