Is DxO PhotoLab 8 Worth it? Full Review and Demo

[@leofaulhaber5641]

The hair cut function still seems to be missing in PhotoLab.

[@Twobarpsi]

Excellent demonstration and review!

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate the positive feedback!

[@TheLDunn1]

I’ve been a C1 user for the past 6 or so years I guess, but I’ve just installed the Trial version of DXO PL 8 a couple of days ago. I processed an image I recently took with it (Stag in New Forest). I didn’t spend hours on the image just got it quickly to a pleasing image to me. Tonight, I’ve processed the same raw in C1……and compared the two images. I’ve been a bit shocked on the noise reduction & detail retention in the DXO processed image, especially given that I don’t know the package that well & have not spent hours tinkering with the image. I then had C1 on half of my screen and the DXO processed image on the other (I have a large ultra wide monitor) for reference purposes, both zoomed in to equal amounts. I then played around with the noise reduction & sharpening tools in C1 trying to get close to the DXO’s combination of noise reduction AND detail retention/enhancement. After a considerable amount of faffing about in C1, I can’t get anywhere near the result that the DXO’s default settings gave me. The DXO image is both smoother (less noisy) and more detailed at the same time. I can’t even match either one of those in C1. I appreciate that there is more to a photo editing package than just noise reduction & sharpening, but even so, I’m still impressed. I think I prefer the layout in C1 which kind of guides your work flow, or, at least, it has for me, but I think some of this could just be down to familiarity. I did use DXO to cull & rate my images from a mornings shooting, it was fine for me, I just went through and used the keyboard short cut to quickly mark images red for the ones I wanted to remove from my viewer (the ones where the subject was not sharp, be that motion blur or missed focus, & the ones where the subject position was not great, & the ones where I had similar duplicates), this was quick and easy. I then went through what was left and quickly applied a star rating to my favourites and just picked the one I had marked the highest to then process. It was perfectly functional for me for initial culling and then a second pass to rate. There was a slight lag for my old PC to fully render a few images while I was quickly going through culling, not disastrous, but it was present occasionally, but this could be my PC as much as anything, and I don’t feel it was much worse than C1. It’s early days for me, and it could well be my lack of time with DXO, but the masking seemed a little limited in terms of control, or at least, was not that intuitive to me. For example, I wanted to add a slight vignette to the image, but the circular graduated mask appears to have limited control. In C1, I can manipulate this tool to make it an ellipse of any aspect ratio, I can rotate the ellipse,mi can adjust how the gradient falls off hard to soft. In contrast, in DXO I was only able to draw a circular gradient mask with no control of the gradient other than adjusting the masks opacity, which isn’t the same thing. This could just be my lack of time with DXO PL8 however, I didn’t explore the tools that much. I do like some of the other masking options like the hue mask. I did a very small amount of colour adjustment, I think I preferred C1 for this, but again, it could just be familiarity, I suspect DXO can do colour adjustment well enough for my needs. The rest was just exposure/shadow/highlight/contrast/saturation type adjustments which seems pretty similar to C1, no better or worse from what my initial trial could tell. I probably spent less than 2 hours in total in DXO so far, and than included culling & rating 300+ images & feeling my way around DXO PL 8 I’m only an amateur photographer.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Sounds good so far. With the masking remember that in control points and lines the Color and tone is sampled from the centr of the mask (in control points) and where you place the eye dropper with the control line. This makes it possible to select for example a backlit tree. As with any tool there is a learning curve, but not a steep one!

[@TheLDunn1]

@@chriswrightphotographs thanks Chris. I’ve not extensively explored the masks yet, didn’t really need to on the image I used, other than a radial mask for slight vignetting. I do like the look of the hue & luminance masks. When C1 added luminance masks I upgraded to that version…it might have been C1 22 from memory, and I considered that a worthwhile reason to upgrade. Subsequent C1 offerings less so, for my needs at least, and the cost of the C1 upgrades got worse in recent years & the ‘customer loyalty’ bonus practically non existent. I was perfectly happy with my existing version of C1, at least until I saw the Denoise in DXO, but a new camera meant the files won’t open in my version of C1 which is a couple of years old. Seeing that there is no discount for me having a prior version of C1, it is like I am buying C1 from scratch as a new user, hence why I decided to look at alternatives (excluding Adobe).

[@ernieclue8268]

Thank you for this nice and comprehensive video, it makes me alot easier to decide if i want to purchase it. The answer is no at the moment. I would miss the masking.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Glad it was helpful!

[@skeelo221]

Thanks! I think I will wait for Black Friday sale and finally upgrade from PL5

[@MedusaJellyFish300]

Thank you once again for this wonderful video. It was fun to watch ❤🎉❤

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thank you!

[@davidpavlich8939]

If a new camera comes out after you buy v8, will there be a patch offered by DxO or do you have to wait until V9 comes out to be able to process the new camera's images? Or, does DxO 8 automatically adapt to a new camera?

[@chriswrightphotographs]

There would be a new camera profile which you would be automatically prompted to download in the same way as when you first use the software. That is assuming the RAW files are compatible. There have been delays in supporting certain Fuji cameras as they have different sensors requiring different demosaicing routines (for example).

[@georgestiglich9754]

Thanks for the update on PL8! However, I have been carefully comparing version 7 with new 8 and find it hard to justify the upgrade charge! There is very little practical difference between 7 and 8. Very hard to see Raw conversion improvements . . . need to go to 300-500% to see differences. This update should have been a "dot release" like 7.3, and offered for free, not call it 8 and try to charge $100+. The price for upgrading 7-8 should be more like $39 (agree look for Black Friday discount). I really like the DxO team but they are falling way behind their market competitors. I have been using ON1 and Luminar Neo which offers 2X the features of DxO PL . . . PL8 is really just becoming a limited specialized plug-in for Adobe:-(

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Mostly I agree. I think the improvements to the tone curve are significant and XD2s seems like an improvement on XD, but it does feel a little disappointing for a major release.

[@davemorgan8349]

@@chriswrightphotographs And upgrading every year is hardly cheaper than the Adobe photographer subscription and that include Photoshop in addition to LR.

[@FSRubyc]

I have noticed a little issue with the DeepPrime XD2. It's so efficient erasing the noise that when there is a zone of dust in the picture it smears , as it seems to treat the tiny dust particles as noise. The best NR for dusty areas is not DeepPrimeDX2 nor DeepPrime, just Prime.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

@@FSRubyc I agree, I normally try each one with the aim of minimising "collateral damage". I'm interested to test this on astro photographs.

[@Stassu]

Thank you very much for discount code!

[@MaxCherry4170]

Im happy with the upgrade from 6 to 8. Hue masking is something i have desperately wanted .

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Good, I think unless you absolutely have to have some new feature, and really it's probably only pros that fall into this category (because the economics might make more sense) upgrading every two years is a wise move. Much more economical and you see a more significant improvement.

[@RicardoSantos-zh5uz]

Thank you for the video. Just subscribed. One question: is Nik Collection an add-on or is it included in PL8? Thanks!

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thank you. Unfortunately Nik Collection is not included in PL8, it's a significant set of tools in its own right. Historically, Nik was a different company and DxO have made a great job of integrating it with the rest of the DxO portfolio over the years since they acquired it..

[@alexyphotoman9716]

Thanks for this review and demo - much appreciated. It looks like the PL8 curves tool is an improvement on the Nik7 Color Efex Levels and Curves tool as well. Now I have to decide whether to upgrade to PL8 now or wait until Black Friday. Trouble, trouble!

[@MedusaJellyFish300]

I always upgrade all my photography software on Black Friday. Remember, patience is a virtue 👌 🙌 🙂

[@chriswrightphotographs]

You're right about improving on the Nik Curves tool. This may be the single most significant improvement in PL8.

[@martyjwalker]

The only reason I keep PL7 on my machine is for lens corrections that Darktable can't handle. From the looks of things I can't see how PL8 is that big a step forward than PL7.

[@davemorgan8349]

Is the luminosity mask only available with the film pack?

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Unfortunately yes, installing Film Pack activates the tools in PL so your workflow isn't affected.

[@davemorgan8349]

@@chriswrightphotographs The hue mask is available.But the luminosity mask looks much more useful.

[@TheXone7]

Do I still need to purchase DXO Pure raw 4 if I purchase the Photolab 8? Do you know by any chance? Thanks for a great tutorial video!

[@chriswrightphotographs]

No, all of the functionality in PureRAW is contained in PhotoLab 8

[@TheXone7]

@@chriswrightphotographs Thank you so much, great news then!

[@Aladdin_TV]

Great video! Upgraded from 6 to 8 yesterday. The only thing I miss in DOX is the supersize option

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thank you, I'm glad it's useful!

[@rsearun2620]

Thank you for the fine preview. I was a little confused about your analysis of the interplay between the new XD and sharpening. Is the algorithm such that we need to sharpen in DxO now when using XD2s?

[@chriswrightphotographs]

No, I found that the sharpening tool produced a worse result when XD2s had been applied so I assume that there is overlap. Ie if you use XD2s go easy on the sharpening tool

[@rsearun2620]

@@chriswrightphotographs Thanks, I'm learning to sharpen in Nik.

[@IanWheldale]

I swore I wouldn't upgrade from 6 to 7 but I did. I'm from Yorkshire and as everyone knows it doesn't matter how much brass we have, we don't like spending it😂. I will wait for black friday and get it then I think

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Ah! I’m from Richmond originally so I know where you’re coming from!

[@michaels7889]

A clear summary but there are many difficulties with this expensive upgrade. For example I can find no luminosity mask icon in the local adjustments, only a hue mask, so luminosity is not controllable in the way you demonstrate. And DxO support is very difficult to access on such details. However your demo video is very useful in getting to know the differences, which are not always otherwise very obvious.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thank you. I should have mentioned that Luminosity Masks are dependent on having an install of FilmPack. You can get a one month "try before buy" from the links in the description below the video. You can then decide at your own pace whether it's worth the extra investment.

[@michaels7889]

@@chriswrightphotographs That seems to me a very sneaky way of extorting money on the part of DxO and makes me very wary of them even though I have been using it since v5. Luminosity masks have no special relevance to film.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

@@michaels7889 Extortion may be a little strong but I completely agree, luminosity masks have no special relevance to film.

[@juliodumbobk]

can this be used as a LRC plug in?

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Dehancer is a LRC plugin. FilmPack is a standalone program with plugin integration ie you can generate a tif and export to FilmPack

[@jeffhowe2892]

Thanks for the video, I enjoyed your insight. The thing that really annoys me is that the luminosity mask is only available if you buy Film Pack. I have no interest in film simulation and so I will never buy the pack but I really want the luminosity mask. I look forward to watching more of your content. Cheers.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thank you! I agree about the luminosity mask, I thought that might be present in PL this time.

[@DalsPhotography]

I love DxO, but I was surprised we can't mask anything out, in your photos when using the curves, it would have been nice to get some kind of masks to hide the sky when you increased the luminance value of the mountains. Thank you very much, regards from Uruguay.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thanks for the comment. It’s a good point. You can use the eraser tool in the local adjustments palette to brush out parts of the mask in that particular case, I didn’t think of it while recording the video!

[@spinfuzor]

Contrôle points and control lines are here for that and with fp addon you may want to use luminosity masks

[@bennievandermerwe7445]

Please note that luminosity masking is part of Filmpack7 and not part of PL7 or 8 elite. That makes it an additional purchase that makes no sense to me. I am still on PL6, so might upgrade for XD2 noise reduction, but still undecided

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thanks for reminding me. It is hard to see any technical reason to implement Luminosity Masking in FilmPack and not in PL. It is essential in many areas of photography and I had hoped to see it arrive in this version.

[@Jepe1964]

I am currently using Capture one mainly for sport photography . So this means processing a large number of files. The noise reduction in Capture sucks and I have to processs the export files in Topaz to make them decent. So I would like to have a more simple workflow in one tool. Can DXO 8 handle this approach ?

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Noise reduction is excellent in PL. You can also copy an edit across a batch of files. I’d advise trying it to see if the workflow suits.

[@spinfuzor]

If you just want noise réduction and continue with you C1 workflow maybe try Pureraw. It's basically photolab reduced to demoisaicing and denoising.

[@Jepe1964]

@@spinfuzor It would be a solution because the other functions in C1 are Ok for me. Only Pureraw has to run before the import in C1 and generates huge TIFF or DNG output files. (never tested). The RAW of a Z9 is already 30MB per file

[@spinfuzor]

@@Jepe1964 it indeed double your files on your disk, so if you want to avoid it maybe you can give a shot for photolab for the whole workflow. It's a choice between buying some space or changing all your habits 🤣

[@marcovth2]

Let me guess ... PhotoLab still can not read iPhone dng files?

[@chriswrightphotographs]

It’s likely that DxO can’t keep up with the proliferation of lens/processor combos found in the iPhone. It’s in this area that DxO excel. A one size fits all compromise would mean lowering standards. Just a guess.

[@melaniezette886]

If they made a powerfull catalog

[@gossedejong9248]

thank you!!

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Thank you! Glad it is useful.

[@calcorstudios-rvcstevenson3666]

I was disappointed, but not surprised, when PL7 had no AI masking. This time I am disappointed and surprised. AI masking is essential and something LRC, Topaz and LN have had for a while. For the first time, I think I will pass on the upgrade which in my opinion is quite modest. I do birding, and subject selection saves a ton of time. It's something that Adobe Photoshop Elements has for crying out loud.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

Yes, I don't think you're alone in this thinking. The updates are good and well implemented, but masking in Lightroom is way ahead. The problem DxO have is many of the features that people want rely on a layer based model. PhotoLab doesn't support layers.

[@normtesch1126]

after pure raw 4there are still things greyed out....lens softness/ denoise you can only move slider/

[@chriswrightphotographs]

I'm not sure what you mean - in PureRAW or PhotoLab?

[@DB-wx1zs]

The only thing that would impress me and have me dropping every other program for Photolab is if photolab had a AI precision masking tool, the other apps have it, but photolab is still behind in this? Why? It’s frustrating to see them focus on every other feature expect for AI masking. What’s the point of all these features if I can’t easily make a targeted selection?

[@chriswrightphotographs]

This is the single most requested feature. In fairness combinations of the existing tools can get you to the same place but of course it takes longer. An invertible sky mask would save me hours over a month or so. Also Adobe’s intersection capability is state of the art right now.

[@DB-wx1zs]

@@chriswrightphotographs Agreed, they can at least introduce sky or subject selection, that would make users so happy.

[@Helloworldwrjfjrjrj]

Answer NO for me. It’s cannot view multi folders and display all media below it. Lightroom does this and it makes browsing much easier. Bring back I view Media Pro. Not the versions Microsoft and others brought out when they purchased it and then gave up and handed it on

[@chriswrightphotographs]

I have to agree about not being able to view folders below the open one. It’s a small thing to change and an irritation for sure.

[@glennn.3464]

I think I’ll be passing on this one. Not enough new to justify the upgrade price again. No AI masking nor any kind of AI removal. The repair and clone tool though is the best for manually adjusting things to get a very good result in most cases. But apparently the Auto Mask still doesn’t preview what has been selected which is absurd at this point. And still no layers of any kind. The basic Selective Tone tools are still very bad in my opinion. Each slider affects WAY too much of the image with way too much overlap of the controls and things quickly fall apart. DxO needs to overhaul that area with an eye for how those controls work in Capture One (the best at those adjustments in my opinion) or Lightroom. The interface STILL has no useful customization or resize ability. I guess even that is never coming. So many of the things that I kept hoping would be addressed with each new release never happens and we just keep getting a few new watered down versions of tools that have been available in other software for years and we’re expected to pay a substantial amount for another upgrade. I just don’t see DxO suddenly catching up or getting close to Capture One, which I also use, or especially Lightroom in feature set and interface that are pulling way ahead at an accelerated rate. I’ve used DxO software for many years now and have upgraded many times since Optics Pro versions but I think, sadly, that this is it for me now. I may not need every feature that Capture One or Lightroom offers but PhotoLab just seems to be falling behind ever faster. For just a bit more than the price to upgrade I may just go with PureRAW for the lens corrections and noise reduction and possibly upgrade that only when I feel it’s worth it to do so.

[@nospam-hn7xm]

I just bought version 7 a few months ago. Now they want me to pay full price for version 8? I don't think so! I thought the full price covered any and all updates for the year of licensing! What a rip-off!

[@chriswrightphotographs]

They are offering an upgrade price, as they always do. So not sure why you think you’re being asked to pay full price?

[@nospam-hn7xm]

@@chriswrightphotographs Because just three months ago I gave them $400+ for software, including PL 7. Another $100+ is too much after just 90 days!

[@nospam-hn7xm]

@@chriswrightphotographs Just 3 months ago I gave DxO $400 for software, including PL7. Asking for another $100+ after 90 days is asking too much! If I wanted to be part of an extortion scheme, I would have stayed with Adobe!

[@gillescharvet]

@@nospam-hn7xm same with on1, others are months based fee ...

[@orkneyed6528]

If it’s going to cost £100 a year to update you might as well have adobe photoshop plan. Instead of charging they ought to update their program.

[@sgcockburn]

iron your T shirt and smarten yourself up a bit

[@chriswrightphotographs]

The irony here is the T-Shirt was freshly ironed, by me! I shall check KZbin ironing videos for guidance😘

[@stevepaint]

@@chriswrightphotographs I was going to suggest buy me a haircut rather than buy me a coffee :) I´m on PL6 which does much of what I need, noise maybe a problem in my shots but as I dont shoot much in low light, its not something I am aware of, so I too will save my pennies.

[@hansh.9199]

Photolab needs to include multi exposure tools such as focus stacking, HDR merge, and panorama stitch.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

All of these features would make good additions to PhotoLab

[@friendofarca6550]

it is clear dxo tries the same game as capture one, add as little as possible but charge as much as possible with every are update, in fact they are worse as they make you pay extra for tools included in every other raw converter ! so in my case when I would upgrade including the plugins they ask for 309.-- plus tax , thanks but - NO I´m done, I did not use pl much but upgraded for yeast to support them, seems this was a mistake. on the technical side adobe noise AI does produce better results without artifact and better pixel level detail and masking is in another universe anyway.

[@chriswrightphotographs]

I ditched CaptureOne some years ago for a couple of reasons, price/licensing model being uppermost. As with DxO, I found individuals I dealt with there to be decent, likeable, people so I don't think it's simply greed in either case. More the economics of running a small company and keeping your best developers on board. One might look enviously toward people like Affinity, but the reality is they are probably five years behind Adobe technically and were bought out recently by Canva. DxO are still fiercely independent and remain competitive, maybe the pricing reflects the cost of that to a degree.

[@friendofarca6550]

@@chriswrightphotographshm, my limited experience with dxo support was abysmal the reason why I never signed up for their beta. fixing bugs in time is definitely not their strength, something they have in common with c1 and the small company argument was a c1 favourite also whenever they got criticized. the affinity sale is really a sad development, affinity photo is in some fields superior to photoshop in my view. running a small business I very much prefer smaller companies over corporates but this does not make me accept everything.

[@matrixate]

I'm still using Capture One V22. No need to upgrade. I'll upgrade when I use a camera that isn't supported. Until then, I'll be using V22 for at least a couple more years.

[@nickbianchi]

@@chriswrightphotographs I fully agree with you on that one. I’m disappointed by the way PL has evolved since Version 5 and am now mostly using Lightroom. I know of a few people who followed the same path. But I don’t blame DxO: I think they really do their best. As a professional, it might be easier to stay with this software on top of others in order to support the dev team. As a hobbyist, you can’t just give money away like that and need to chose wisely where your benefits lie.