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That's good news. And good to hear that it worked. DxO has a miserable track record of releasing "upgrades" that don't work. I've been using them for several years, and haven't yet decided to swear by or swear at them.
Posted 31 months ago.
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Dan,
I am still on 5.3.1, and would be very interested to hear your ongoing views (maybe another post in a month or so) regarding the stability of V6 before I decide whether to upgrade.
Judging by the number of responses, we DxO fans still seem to be in the minority! (let's keep it our little secret, eh?)
regards
Neil
Posted 31 months ago.
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CDD,
What OS are you running? I am a DXO believer starting with v4 but was truly fortunate to not have been an early adopter of v5. Decided after that mess that I'd always wait a few months til the bugs were swatted before diving in to a new release.
Gary
Posted 31 months ago.
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v6 is the first version that seems to be great from day 1. I'm using XP SP3. I have always enjoyed the app, but never thought the company had a release-worthy product for early adopters.
Surprise! v6 is an honest improvement.
Jake, there are many ways to do the same thing. DxO excels at automating the correction of lens and sensor-specific artifact and distortion, as well as most geometric, lighting, and color adjustments.
Optics Pro Elite is not an asset management system. It rules for image quality in tough situations, and helps me get through most PP for homes in less than an hour.
I could do most of it in LR and PS with lots more time. In some cases (such as with extreme ISO) I would also have to give up overall IQ.
That said, you should use what works for you.
-Dan
Posted 31 months ago.
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@Jake: DXO uses calibration profiles, done in a test lab, specific to each camera/lens combination, to apply a precise distortion correction. It also supplies advanced tools to correct verticals, etc.
In PS or LR, the best you can do is eyeball it.
In addition, they have some dynamic lighting stuff that some folks like, and batch processing.
It's maybe too much for some, but a necessity for others. YMMV
Posted 31 months ago.
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Jake,
The fact that it automatically removes barrel distortion on an entire batch of images is a great start, but in addition it also eliminates vignetting and chromatic aberration; intelligently lightens specific parts of an image (only when it thinks this needs to be this done), and also visibly improves the sharpness via its "lens softness" engine. This compensates for the inherent softness of each lens/body combination that is supported. This makes a big difference to the perceived sharpness, before any unsharp mask is even performed.
It's also a top-notch RAW converter and uses a different system for noise removal than most other converters, this tends to noticeably improve the high ISO noise removal.
Neil
Posted 31 months ago.
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Sounds pretty awesome. I'll have to check it out for sure.
Posted 31 months ago.
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Neil Marks I actually don't use any unsharp masking unless I absolutely have to (for unsupported lenses). The Lens softness control is absolutely amazing. (I set to between 5 and 7 for PFRE)
I left out one of the most impressive add-ons in my earlier posts. Using DxO Film Pack 2.0 within OPE is a VERY efficient way to emulate most popular pro film color and grain. (Of course, I consider Kodak Tri-X 400 to be a pro film. Fine, so it's not... but you know we all use it!)
Earlier today, I delivered my first full PFRE processed in DxO OPE v6. I found even more improvements. It's faster, and seems to be making better use of the gpu. The biggest clue was that aside from grinding out the rendered files in less time than with v5, my notebook's main cooling fan never went nuts.
My discovery of the day was that the gamma adjustment has doubled in range. WAY cool.
-Dan
Posted 31 months ago.
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No bugs for you, Dan, but anybody else? I've got 5.2.1 and like others,
hesitate to move too quickly. btw, what did the upgrade cost?
And thanks for all the updates.
Originally posted 31 months ago.
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Dave_Edwards edited this topic 31 months ago.
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Dave_Edwards $69
Posted 31 months ago.
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I love DXO's lighting capability and think it's almost worth using exclusively because of its intelligence as Neil said before. My problem is with the graininess that accompanies the DXO lighting. Previously, I used DxO as "step 1" for all my post processing, but I've found that I can create smoother pictures in Lightroom. I continue to process all of my outside pics with DxO (because I love the vibrance I can auto add and the graininess doesn't matter as much) but use Lightroom for interiors now. I would love to go back to doing all DxO but I've compared the final results so many times and Lightroom wins every single time.
Posted 31 months ago.
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I just installed the trial version, the geometry correction looks nice, but what's with the processing time? Two minutes for a 5dII file that Capture One does in 15 seconds?
Posted 31 months ago.
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Dan,
one particular issue I would be interested to get feedback on, and I think you alluded to this, is how much it ties up the CPU. I have a basic laptop with 2GB RAM/2GHZ Core 2 Duo setup, and when I run V5 I can pretty much forget trying to do anything else that requires other graphic software.
Neil
Posted 31 months ago.
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Dave_Edwards I got the upgrade for $44 USD.
I've never needed it, but isn't there a background processing option for batches? In any case, you could manually reduce the priority of the process thread.
Posted 31 months ago.
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Bill,
I am not aware of any option for "background processing". I have always run a batch in the standard way. If someone knows differently, please enlighten me!.
Also, can you clarify "manually reduce the priority of the process thread"?
Neil
Posted 31 months ago.
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DS Creative : DxO lighting is really too coarse a tool for most adjustments. The balance between annoying grain and good result is in the fine mix of the advanced settings within that control. When using any of the highlight preservation presets, OPE tends to go way too heavy on the gamma boost. Dropping that back and playing with the shadow radius and local contrast usually gives me a better result.
Posted 31 months ago.
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Reducing the priority of the process thread is a part of advanced operating system management. Basically, every program has one or more processes; the priority of each can be changed to get more or less CPU time. In Windows this can be done from the Task Manager.
Processes that run in the "background" get a lower priority. I know that Silkypix has an option to process in the background; they make it very obvious. I would assume that DxO would do the same, since the .NET Framework upon which it is built gives that kind of control to the developers.
Yes, my day job is a computer programmer/software developer.
Posted 31 months ago.
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dan, can I ask what how long it takes to process each image?
Posted 31 months ago.
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When I'm doing any complex processing, the batch runs at approx 3 images per minute.
***edit 24 Dec 2010*** processing 7 to 10 images per minute on a current machine.
Originally posted 31 months ago.
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Chrome Dome Dan edited this topic 17 months ago.
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Latest version of DxO 6.5.2 is in one word AWESOME !!!
It is a state of art RAW conversion software and I have them all. What I do like about DxO is simple strait forward processing with exceptional results.
Posted 17 months ago.
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Photography for Real Estate /
Discuss
Neil Marks I actually don't use any unsharp masking unless I absolutely have to (for unsupported lenses). The Lens softness control is absolutely amazing. (I set to between 5 and 7 for PFRE)
DS Creative : DxO lighting is really too coarse a tool for most adjustments. The balance between annoying grain and good result is in the fine mix of the advanced settings within that control. When using any of the highlight preservation presets, OPE tends to go way too heavy on the gamma boost. Dropping that back and playing with the shadow radius and local contrast usually gives me a better result.
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