DxO PhotoLab 8 - Fantastic Noise Reduction, Lens Softness Correction, and more

[@robert_may]

Download a free trial of, or purchase, DxO PhotoLab 8 over on their website: tidd.ly/3BfHXB4 (affiliate link)

[@Twobarpsi]

Excellent review and demonstration!

[@audreyburns100]

I like DXO Photolab for what it does very well(noise reduction, curves adjustment, perspective adjustments, etc.), but as someone who used adapted lenses and also shoots film and edits my own scans, it’s frustratingly limited in ways that feel very fixable. Specifically, there’s no tint slider for tiff files, so it’s a massive pain to correct green or magenta shifts. Also, for adapted lenses there is no way to manually select the lens profile even when DXO has optical corrections for the lens you’re using. This second issue can be overcome by hacking EXIF files, but I really wish there was a more user friendly way to select lens corrections. Great video, appreciate the information and I might still buy DXO 8 in spite of my complaints

[@robert_may]

Ooh yes I'd love to be able to select the profile myself too - you can already select custom camera colour models, so I'd think it would be useful for lenses too. I haven't tried editing film scans in PhotoLab yet but I am going to revisit my scanning setup at some point and maybe I'll experiment more with it then - I kinda resent paying for LR just so I can use Negative Lab Pro 😅 I didn't realise the tint slider was missing for TIFF files, and that would be something nice to have. I guess it might be possible to bodge it with the HSL tool but that would be a bit of a pain.

[@SummersSnaps]

Slight tangent here, but I was playing in LR with some RAWs from the DPreview site from various camera brands and models, and I was testing the Enhance/Denoise feature on those files. Each time the Fuji (XH2S) files looked to benefit the most with the least amount of weirdness creeping in. I recall once upon a time, that the Enhanced Details tool was separate from any Denoise component and was basically implemented by Adobe LR specifically to help the X Trans files (and make them 'worm free'). Before this Enhanced Details tool, we relied on Iridient X Transformer. I just thought this was noteworthy, it still feels like the Enhanced/Denoise feature of LR works best with Fuji files, at least from my testings. No doubt DxO will bring support to Fuji eventually.

[@robert_may]

Yeah the files from X-Trans sensors are really interesting, as the reduced moire from the sensor design probably plays into how the noise appears. I think ON1 also supports Fujifilm files, but I'm not sure how that compares to LR 🤔 But yeah I'm looking forward to seeing support for them in the latest DeepPRIME models from DxO as I think the results will be really nice.

[@JoseCarlosRubiaRaya]

Muchas gracias por esta preview de la nueva versión de Photolab. Yo tengo la cámara de fotos OM1 y el 99 por ciento de mis fotografías son de aves. Actualmente estoy usando PL7 y creo que las mejoras que has explicado me van a ser muy útiles. Muchas gracias por el vídeo.

[@HansDeseure]

That was useful. As an M4/3 user, noise improvement tackles a weaker side of the system, and together with the camera/lens profiles has been my main reason to use DxO PL. It does sometimes feel like I'm missing out on all the LR stuff out there, but it works for me. What system are you running this on ? My old PC has had most of its replaceable parts upgraded over the years, but is reaching the end of the road. I just checked the minimum specs for PL8 and it seems I'm 2GB of video ram short... .

[@robert_may]

I'm currently running this on a fairly high-spec Macbook Pro from a couple of years ago - M1 Max, 32GB of RAM. Historically I've always preferred building my own computers but I inherited this one from my previous job and overall I've found it just as capable as my big desktop. Interestingly I had 128GB of RAM in my previous machine just to deal with running Lightroom, which for some reason required 45GB of RAM just for itself 😑 Might be worth a test with the trial to see if it runs anyway, but yeah a lack of VRAM might cause problems with things like the denoising tools if they have to load a lot of data into memory, but it might vary with the resolution of the files 🤔

[@tonyb2760]

I am currently testing version 8 and I have found that I can easily produce identical results with version 6. The issue I have with DXO is the minute improvements for one of the most expensive upgrade pricing models, not to mention their "ring fencing" of features for even more cost. I even took the same "raw" file into on1 photoraw and produced a very similar edit. I have not moved past version 6 but I have upgraded the Nik collection to version 7 because it was way more of a feature upgrade than Photolab 7 and 8 combined over Photolab 6. At this point in time, I am disappointed.

[@robert_may]

I think your results will likely depend on the type of shots you're using with it - for me there's a big difference between 6 and 8 as I shoot a lot in very dark scenes, and the improved colour tools added in 7 make a big difference to my workflow; but yeah it's very much down to your own needs as to whether it's worth upgrading or not.

[@Frank-yb9hf]

@@tonyb2760 I agree with you

[@Frank-yb9hf]

So did I understand right? Fuji X trans sensor is NOT supported by DXO? 😢 What does this mean?

[@robert_may]

It’s supported by the software in general, and with the original DeepPrime denoising system, but the latest DeepPrimeXD2 system doesn’t support them yet unfortunately. Support is coming at some point - I think it’s down to machine learning model needing a completely different data set due to the difference between the X-Trans and Bayer sensor characteristics.

[@Frank-yb9hf]

@ thanks Robert for the helpful answer. I am using PL7 btw. I like the Nik Collection and will buy it instead of PL8.

[@jessejayphotography]

Hoping X-Trans support comes soon.

[@Ricardo-SW]

Affiliate link not working

[@robert_may]

Hmm they seem to be working for me - is it being blocked by an ad blocker perhaps? 🤔

[@Audiioo-o3z]

where is your instagram handle?

[@robert_may]

I don’t really use Instagram unfortunately! I am over on Glass though: glass.photo/robertmay

[@devroombagchus7460]

Why this noise reduction hype? Most of my M43 images don’t have much noise.

[@larrychicco1062]

Lucky you!