This is an unbiased review that looks at the real world results side my side. I'm still working on refining presets for this. There's potential here. What do you think?
Very interesting video. What makes me "angry" with DxO is their way to put one fundamental function in each of their software for customer to buy them all. Example : I'm a long time user of Nik collection, and I was very happy when Nik Collection 7 went out some few months ago with 2 new fundamentals features : Oval control points (at least !!!!) and polygonal control points. I waited for Photolab 8 to come out to see if we will have those Oval and Polygonal control points in it... and was even not surprised when seeing they are not in PL 8 ! Ok DxO is a small company, nothing to do with Adobe, but when you are far behind other in masking abilities, you have to offer people the best you have in your flagship software if you want to grow (in my opinion).
After watching other reviewer 'better then Lightroom' video(that felt like a commercial brake) I can truly say I'm glad that there are people like you that say things as they are. Not blinded by money or companies interests/influence and just keeping it real. Truly appreciate it!
Thanks bro. They say I'm hating. But I really want DXO to succeed. C1 failed the community. This is their shot. They just have to start listening to people who are not paid.
I have to agree ... unfortunately. I'd love to see a serious Adobe competitor. Competition is good. I have tried Photolab for quite a while on hundreds of images. Old ones, new ones, different gear, sometimes with great results, sometimes not so much. In many cases it took much more time to get the best result, so that is really bad for everyone. Be it serious professionals or serious non-professionals. We all don't want to spend more time on post processing than necessary. I hope DxO listens to users and reviewers like you, because I like the general idea and design of Photolab. They have to get the basics right, because that's where Adobe still shines. But if they do get the basics right I think they might have a winner, because even with the current handicaps the end results can often be spectacular and better than with LR or other programs. So there is hope.
I do think that DxO is improving in a number of ways. It is now easier to use and has good noise reduction, when compared to 5 years ago. But masking, while improved, is still far behind. (Certainly don't try to paint masks in DxO -- use the control points and lines for easier masking). And basic raw processing is still not as good as the best. Workflow -- pros and cons. What will work for one won't work for the other. It's easier to get into for beginners but doesn't give the same speedy search and catalog management as LR of C1.
Thank you for this review, it's Adobe renewal time and as a full time photographer I thought I should at least check out LR alternatives, and you hae saved me a ton of time trying this. I can't believe you can't re-order images, this is such an essential feature for professional use and a full deal-breaker for me regardless of other features. Shame as it would be nice to have a real LR alternative (that is Capture One).
I've taken to using PureRaw4 within Lightroom as the first step in my work flow for denoise - I have no idea if this is ideal but it works for me - I cant actually see that Photolab would give me anymore that I cant get out of lightroom (I can then export to PS and use Nik collection) - I'd be interested if Photolab does anything that I do in PureRaw better than PureRaw - I'm not sure it does .. Great review by the way - stumbled across it when I was basically trying to answer the above question
As I am on the fence of whether to purchase DX0, I'm glad that I just came across this and your page and this review. Very helpful and insightful. Thank you. NEW sub now!!
@7:30 -- The issue is that DXO applies its changes in a way that is exportable as DNG which means they're not changing pixels the changes are applied via auto-masks. Luminance masks, color masks, but the machine learning that powers these masks is not very good. So you end up with color and lighting defects that limit how far you can slide the sliders before running into ugliness.
I'm hoping to also see DXO have AI gen remove and AI masking equivalent. In fact, I would love to see these features on all competitive alternatives. Thanks for the review.
On your issue with the yellow HSL I think you had to widen the inner range selector not the outer range selector so you widen the base color selected and not only the feather. Both ranges are adjustable. On your comment on lens correction being less important I disagree. Latest ultra~wide lens depend on it for distortion and vignetting which they have a lot of. The canon RF-14-35 F4L is a good case. It absolutely need correction and it is designed with it in mind. Your assessment may apply to moré standard lenses. Thanks for the review.
That was not the problem. I tested that and many other things because I could not believe DXO had such an oversight. But the inside of the circle is base hue range. The outside is it's feather into adjacent hues. It's almost like there's a bug and the feathering off is not even working. I'll be keeping an eye son this. As for corrections. The issue as that LR has good corrections so it's not enough to make up for the DXO lack in other areas.
I‘m amateur landscape photographer and I always start processing of my RAWs in DXO Photolab, that enables me to recover so much more information from highlights and shadows than I could even imagine be possible. In literally destroys the Lightroom in this regard!… BUT I never liked the colors I get in the end of my processing in the DXO Photolab. That’s why I continue the processing in the Lightroom where I correct the colors to my taste. So , I need both programs to get the best DR (DXO Photolab) and colors (Lightroom).
You're doing something wrong in LR them. Lightroom shadow and highlight tools are more powerful than PhotoLab. If photos lab blows you away try my HDR presets in LR and see what it can really do. I'll be posting som free ones soon from Natural HDR 5
Congratulations for that review ! These are the issues why i am still working on Lrc & PS ! I must admit that i use DXO PureRaw first before Lrc.. I find it gives better results for Raw files
Yøu are not the only one discovering PureRaw gives better results than its sister software. How that is even possible is beyond me, it like they dont talk internally in this company
@@Seimstudios inside LRc first you use dxo pureraw and then make your adjustments. Pureraw has a fantastic denoise feature and work on the lens sharpness.. I usually put the sharpness to low .i find Standard to be to high
I dislike the Lightroom noise reduction because I have to wait a while for the noise reduction to take effect while editing my photo before I can move on to the next photo. Also, Lightroom adds a DNG file with noise reduction applied to the same directory as the raw photo and appends some text to the name of the file (which is also the name that the photo will have after export). Since I'm a stickler for correct naming and organising my photos this is something that I don't want my photo editor to do.
Thanks for the unbiased review and highlighting the shortcomings. Most of the sponsored reviews don't talk of the lack of AI masking as well which makes life so easy for professionals editing hundreds of images every week.
Watching your channel for the first time. Good stuff. The kerfluff over Adobe caused me to renew my subscription to Capture One Pro to get the latest version, and to purchase DxO outright for the full price to compare them all. I have Sony, Leica, and Hasselblad files (although I only shoot Sony now, the others are from earlier times). DxO does okay with Hasselblad RAW files, but the Hasselblad native app Phocus does even better, and it's free. Capture One Pro is hands down better at everything than Lightroom Classic or DxO with both Leica and especially Sony RAW files. So, Capture One is my RAW editor now, despite the Adobe-like subscription model they offer.
I test them regularly and honestly I find Lightroom equal to C1 these days. But you are on point and in the end us the one that works best for your style.
@3:13 -- Unfortunately there are no Raw Processing package (that I know of) that allows you to do pixel level processing like photoshop. So for now we must all use at least 2 bits of software in those cases where pixel-level edits are necessary (unless you shoot JPG 😮). I use Capture One for my raw processing and cataloging. Lightroom for publishing. In extreme cases I use DXO Pure Raw for noise reduction (it exports DNGs which is nice). Also in rare cases I'll use photoshop when Capture One's heal tool doesn't quite cut it.
Thanks for your balanced, incisive review. As an amateur landscape and travel photographer, I prefer the Raw file rendering in Capture One, which I currently have on trial - the new C1 version was released today (24th October 2024). I own PureRaw4, and again I am underwhelmed by the rendering for low to mid ISO photos, but I do use it for very high ISO photos where it does perform well. I need to turn off lens sharpening completely to avoid artefacts. I don't understand why DXO does not add HDR photo merging, which is a basic requirement for landscape photographers. I currently use Apple Photos and have been wanting to move to a more powerful editor for around a year. I've not yet moved away from Photos, because like you I am frustrated with how many products are near, (or not so near!) misses for this who want to avoid Adobe. I will probably opt for C1 after the trial, and I'd be fascinated to hear your professional views on the new version!
Yes I wish they would listen because there is opportunity here. In my tests C1 has no advantage on rendering and I have to do very deep in both when working on the Filmist pack. But in the end use what feels good for your style.
I've taken a run at this software and without even beginning to address anything technical, I can't even get past its interface. The text on the right panel is so small and lacking in contrast that I can't even read some of it. I come from a graphics background and I know how simple it is to look at this sort of thing and fix it in the code (at least for a website). I also have a plug in that I like to use and can't find a way to use that, or any other plug in. These are deal breakers for me, especially the illegibility issue.
I feel like DxO did a fine job with editing studio lit well balance photos that were 90% good right off the camera, the minute you throw any high contrast real life photos it completely falls apart.
I can get absolutely ghastly green-red artefacts when pushing up shadows a bit too much in DxO whereas in CaptureOne I just get more noise. When I didn't know any other tools I thought it was just the way of things or the poor sensor of my simple camera but I've seen it with different camera sensor types of different brands, and now I know that the same raw files can be handled better. Still, if I don't need to touch the shadows that much, it works, and sometimes better / easier / faster than C1.
Look at noise handling in camera raw 2025. It is not rendering a dng to do noise reduction. I hope that moves from beta feature in bocsr and lr/lrc soon.
Thanks for this review. As a long time DXO user, I see that what you're missing is a problem. In your review, you also missed a couple of things: - adding grain: is possible when you've filmpack - You can lower the level of noise reduction So in the end, maybe DXO Pureraw is the solution you should test. Than you can use all the nice tech DXO has for noise reduction and lens profiles and sharpening, but the color science from Adobe. Personally, I use Zoner Photo Studio. Simply because it is one solution for RAW developing, but also pixel editing. For half the price of Adobe. Maybe not so extended, but still good enough.
Sorry but if a flagship app prices higher than LR does not have these basic features its not competitive. I have used FIlm Pack. It's films were not at all accurate. I'll have to take a look at zoner.
Thanks for that review. I'm still on the hunt for a LR replacement. Have you ever tried Exposure 7. Looks promising yet to give it a go myself. Maybe one for a future video.
I get it, but can I ask how many hours in Lightroom you think you e spent vs. DxO? I mean the odds of the program matching YOUR workflow are minimal. Your abilities will be better in something you have have literally 1000s of more hours in front of the monitor. And while you say you're not a lover of any company and you're unbiased, you are subject to your own biases and workflow. To say otherwise is illogical.
You point is only valid in if I was talking about how fast I can edit. My hours with each app do not change that I know how to test them and I find the limits and test what features they lack or have that are important to a professional workflow. Lightroom and at times C1 is the standard, so yes we need to compare to tghose.
Thanks for the review. However, the compare tool is right at the top and it's great. Also, you mentioned how Photolab is $229 and that it's cheaper than PS and LR combined? Is that really a fair comment to make? $20/month for LR and PS making it $240 a year.
Look at minute 13:30. Didn‘t he made a mistake? Talking about the results using the denoising Tool in Photolab a) without using the loup and then b) transfer the image to Lightroom! The second step will garantee, that he gets Photolab results with Lightroom because he got the denoised image in his hidden container.
I am missing something here. With my basic maths I have worked out that my yearly plan with Adobe cost £120 ish. Now my wife and I can use this on two different laptops at the same time. It also gets free updates, which I have been brilliant since I have been signed up. Now DXO is £200 ish for one copy. Which if you want yearly up grades will cost another £100 ish. So over 6 years with Adobe you'll pay £720 ish. DXO will cost ya £700 for one user?
Capture One tiene un inconveniente que me gustaría exponer. Llevo utilizándolo durante varios años mediante una licencia perpetua que actualizo periodicamente. En Junio de este mismo año compré una actualización y ahora en Octubre (4 meses después) me dicen que tendría que pagar nuevamente otra porque la que compré en Junio no incluye esta última actualización. Lo que me parece un abuso. Por lo demás gracias por los vídeos y un cordial saludo.
Exactamente. Por eso Capture One realamente no tiene licencia perpetua. Porque pagas y no recibes actualizaciones. Te castigan por comprarlo. Hice un video sobre esto el año pasado. Muchos regresaron a LR para la maner en que C1 abusa su clientes.
Yes, I think DXO could probably do with a kick up the backside. It is far from the finished article. I think they are pretty far away from properly competing with Lightroom or even Capture One. You are correct, Split Toning, some masking options and even just a standard Vignette, are all missing unless you buy the extra Film Pack. It's pretty cheeky and isn't exactly offering value when you consider the competition. On your points about not listening to their customer base, I think this is tricky. I have no idea the budget they have for development and the size of their team. I am pretty sure it is nothing like what Adobe has though. Do Adobe listen to their customer base? In some things no doubt, but certainly not in other important ways. There has been a lot made of their current Data policies of late and for good reason. I have used Lightroom, Capture One and DXO Photolab a fair bit now and they all work in different ways. I find the Smart Lighting plus local adjustments more effective for adjusting shadows and highlights. Quite a different workflow to Lightroom. More competition for Adobe is a great thing. DXO, Capture One etc... are not really in the same class yet though. Hopefully DXO will be encouraged by your critique and look to improve. They might not have the resources to do so though. I suppose time will tell. Thanks.
Good points. And totally forgot about the Vignette. I use those a lot and grain also and nada in DXO. Development is not easy. But they are adding things like Hue masking. Skip that and fix the basics is what I would say.
But it’s NOT about which is the “best” 30 thousand feet… Adobe charges endless subscription for “updates” - whether you want then or not - but - unconstitutionally - they claimed they “own” what you create with their tools in so far as they believe they have the right to “source” (STEAL) it for their AI engine!!! 🤬 Look, it all gonna end in the courts and we are gonna find that AI can only source material that is OWNED by the individual running the engine of PUBLIC DOMAIN material. Read PERIOD! Adobe, like Disney, is trying to bully its customers into accepting that a CORPORATION nullifies “copyright” granted at the point of creation.
Pretty sure Adobe’s game is over… it’s like a cheating spouse… 2nd chance? Yeah, if you’re a cuck! They already tried to sneak in the - steal - so anyone who wants to use their tool may as well sign away their right to their own work. There is no backtracking on this one (until Adobe, Google, Apple and RUclips are hailed into court and forced to acknowledge the source of all AI content. I’m just looking at viable alternatives… and cataloging database for images and a photo editor… this seems to be the best option out there… and I like the German tool that limited AI to your own image library
Unfortunately nothing has changed. I'm using Photo lab 6 and run into the same issues, Highlight recovery is the worst, It seems to reduce contrast and muddy the whole image. shame as I quite like the software overall and was hoping it was fixed in Photo lab 8
I know editing infrared photos DXO does better for me. On editing other files I am finding myself going back to lightroom. One of the questions that needs to be looked at is computer compatibility. I can't update PS on my desktop because it is 5 years old. This drives me crazy.
I like Tony. His review told me there is a possibility of a replacement for Adobe, which would please me, (because they SUCK). Your review told me that despite the glimmer of hope with DXO Photo Lab, they're not there yet. That's what I need to knew because I have work to do, with over 60 years of images in a Lightroom catalogue. Thank you.
DxO has a very different colour rendering indeed. You can select the colour rendering though, via one of the tools in the "Colour" tab. And I wonder what the "DxO Smart Lighting" tool will do with your images, vs the shadow recovery that you do. Still in my experience DxO is not very good at shadow recovery vs CaptureOne (my preferred raw editing tool, despite the hefty subscription fees and price hikes of the last years).
The smart tools don't improve much. But then again neither to Lightroom Auto tone tools. I never need them. IN the end if the shadow recovery is bad the other tools that's use it will be also. DXO needs to improve the Raw engine. The problems is not really color rendering. It's that it's introducing artifacts.
@@Seimstudios Yes, I agree. I have gotten good results from DxO PhotoLabs, it can do very good things with tools like Smart Lighting and the colour rendering is different but not bad and very flexible. However, as you say, at some point things fall apart way worse than with CaptureOne (which is my point of reference, I've never used Lightroom). Especially when shadows are very dark (high contrast images with a bright sky, or night-images with very dark parts). Do I then push up shadows too much? Yes, but with DxO things start to look really freaky while with C1 they just get noisy. So I find a place for both tools for myself but C1 is my mainstay raw processor.
good to know you start developing for DXO photolab8. Does it have now IA masks like LRC ? But if it is just for better denoise, camera raw 17 has a new raw denoising with amount slider and also we can launch topaz photo ai, ON1 no noise AI and dxo pure raw from LRC and come back to LRC for SEim... presets.
It sucks bit it6's still cheaper than C1 and the annual plan is not even going up so you can still get LR + PS for $10/mo. We've cover pricing but I'll mostly compare features in this years review.
@Seimstudios Yeah can pay it annually for the 20gb photography plan and keep the same price, but I've been trying to leave Adobe for a while now. Thanks for doing comparison videos, helps a lot.
Yes that's also true. Even C1 is years behind on this and charges extra. It pains me to say it, but no one is close to what Adobe gives people for $10/month
@@Seimstudios Yup and once I’m home or done with LRM I can transfer to LR Classic so I only need the minimum cloud plan. Also using Classic I can use the Book module and print via Blurb, upload to SmugMug, create slideshows, filter via ratings, lens, camera etc. via smart collections and on and on …
Thanks for this review. It’s tough to be objective, esp. in DxO user groups on FB. I pointed out a few of those points and got attacked by some. Add the missing panorama stitching or stacking features in DxO PL, the fact that ViewPoint is also another software to buy if you need to correct perspective… Weird U-Points instead of a basic radial gradient… And I agree: the AI denoise in LR is nicer than DxO’s Prime, Deep Prime, Deep Prime XD, Deep Prime XD2, Deep Prime XD 2 S (tbh, this is their mains selling point!) DxO PL is by no means equivalent to LR.
"No side-by-side comparison in DxO Lab..." dare I say they might not WANT that feature because it will let pros exactly see how crappy some of their tools are? For the record: I would LOVE a killer alternative to Adobe...they don't care about us pros anymore. Doesn't sound like DxO is going to be filling those shoes.......yet!
@4:54 -- WAIT WHAT?!? -- Hold on let me check... whew... Okay you scared me -- (april fools?) Capture One still offers a perpetual license. It's $300. I own Capture One 2023. It looks like it's now called Capture One Pro? Only Pro is offered as a perpetual license. There is a "Studio" version which has some additional AI features and is subscription only -- I assume this is because the AI features require server assistance and so Capture One does not want to offer a life-time license for features that require server utilization, which makes sense to me as you cannot promise to support that server for a lifetime.
I’m about to end my 30 days trial of Dxo lab8 and I must say I am far from convinced as well although I did want to like it… It doesn’t feel organic to me and I also don’t like the way it processes colors, I miss the layer workflow and simple basics as color wheels, I don’t find the masking tools any handy either…
To be fair, there's good deals with discounts making it a lot cheaper...then every 2/3 years a full upgrade...making my continued investments around 6,65 per month...still half of Adobe without me needing to upgrade...
Adobe costs $10/mo for LR and PS so you're getting doable since C1 does not climate the need for PS or something similar. You also get no update now during that 2/3 years.
@@Seimstudios you get an update until PL goes to a new version...but I've also switched to Affinity who are more generous in updates...so do need Adobe much less and I am not a fulltime designer or anything so it's enough for me.
Well, there’s no perfect photo editing app, we all know that. In the end it’s about personal preferences and the knowledge how to use it properly, which takes more or less time for every individual. I just ditched LR after 6 years of using it, paying lots of money for the subscription and went for DXO. I know it has it quirks, as any other app, but it suits me best. I don’t care much about all the AI-stuff, which in my opinion works erratically and is often misused to fix an image which wasn’t good in the first place, as many photographers seem don’t even know how to use their gear properly, often ignorant of the basics on shutter speed, aperture, DOF, exposure compensation, etc., not to mention basic composition rules. Just look at the tons of videos offered on how to deal with those issues.
True and you should use what inspired you. The problem I have though is not the quirks. It's objective failures in things like the image processing I showed here. That's what they have to fix if they want to be taken seriously because it actually lowers the quality of the edits
I was impressed way back in the DxO version 5 days and still have a copy on my machine, but after I had used it a bit I realized how terrible it is. It has a few cool features that look good, but the actual underlying, foundational RAW processing is NOT good. You can produce nice images with it, but it's very, very, very rare that I use it for anything. FWIW, I used to only swear by Capture One and hated Lightroom with a passion, but that has changed. Lightroom/ACR, overall, is clearly better than any other major RAW editor, especially if you consider its DAM capabilities (though I hate a few ways in which it works). To be honest, the best RAW editor is probably Darktable, but the learning curve is a killer.
Exactly my case. DxO PL8 isn’t even worth upgrading from version 5! I also was enthusiastic and I also still have it, but never open it anymore. I went for LR instead.
@@nickbianchi I started with DxO 3, upgraded all the way to 6. Didn't feel 7 was worth it, now did upgrade to 8. Actually I feel that the upgrade is worth it now: the program feels faster, and the "local editing" tools are both more powerful now, and a lot easier to use as you no longer have to use that weird pop-up editing tool for them. Just don't use masks in DxO... well-placed control points are the way to go. That said, my main raw editor is C1 which most of the time gives me better results, works faster, has more features, far better masking, and allows many more of its tools to be used on layers.
I am not French but agree that this is a non-professional biased view. Using the same sliders in the same way as in LR means he does not know how Photolab works.
Perhaps a surprising different tone and evaluation from a previous comparison 3 months ago? what changed? Thank your for your detailed factual review, actually a refreshing and stimulating reviews channel, compared with many others around RUclips. Cheers.
The only thing that really changes is I'm more critical because they released an entirely new version and didn't listen to any of the problems people are having. Also the HSL problem did not come up for me before. I don't know if it's a bug in the latest version or if I just didn't notice. But I feel like it may be a bug so I'll wait and see. I'm trying to give these other options a chance to shine. But they have to show an interest in raising the bar if they want to be taken seriously by pros
![I Replaced ALL my ADOBE APPS with these [free or cheaper] Alternatives!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5EfqHg49kMk/mqdefault.jpg)
This is an unbiased review that looks at the real world results side my side. I'm still working on refining presets for this. There's potential here. What do you think?
Very interesting video. What makes me "angry" with DxO is their way to put one fundamental function in each of their software for customer to buy them all. Example : I'm a long time user of Nik collection, and I was very happy when Nik Collection 7 went out some few months ago with 2 new fundamentals features : Oval control points (at least !!!!) and polygonal control points. I waited for Photolab 8 to come out to see if we will have those Oval and Polygonal control points in it... and was even not surprised when seeing they are not in PL 8 ! Ok DxO is a small company, nothing to do with Adobe, but when you are far behind other in masking abilities, you have to offer people the best you have in your flagship software if you want to grow (in my opinion).
After watching other reviewer 'better then Lightroom' video(that felt like a commercial brake) I can truly say I'm glad that there are people like you that say things as they are.
Not blinded by money or companies interests/influence and just keeping it real.
Truly appreciate it!
Thanks bro. They say I'm hating. But I really want DXO to succeed. C1 failed the community. This is their shot. They just have to start listening to people who are not paid.
I have to agree ... unfortunately. I'd love to see a serious Adobe competitor. Competition is good. I have tried Photolab for quite a while on hundreds of images. Old ones, new ones, different gear, sometimes with great results, sometimes not so much. In many cases it took much more time to get the best result, so that is really bad for everyone. Be it serious professionals or serious non-professionals. We all don't want to spend more time on post processing than necessary. I hope DxO listens to users and reviewers like you, because I like the general idea and design of Photolab. They have to get the basics right, because that's where Adobe still shines. But if they do get the basics right I think they might have a winner, because even with the current handicaps the end results can often be spectacular and better than with LR or other programs. So there is hope.
I do think that DxO is improving in a number of ways. It is now easier to use and has good noise reduction, when compared to 5 years ago.
But masking, while improved, is still far behind. (Certainly don't try to paint masks in DxO -- use the control points and lines for easier masking).
And basic raw processing is still not as good as the best.
Workflow -- pros and cons. What will work for one won't work for the other. It's easier to get into for beginners but doesn't give the same speedy search and catalog management as LR of C1.
Thank you for this review, it's Adobe renewal time and as a full time photographer I thought I should at least check out LR alternatives, and you hae saved me a ton of time trying this. I can't believe you can't re-order images, this is such an essential feature for professional use and a full deal-breaker for me regardless of other features. Shame as it would be nice to have a real LR alternative (that is Capture One).
I've taken to using PureRaw4 within Lightroom as the first step in my work flow for denoise - I have no idea if this is ideal but it works for me - I cant actually see that Photolab would give me anymore that I cant get out of lightroom (I can then export to PS and use Nik collection) - I'd be interested if Photolab does anything that I do in PureRaw better than PureRaw - I'm not sure it does .. Great review by the way - stumbled across it when I was basically trying to answer the above question
As I am on the fence of whether to purchase DX0, I'm glad that I just came across this and your page and this review.
Very helpful and insightful. Thank you.
NEW sub now!!
I hope it helps you make the right choice.
@7:30 -- The issue is that DXO applies its changes in a way that is exportable as DNG which means they're not changing pixels the changes are applied via auto-masks. Luminance masks, color masks, but the machine learning that powers these masks is not very good. So you end up with color and lighting defects that limit how far you can slide the sliders before running into ugliness.
I'm hoping to also see DXO have AI gen remove and AI masking equivalent. In fact, I would love to see these features on all competitive alternatives. Thanks for the review.
On your issue with the yellow HSL I think you had to widen the inner range selector not the outer range selector so you widen the base color selected and not only the feather. Both ranges are adjustable. On your comment on lens correction being less important I disagree. Latest ultra~wide lens depend on it for distortion and vignetting which they have a lot of. The canon RF-14-35 F4L is a good case. It absolutely need correction and it is designed with it in mind. Your assessment may apply to moré standard lenses. Thanks for the review.
That was not the problem. I tested that and many other things because I could not believe DXO had such an oversight. But the inside of the circle is base hue range. The outside is it's feather into adjacent hues. It's almost like there's a bug and the feathering off is not even working. I'll be keeping an eye son this.
As for corrections. The issue as that LR has good corrections so it's not enough to make up for the DXO lack in other areas.
I‘m amateur landscape photographer and I always start processing of my RAWs in DXO Photolab, that enables me to recover so much more information from highlights and shadows than I could even imagine be possible. In literally destroys the Lightroom in this regard!… BUT I never liked the colors I get in the end of my processing in the DXO Photolab. That’s why I continue the processing in the Lightroom where I correct the colors to my taste.
So , I need both programs to get the best DR (DXO Photolab) and colors (Lightroom).
You're doing something wrong in LR them. Lightroom shadow and highlight tools are more powerful than PhotoLab. If photos lab blows you away try my HDR presets in LR and see what it can really do. I'll be posting som free ones soon from Natural HDR 5
Congratulations for that review ! These are the issues why i am still working on Lrc & PS !
I must admit that i use DXO PureRaw first before Lrc.. I find it gives better results for Raw files
Yøu are not the only one discovering PureRaw gives better results than its sister software. How that is even possible is beyond me, it like they dont talk internally in this company
Thanks. That's interesting. I don't get what can be gained by editing a RAW first and then having a 2nd gen file but I;'ll try and take a closer look.
@@Seimstudios inside LRc first you use dxo pureraw and then make your adjustments.
Pureraw has a fantastic denoise feature and work on the lens sharpness..
I usually put the sharpness to low .i find Standard to be to high
I dislike the Lightroom noise reduction because I have to wait a while for the noise reduction to take effect while editing my photo before I can move on to the next photo.
Also, Lightroom adds a DNG file with noise reduction applied to the same directory as the raw photo and appends some text to the name of the file (which is also the name that the photo will have after export). Since I'm a stickler for correct naming and organising my photos this is something that I don't want my photo editor to do.
Thanks for the unbiased review and highlighting the shortcomings. Most of the sponsored reviews don't talk of the lack of AI masking as well which makes life so easy for professionals editing hundreds of images every week.
exactly
Watching your channel for the first time. Good stuff. The kerfluff over Adobe caused me to renew my subscription to Capture One Pro to get the latest version, and to purchase DxO outright for the full price to compare them all. I have Sony, Leica, and Hasselblad files (although I only shoot Sony now, the others are from earlier times). DxO does okay with Hasselblad RAW files, but the Hasselblad native app Phocus does even better, and it's free. Capture One Pro is hands down better at everything than Lightroom Classic or DxO with both Leica and especially Sony RAW files. So, Capture One is my RAW editor now, despite the Adobe-like subscription model they offer.
I test them regularly and honestly I find Lightroom equal to C1 these days. But you are on point and in the end us the one that works best for your style.
Solid video comparison! Can you recommend a video to learn using Lightroom? I feel I'm not using it to a 1/10 of what it can do.
I have a LR section on this channel. I don't have a specific comprehensive course I recommend but I have a lot here.
@@Seimstudios Thank you. Subscribed to your channel and will go through your videos.
@3:13 -- Unfortunately there are no Raw Processing package (that I know of) that allows you to do pixel level processing like photoshop. So for now we must all use at least 2 bits of software in those cases where pixel-level edits are necessary (unless you shoot JPG 😮). I use Capture One for my raw processing and cataloging. Lightroom for publishing. In extreme cases I use DXO Pure Raw for noise reduction (it exports DNGs which is nice). Also in rare cases I'll use photoshop when Capture One's heal tool doesn't quite cut it.
Affinity Photo
Excellent honest review 👍
Thanks 👍
Thanks for your balanced, incisive review.
As an amateur landscape and travel photographer, I prefer the Raw file rendering in Capture One, which I currently have on trial - the new C1 version was released today (24th October 2024).
I own PureRaw4, and again I am underwhelmed by the rendering for low to mid ISO photos, but I do use it for very high ISO photos where it does perform well. I need to turn off lens sharpening completely to avoid artefacts.
I don't understand why DXO does not add HDR photo merging, which is a basic requirement for landscape photographers.
I currently use Apple Photos and have been wanting to move to a more powerful editor for around a year. I've not yet moved away from Photos, because like you I am frustrated with how many products are near, (or not so near!) misses for this who want to avoid Adobe.
I will probably opt for C1 after the trial, and I'd be fascinated to hear your professional views on the new version!
Yes I wish they would listen because there is opportunity here. In my tests C1 has no advantage on rendering and I have to do very deep in both when working on the Filmist pack. But in the end use what feels good for your style.
I've taken a run at this software and without even beginning to address anything technical, I can't even get past its interface. The text on the right panel is so small and lacking in contrast that I can't even read some of it. I come from a graphics background and I know how simple it is to look at this sort of thing and fix it in the code (at least for a website). I also have a plug in that I like to use and can't find a way to use that, or any other plug in. These are deal breakers for me, especially the illegibility issue.
I feel like DxO did a fine job with editing studio lit well balance photos that were 90% good right off the camera, the minute you throw any high contrast real life photos it completely falls apart.
Ya especially the dark shadow, backlit type stuff. These are basics they need to work out before they focus on new features.
I can get absolutely ghastly green-red artefacts when pushing up shadows a bit too much in DxO whereas in CaptureOne I just get more noise.
When I didn't know any other tools I thought it was just the way of things or the poor sensor of my simple camera but I've seen it with different camera sensor types of different brands, and now I know that the same raw files can be handled better.
Still, if I don't need to touch the shadows that much, it works, and sometimes better / easier / faster than C1.
Look at noise handling in camera raw 2025. It is not rendering a dng to do noise reduction. I hope that moves from beta feature in bocsr and lr/lrc soon.
Thanks for this review. As a long time DXO user, I see that what you're missing is a problem. In your review, you also missed a couple of things:
- adding grain: is possible when you've filmpack
- You can lower the level of noise reduction
So in the end, maybe DXO Pureraw is the solution you should test. Than you can use all the nice tech DXO has for noise reduction and lens profiles and sharpening, but the color science from Adobe.
Personally, I use Zoner Photo Studio. Simply because it is one solution for RAW developing, but also pixel editing. For half the price of Adobe. Maybe not so extended, but still good enough.
Sorry but if a flagship app prices higher than LR does not have these basic features its not competitive. I have used FIlm Pack. It's films were not at all accurate. I'll have to take a look at zoner.
You can buy a license with Capture One. No idea why you implied that you can't.
Thanks for that review. I'm still on the hunt for a LR replacement. Have you ever tried Exposure 7. Looks promising yet to give it a go myself. Maybe one for a future video.
I get it, but can I ask how many hours in Lightroom you think you e spent vs. DxO? I mean the odds of the program matching YOUR workflow are minimal. Your abilities will be better in something you have have literally 1000s of more hours in front of the monitor. And while you say you're not a lover of any company and you're unbiased, you are subject to your own biases and workflow. To say otherwise is illogical.
You point is only valid in if I was talking about how fast I can edit. My hours with each app do not change that I know how to test them and I find the limits and test what features they lack or have that are important to a professional workflow. Lightroom and at times C1 is the standard, so yes we need to compare to tghose.
Thanks for the review. However, the compare tool is right at the top and it's great. Also, you mentioned how Photolab is $229 and that it's cheaper than PS and LR combined? Is that really a fair comment to make? $20/month for LR and PS making it $240 a year.
LR and PS combine is $120 a year
Look at minute 13:30. Didn‘t he made a mistake? Talking about the results using the denoising Tool in Photolab
a) without using the loup and then
b) transfer the image to Lightroom!
The second step will garantee, that he gets Photolab results with Lightroom because he got the denoised image in his hidden container.
I am missing something here. With my basic maths I have worked out that my yearly plan with Adobe cost £120 ish. Now my wife and I can use this on two different laptops at the same time. It also gets free updates, which I have been brilliant since I have been signed up. Now DXO is £200 ish for one copy. Which if you want yearly up grades will cost another £100 ish. So over 6 years with Adobe you'll pay £720 ish. DXO will cost ya £700 for one user?
Adobe is a much better value for sure.
Capture One tiene un inconveniente que me gustaría exponer. Llevo utilizándolo durante varios años mediante una licencia perpetua que actualizo periodicamente. En Junio de este mismo año compré una actualización y ahora en Octubre (4 meses después) me dicen que tendría que pagar nuevamente otra porque la que compré en Junio no incluye esta última actualización. Lo que me parece un abuso. Por lo demás gracias por los vídeos y un cordial saludo.
Exactamente. Por eso Capture One realamente no tiene licencia perpetua. Porque pagas y no recibes actualizaciones. Te castigan por comprarlo. Hice un video sobre esto el año pasado. Muchos regresaron a LR para la maner en que C1 abusa su clientes.
Yes, I think DXO could probably do with a kick up the backside. It is far from the finished article. I think they are pretty far away from properly competing with Lightroom or even Capture One. You are correct, Split Toning, some masking options and even just a standard Vignette, are all missing unless you buy the extra Film Pack. It's pretty cheeky and isn't exactly offering value when you consider the competition. On your points about not listening to their customer base, I think this is tricky. I have no idea the budget they have for development and the size of their team. I am pretty sure it is nothing like what Adobe has though. Do Adobe listen to their customer base? In some things no doubt, but certainly not in other important ways. There has been a lot made of their current Data policies of late and for good reason.
I have used Lightroom, Capture One and DXO Photolab a fair bit now and they all work in different ways. I find the Smart Lighting plus local adjustments more effective for adjusting shadows and highlights. Quite a different workflow to Lightroom.
More competition for Adobe is a great thing. DXO, Capture One etc... are not really in the same class yet though. Hopefully DXO will be encouraged by your critique and look to improve. They might not have the resources to do so though. I suppose time will tell. Thanks.
Good points. And totally forgot about the Vignette. I use those a lot and grain also and nada in DXO.
Development is not easy. But they are adding things like Hue masking. Skip that and fix the basics is what I would say.
But it’s NOT about which is the “best” 30 thousand feet…
Adobe charges endless subscription for “updates” - whether you want then or not - but - unconstitutionally - they claimed they “own” what you create with their tools in so far as they believe they have the right to “source” (STEAL) it for their AI engine!!! 🤬
Look, it all gonna end in the courts and we are gonna find that AI can only source material that is OWNED by the individual running the engine of PUBLIC DOMAIN material.
Read PERIOD!
Adobe, like Disney, is trying to bully its customers into accepting that a CORPORATION nullifies “copyright” granted at the point of creation.
Yes. I'm no Adobe fan boy. That's why I try to keep giving attention to others. But they have to pick up their game.
Pretty sure Adobe’s game is over… it’s like a cheating spouse… 2nd chance? Yeah, if you’re a cuck! They already tried to sneak in the - steal - so anyone who wants to use their tool may as well sign away their right to their own work. There is no backtracking on this one (until Adobe, Google, Apple and RUclips are hailed into court and forced to acknowledge the source of all AI content.
I’m just looking at viable alternatives… and cataloging database for images and a photo editor… this seems to be the best option out there… and I like the German tool that limited AI to your own image library
Unfortunately nothing has changed. I'm using Photo lab 6 and run into the same issues, Highlight recovery is the worst, It seems to reduce contrast and muddy the whole image. shame as I quite like the software overall and was hoping it was fixed in Photo lab 8
I know editing infrared photos DXO does better for me. On editing other files I am finding myself going back to lightroom. One of the questions that needs to be looked at is computer compatibility. I can't update PS on my desktop because it is 5 years old. This drives me crazy.
I like Tony. His review told me there is a possibility of a replacement for Adobe, which would please me, (because they SUCK). Your review told me that despite the glimmer of hope with DXO Photo Lab, they're not there yet. That's what I need to knew because I have work to do, with over 60 years of images in a Lightroom catalogue. Thank you.
Thanks. I watch Tony all the time. Maybe I'm just bitter because I don't get sponsorships because I too honest lol
DxO has a very different colour rendering indeed. You can select the colour rendering though, via one of the tools in the "Colour" tab.
And I wonder what the "DxO Smart Lighting" tool will do with your images, vs the shadow recovery that you do.
Still in my experience DxO is not very good at shadow recovery vs CaptureOne (my preferred raw editing tool, despite the hefty subscription fees and price hikes of the last years).
The smart tools don't improve much. But then again neither to Lightroom Auto tone tools. I never need them. IN the end if the shadow recovery is bad the other tools that's use it will be also. DXO needs to improve the Raw engine. The problems is not really color rendering. It's that it's introducing artifacts.
@@Seimstudios Yes, I agree.
I have gotten good results from DxO PhotoLabs, it can do very good things with tools like Smart Lighting and the colour rendering is different but not bad and very flexible.
However, as you say, at some point things fall apart way worse than with CaptureOne (which is my point of reference, I've never used Lightroom). Especially when shadows are very dark (high contrast images with a bright sky, or night-images with very dark parts). Do I then push up shadows too much? Yes, but with DxO things start to look really freaky while with C1 they just get noisy.
So I find a place for both tools for myself but C1 is my mainstay raw processor.
good to know you start developing for DXO photolab8. Does it have now IA masks like LRC ? But if it is just for better denoise, camera raw 17 has a new raw denoising with amount slider and also we can launch topaz photo ai, ON1 no noise AI and dxo pure raw from LRC and come back to LRC for SEim... presets.
Can't wait to see your CaptureOne vs LR Classic, esp since the new price increase/change from Adobe set to come into effect by Jan 15 2025.
It sucks bit it6's still cheaper than C1 and the annual plan is not even going up so you can still get LR + PS for $10/mo. We've cover pricing but I'll mostly compare features in this years review.
@Seimstudios Yeah can pay it annually for the 20gb photography plan and keep the same price, but I've been trying to leave Adobe for a while now. Thanks for doing comparison videos, helps a lot.
One large consideration for me is the peerless LR Mobile. Especially when I travel. My favourite DxO product is NIK.
Yes that's also true. Even C1 is years behind on this and charges extra. It pains me to say it, but no one is close to what Adobe gives people for $10/month
@@Seimstudios Yup and once I’m home or done with LRM I can transfer to LR Classic so I only need the minimum cloud plan. Also using Classic I can use the Book module and print via Blurb, upload to SmugMug, create slideshows, filter via ratings, lens, camera etc. via smart collections and on and on …
Thanks for this. I think dxo is good for adjusting distortions
It is, but so it Lightroom
Great review. Creepy odd feeling portrait expressions and poses.
Lol ok. Thanks, I guess
Thanks for this review.
It’s tough to be objective, esp. in DxO user groups on FB.
I pointed out a few of those points and got attacked by some.
Add the missing panorama stitching or stacking features in DxO PL, the fact that ViewPoint is also another software to buy if you need to correct perspective… Weird U-Points instead of a basic radial gradient…
And I agree: the AI denoise in LR is nicer than DxO’s Prime, Deep Prime, Deep Prime XD, Deep Prime XD2, Deep Prime XD 2 S (tbh, this is their mains selling point!)
DxO PL is by no means equivalent to LR.
Thanks. Ya honestly so many things missing for the price. But I'm trying to give them a chance
Great review!
Thanks!
"No side-by-side comparison in DxO Lab..." dare I say they might not WANT that feature because it will let pros exactly see how crappy some of their tools are? For the record: I would LOVE a killer alternative to Adobe...they don't care about us pros anymore. Doesn't sound like DxO is going to be filling those shoes.......yet!
@4:54 -- WAIT WHAT?!? -- Hold on let me check... whew... Okay you scared me -- (april fools?) Capture One still offers a perpetual license. It's $300. I own Capture One 2023. It looks like it's now called Capture One Pro? Only Pro is offered as a perpetual license. There is a "Studio" version which has some additional AI features and is subscription only -- I assume this is because the AI features require server assistance and so Capture One does not want to offer a life-time license for features that require server utilization, which makes sense to me as you cannot promise to support that server for a lifetime.
I’m about to end my 30 days trial of Dxo lab8 and I must say I am far from convinced as well although I did want to like it… It doesn’t feel organic to me and I also don’t like the way it processes colors, I miss the layer workflow and simple basics as color wheels, I don’t find the masking tools any handy either…
Ya sadly it's still pretty limited, They really are not listening to the people they should be.
To be fair, there's good deals with discounts making it a lot cheaper...then every 2/3 years a full upgrade...making my continued investments around 6,65 per month...still half of Adobe without me needing to upgrade...
Adobe costs $10/mo for LR and PS so you're getting doable since C1 does not climate the need for PS or something similar. You also get no update now during that 2/3 years.
@@Seimstudios you get an update until PL goes to a new version...but I've also switched to Affinity who are more generous in updates...so do need Adobe much less and I am not a fulltime designer or anything so it's enough for me.
Well, there’s no perfect photo editing app, we all know that. In the end it’s about personal preferences and the knowledge how to use it properly, which takes more or less time for every individual. I just ditched LR after 6 years of using it, paying lots of money for the subscription and went for DXO. I know it has it quirks, as any other app, but it suits me best. I don’t care much about all the AI-stuff, which in my opinion works erratically and is often misused to fix an image which wasn’t good in the first place, as many photographers seem don’t even know how to use their gear properly, often ignorant of the basics on shutter speed, aperture, DOF, exposure compensation, etc., not to mention basic composition rules. Just look at the tons of videos offered on how to deal with those issues.
True and you should use what inspired you. The problem I have though is not the quirks. It's objective failures in things like the image processing I showed here. That's what they have to fix if they want to be taken seriously because it actually lowers the quality of the edits
@ Well, LR isn’t perfect either and I’ve not experienced the issues you mention in your video.
Great to find a reviewer that's not sponsored.
Lol, no one sends me anything. I don't BS enough
@@Seimstudios that's BS 🤑
Thank you now I don't buy it and work longer with Topaz and Lightroom
Fuji raw files are way better in capture one and I use dxo raw for canon raw files
They are not anymore. I have many Fuji cameras and C1 no longer has any significant advantage in this. We have videos testing it here on the channel/
I am glad I got out of Adobe.
Have you tried and compare Lightroom Classic to ON1..? If so, what are your thoughts?
I've tried bit OnOne is so far off still. I hope to do a video on it but I don't consider it a viable replacement at this stage.
I was impressed way back in the DxO version 5 days and still have a copy on my machine, but after I had used it a bit I realized how terrible it is. It has a few cool features that look good, but the actual underlying, foundational RAW processing is NOT good. You can produce nice images with it, but it's very, very, very rare that I use it for anything. FWIW, I used to only swear by Capture One and hated Lightroom with a passion, but that has changed. Lightroom/ACR, overall, is clearly better than any other major RAW editor, especially if you consider its DAM capabilities (though I hate a few ways in which it works). To be honest, the best RAW editor is probably Darktable, but the learning curve is a killer.
Exactly my case. DxO PL8 isn’t even worth upgrading from version 5! I also was enthusiastic and I also still have it, but never open it anymore. I went for LR instead.
@@nickbianchi I started with DxO 3, upgraded all the way to 6. Didn't feel 7 was worth it, now did upgrade to 8.
Actually I feel that the upgrade is worth it now: the program feels faster, and the "local editing" tools are both more powerful now, and a lot easier to use as you no longer have to use that weird pop-up editing tool for them.
Just don't use masks in DxO... well-placed control points are the way to go.
That said, my main raw editor is C1 which most of the time gives me better results, works faster, has more features, far better masking, and allows many more of its tools to be used on layers.
DXO est bien meilleur que Lightroom. Vous ne m'avez pas convaincu.
Acabamos de demostrar que no es así. Pero usa lo que te inspiró.
@@Seimstudios Vous êtes le seul à le démontrer. C'est qui "nous". Bien sur que je vais continuer à l'utiliser. Bonne journée.
@@SeimstudiosDon’t mind him. French pride. French objectivity. Renault is better than Mercedes or BMW as well for many Frenchmen.
I am not French but agree that this is a non-professional biased view. Using the same sliders in the same way as in LR means he does not know how Photolab works.
DXO sucks. Gave up with it after 5 years of LRoom.
your 2x speed is 1x
DxO support is shit.
That sucks to hear.
Perhaps a surprising different tone and evaluation from a previous comparison 3 months ago? what changed?
Thank your for your detailed factual review, actually a refreshing and stimulating reviews channel, compared with many others around RUclips. Cheers.
The only thing that really changes is I'm more critical because they released an entirely new version and didn't listen to any of the problems people are having.
Also the HSL problem did not come up for me before. I don't know if it's a bug in the latest version or if I just didn't notice. But I feel like it may be a bug so I'll wait and see.
I'm trying to give these other options a chance to shine. But they have to show an interest in raising the bar if they want to be taken seriously by pros