DxO Optics

[La Fontaine]

Ken Rockwell has just made a big promo on the latest DxO version.

I have just downloaded the 30day trial version for testing.

Frankly, I don't quite like it for the following reasons:

Cannot do basic stuff like cropping, resizing.

Viewing the pic during the process - cannot do any panning - very, very surprising. Almost all the graphics software I have encountered allow panning.

Dunno if I have missed anything. Maybe, I have been too accustomed to PS liao. Actually, I would still prefer GIMP and Picasa, apart from PS. BTW, I am now on PS CS4.

 

[doodah]

Cannot do basic stuff like cropping, resizing.

Seriously? Wow, those are MAJOR drawbacks.

 

[La Fontaine]

But now, the good part - the batch processing is darn cool in that it is so intuitive and just simply works like a charm. Just select the pic to be processed, then go thru steps 1 to 4 and leave it to do it, while you go around surfing and then, you when you're back, presto, it's done.

And then, it is pretty affordable, unlike PS.

 

[tomcat]

Ken Rockwell has just made a big promo on the latest DxO version.

I have just downloaded the 30day trial version for testing.

Frankly, I don't quite like it for the following reasons:

Cannot do basic stuff like cropping, resizing.

Viewing the pic during the process - cannot do any panning - very, very surprising. Almost all the graphics software I have encountered allow panning.

Dunno if I have missed anything. Maybe, I have been too accustomed to PS liao. Actually, I would still prefer GIMP and Picasa, apart from PS. BTW, I am now on PS CS4.

DxO Pro is designed first and foremost to be a RAW Converter, and not an image editing software like Photoshop. As a RAW converter, it is lightyears ahead of image editing software like Photoshop... provided the specific camera and lens combinations are fully supported by DxO Pro.

RAW conversion software do not typically provide as much image editing functions as image editing software like Photoshop. What's most important is that they convert the RAW file to such a high quality that the converted image file do not require much more post-processing after that. And this is where DxO Pro succeeds and image editing software with RAW conversion features added as an afterthought fails.

Perhaps you are not very familiar with the layout of DxO Pro but those 'problems' you highlighted do not exist at all. Panning and cropping are very basic functions and exist since the first version of DxO Pro.

As with all image editing software, if the image is opened fit to the window size, it is not possible to pan as there is nowhere to pan to. In the Customise Section, in order to pan, you would have to zoom in to a higher magnification and then use the 'hand' tool (like in Photoshop's Adobe Raw Converter) on the menu on the top of the screen to pan, or move the green rectangle (like in Photshop) in the preview image to pan. Similarly the cropping function is also available by selecting the appropriate icon from the Tool Menu in the upper left part of the screen.

 

[gtl1987]

So, what can photoshop do that DxO Pro can't? Sorry damn noob at this.

 

[La Fontaine]

DxO Pro is designed first and foremost to be a RAW Converter, and not an image editing software like Photoshop. As a RAW converter, it is lightyears ahead of image editing software like Photoshop... provided the specific camera and lens combinations are fully supported by DxO Pro.

RAW conversion software do not typically provide as much image editing functions as image editing software like Photoshop. What's most important is that they convert the RAW file to such a high quality that the converted image file do not require much more post-processing after that. And this is where DxO Pro succeeds and image editing software with RAW conversion features added as an afterthought fails.

Perhaps you are not very familiar with the layout of DxO Pro but those 'problems' you highlighted do not exist at all. Panning and cropping are very basic functions and exist since the first version of DxO Pro.

As with all image editing software, if the image is opened fit to the window size, it is not possible to pan as there is nowhere to pan to. In the Customise Section, in order to pan, you would have to zoom in to a higher magnification and then use the 'hand' tool (like in Photoshop's Adobe Raw Converter) on the menu on the top of the screen to pan, or move the green rectangle (like in Photshop) in the preview image to pan. Similarly the cropping function is also available by selecting the appropriate icon from the Tool Menu in the upper left part of the screen.

Thanks bro Tomcat for explaining. I should have spent more time with it before saying all these.

 

[doodah]

What's most important is that they convert the RAW file to such a high quality that the converted image file do not require much more post-processing after that. And this is where DxO Pro succeeds and image editing software with RAW conversion features added as an afterthought fails.

Awesome. Good to hear that.

Have you used Adobe Lightroom? How does it fare compared to DXO? I am very used to Lightroom.

 

[tomcat]

Awesome. Good to hear that.

Have you used Adobe Lightroom? How does it fare compared to DXO? I am very used to Lightroom.

Lightroom has a lot of functions and supports a lot of camera systems. But unfortunately, I do not like the colours it produces which would result in a lot of post-processing on my part if I used it. DxO produces very snappy colours regardless of the camera system but does not support that many camera systems.

Another feature DxO excels at is the automatic correction of optical distortion. DxO actually studies each camera/lens combination to work out the exact amount of optical distortion that needs to be corrected and produce a specific module that would enable its correction automatically when presented with a RAW image that is taken with that camera/lens combination. This is the feature that they are famous for. Usually, only the proprietory RAW converter of a camera system is able to carry out such optical corrections and only for their own camera bodies/lens combination eg Nikon Capture NX2 for Nikon DSLRs and lenses, Olympus Studio 2 for Olympus E-Series DSLRs and lenses, etc. Lightroom as far as I know cannot do this automatically for any of the camera systems it supports.

 

[havocidal]

People must understand that PS is a raster-editing software, meaning it edits pixels. When you dodge and burn something you're merely increasing or decreasing the light and dark values of pixels. That explains why in the hands of many people, you see halos in photos (yes even not in hdr)... because people start editing a photograph on a 2d plane without proper masking.

For the benefit of all, RAW files DO NOT contain pixels. They do however get converted into pixels so that it will be easier to edit. If you opened a RAW file in PS, it is Camera RAW that does that conversion. If you are editing in lightroom, you're leaving the RAW files untouched, and simply just applying a preset on a RAW file, before sending it for exporting.

DxO Optics, on the other hand is in another league of its own. It is used for correcting errors that are caused by the optics of a lens/camera combination, and even for enlargement. Something you cannot do properly with PS since all it does is to increase the size of each pixel. Over here, you are not even touching pixels. This should not be seen as a raster-editing software.

 

[Lolrence]

People must understand that PS is a raster-editing software, meaning it edits pixels. When you dodge and burn something you're merely increasing or decreasing the light and dark values of pixels. That explains why in the hands of many people, you see halos in photos (yes even not in hdr)... because people start editing a photograph on a 2d plane without proper masking.

For the benefit of all, RAW files DO NOT contain pixels. They do however get converted into pixels so that it will be easier to edit. If you opened a RAW file in PS, it is Camera RAW that does that conversion. If you are editing in lightroom, you're leaving the RAW files untouched, and simply just applying a preset on a RAW file, before sending it for exporting.

DxO Optics, on the other hand is in another league of its own. It is used for correcting errors that are caused by the optics of a lens/camera combination, and even for enlargement. Something you cannot do properly with PS since all it does is to increase the size of each pixel. Over here, you are not even touching pixels. This should not be seen as a raster-editing software.

So RAW files are vector based? :think:

 

[kumagelo]

So RAW files are vector based? :think:

as far as i understand (which is limited) it is not vector based. It should be something else but related more or nearby to the raster image family (if there is only vector and raster to choose from).

And in PS CS4 isn't it that there is this camera raw converter which also leaves the RAW file untouched when converting to jpg (or another format)? I just drag the RAW files in there and it gives me the raw options to edit (exposure, WB, fringing, cropping and so on) then convert and after converting PS creates another .xmp "sidecar" file, as they call it, which actually represents the settings to which you converted your raw file. So when you open the raw file again it automatically loads your previous setting also. Is that a lot different from DxO?

 

[Wai]

Perhaps you are not very familiar with the layout of DxO Pro but those 'problems' you highlighted do not exist at all. Panning and cropping are very basic functions and exist since the first version of DxO Pro.

As with all image editing software, if the image is opened fit to the window size, it is not possible to pan as there is nowhere to pan to. In the Customise Section, in order to pan, you would have to zoom in to a higher magnification and then use the 'hand' tool (like in Photoshop's Adobe Raw Converter) on the menu on the top of the screen to pan, or move the green rectangle (like in Photshop) in the preview image to pan. Similarly the cropping function is also available by selecting the appropriate icon from the Tool Menu in the upper left part of the screen.

Pple these days don't read the manual or click on help button anymore.

I can pan, resize and crop using DXO without any problem. But I still use photoshop after DXO for touchup, sharpening or other adjustment

A feature in DXO that I love most will be the automatic distortion correction based on EXIF, as well as geometry correction. I can "straighten" a building similar to what a Tilt-Shift lens can do.

 

[Zoomster]

I've been using the trial version 6 right now, and am quite impressed with it. If i do get it, it would be for processing RAW shots, aligning straight lines, reduce noise etc. And for all those, it does it good job.

My only wish is that they be more quick in adding new lenses to their modules.

 

[tomcat]

What's really great about Version 6 is that they are finally supporting Olympus E-Series DSLRs after all these years. Hopefully they would support the E-P1/E-P2 soon too. :thumbsup:

 

[theRBK]

So RAW files are vector based? :think:

they are not vector based, but are not quite raster images...

the raw "information" recorded down consists of the data read-out of each element on the sensor, and in this way it is similar to a raster image...

but the data value from each element consists of a brightness value and whether it is a green, blue, or red element... the elements of these three colours are of course arranged in a pattern (in most cameras, this pattern is according to a "bayer matrix" pattern)... thus there is no per element colour value... whereas in a raster image, there is a per pixel colour value...

when a raw file is read by a raw processing software, the software formulates the colour value of each pixel by reading the surrounding values and coming up with an appropriate value for each pixel... these values can then be saved into a raster image as now, there is per pixel colour as well as brightness values...

 

[SeAnCoLd]

Seems like a great replacement for Canon's DPP. 30% discount until 31 dec

 

[doyc76]

I'd also like to highlight that if you are a Sony a850 user on Mac OSX (ver. 10.6 - Snow Leopard), then DxO might very well be your only solution for now (please correct me if i'm wrong coz i'm holding off buying the a850 because of software compatibility issues).

On Mac OSX Snow Leopard, the Raw images from the Sony a850 is not supported by either iphoto or Aperture 2.

Image Data Converter bundled with the a850 only supports Mac OSX 10.4 & 10.5, ie. ver. 10.6 Snow Leopard is still not supported.

Of course with Mac's, you can always run Windows and use the bundled Windows version of the software but i'm assuming people who bought Macs don't really want to go back to Windows.

Downloaded the trial version of DxO and the raw conversion of some sample a850 files i have seems to be very good. At current promo of US$199, it seems to be a relatively do-able proposition...of course, i'd much prefer Apple get round to having an update for the a850, especially since the a900 is fully supported!