DxO Optics Pro

[crisscross]

Ian,

no perfect tool it seems.....but like my wife says: if you took the picture correctly to begin with, you wouldn't need all those tools....
Vincent

Your wife is probably jealous of the camera and time you spend at your computer, like mine! The cure seems to be to produce an endless stream of greetings cards for all occasions at 2 minutes notice and bring an odd bit of silverware back from the club.

I think the Nikon series Transfer, View NX & NX2 is pretty near pefect for Nikon, but DxO 'lighting' does seem to help on the early stage of some very rough light pics & automatically corrects wide angle shots. Sometimes also I need cut&paste, layer masks or FocusMagic movement correction and PSE is adequate at the finishing end for all those. There is a cost inasmuch as by keeping to the Nikon line you never have to convert from nef at all (except for web jpgs.) Any transfer tif immediately doubles the no of files to be kept and trebles the storage space.

For my old 350D shots, where the colour is often elusive, the DxO 'Lighting' panel is the bit of magic I have been looking for.

As far as image library organisation is concerned, I don't trust any of them an inch & the less they try to organise the better. In DxO once you have set where its output goes and in what format, the 'proof' button does it in one & any projects, libraries and squirrel nut heaps can be binned.

[crisscross]

Hi everybody, I'm testing DxO Optics Pro in order to add it to my workflow using Aperture to manage the files and Nik plugins to correct/add some effect.

Does any of you have any experience using DxO software? how about you Chris?

I came to the conclusion that DxO was significantly superior to Aperture all round and bought the standard version (elite only needed for very latest/most expensive cameras & lenses). It is particularly good for what I need, which is an alternative line of attack on (a) historic files from previous 350D (b) current landscapes with very poor contrast and saturation.

Its 'light' module appears to me to be stronger than anything else, including NX2 in such cases. Its interface is quirky but very clear especially after also venturing into Capture 1 & more recently Lightroom. The tool modules collapse, re-open, re-work neatly rather similarly to Aperture or NX2 for that matter. If you do use a lens that has significant distortion or aberrations at extreme ends, it automatically corrects without any action needed.

The edited files are a preview rather than live update, but it is very easy to custom-label output tif and overwrite it with subsequent improved edits just pressing 'proof'.

If you do any series of operations on a regular basis, it has facilities for saving 'presets'

As far as file management is concerned, all progs that try to create and manage sub-libraries are a crawling disaster. I import into my own folders in blocks of 500 as numbered by the camera, 1st edit/weed in View NX and put edited forum jpgs into my own subject classification folders. Thereafter all managed using GraphicConverter.

I did try Nik/Effex filters, but binned them after a few days of trial. They must be what some people like and they are one of the few series that work with both PS & NX. However, the only ones I was interested in like ND Grad, can be done almost equally easily in NX2 used neat and avoid the pollution of the clean workspace with silly effex logo

[Slipstick]

Hi

I use DxO extensively and have found it suits my way of working. There is a good review here: http://luminous-landscape.com/review...5-Review.shtml

Regards

[Colin Southern]

... Can DxO Optice be set to correct the varieous camera/lens anomalies that it knows about (eg CA, vignetting, etc etc etc), and yet totally leave other info such as white balance, exposure, clipping points, brightness, saturation, clarity, vibrancy alone (so that I can process them in my preferred converter)?

[Slipstick]

Colin

The answer is 'yes'. You can create your own presets for what DxO will do to your images. These are saved alongside DxO's own presets and can be used at any time. The various parameters you refer to can be switched on or off as needed. When 'on', they can be adjusted to the levels you require and saved as custom presets.

Also, a batch of images can be 'stacked' so that a selection of settings for the first image is applied to every image in the stack. This might be useful if you want to correct colour temperature for all images taken under certain conditions (eg mixed lighting), or perhaps to apply a selected amount of noise reduction to every image if a batch of images were all taken at say, ISO 1600. This type of batch processing is very simple to set up.

The real problem with DxO is that it is resource hungry. You really need a fast dual processor, (or a long lunch break) when batch processing. For example, I can easily wait 2 minutes for an image to be processed on my reasonably modern computer, during which time, all other activity stops.

I normally set the output to be 16 bit TIFF and created in the same directory as the source NEF. The original raw image is then unchanged and can be processed again, if required, for whatever reason.

The default sharpening is interesting. I think it corrects the softness induced by the demosaicing filter - hence the need for the camera body to be part of the module specification. If anyopne has any views on this, I would be grateful to read them.

Tony

[crisscross]

Colin

The answer is 'yes'....Tony

Agreed

The real problem with DxO is that it is resource hungry. You really need a fast dual processor, (or a long lunch break) when batch processing. For example, I can easily wait 2 minutes for an image to be processed on my reasonably modern computer, during which time, all other activity stops.

I normally set the output to be 16 bit TIFF and created in the same directory as the source NEF. The original raw image is then unchanged and can be processed again, if required, for whatever reason.

The default sharpening is interesting. I think it corrects the softness induced by the demosaicing filter - hence the need for the camera body to be part of the module specification. If anyopne has any views on this, I would be grateful to read them.

Tony

I am not sure that DxO is any more resource hungry than other comparable programmes, but then I only use it for individual 'problem children' images, never batching. Unfortunately this is the downside of cameras having more and more pixels. Yet another reason for amateurs capping themselves at around 12-14M, plenty for good A3 prints. I imagine saving as 16bit rather than 8bit further slows things, but don't pretend to understand what its advantages might be, especially from cameras not producing 16bit or 24bit RAW. The megafiles you must get on 16bit PSDs must bog down the computer in PS as well.

I think there would only be a 'lens softness' pre-set for a lens showing softness in testing, it seems to be zeroed on mine. It can be turned off like everything else.

Not sure what you are calling 'default sharpening' Tony. But anyway the lynchpin of DxO is that it is based on analysis of actual camera and lens outputs; hence possible need to have 'elite' version if you have an upmarket camera.