Just an anecdote about this company's commercial policy. I am a pro photographer (real estate and events) and business has almost stopped in 2020. I sent them an email asking if they could extend their promotional update offer until things got better for me (and I'm not the only one concerned, of course).
Negative answer." Unfortunately, we do not offer payment in installments or payment terms."
This pandemic period is so revealing.
It's expensive and somewhat slow but is extremely easy to operate and allows to create your own style and save this as presets. It offers local enhancements. This is a good starting point for your automated workflow, starting with RAW. - For me it was more intuitive to use than e.g. Adobe products or Capture1, although they may offer the same functions or quality.
BUYER BEWARE!!! I purchased an upgrade to v3.1.1.29 just two weeks ago. I received a, "New update email" but the link won't work? So, I tried going into my DxO Photolab and clicking on the update there, too ... also NO JOY? So, I searched this, their website and in order to download the update they want ANOTHER $111.43 for mw to increment to v3.1.1.31, on top of the full update price that I paid two weeks ago! Their is NO END TO THEIR GREED! I'm going to drop them and buy CaptureOne 20 Pro, instead. I tried it (for free) and it gives far better results with less work!
BUYER BEWARE!!! I purchased DxO PhotoLab 2 along with DxO Nik Collection version 1 just three months ago. DxO just updated the Nik Collection to version 2 and will not provide an update for existing owners of the Nik Collection unless PhotoLab 2 is purchased all over again (ie forcing existing PhotoLab 2 owners to buy two copies of the same software) in order to just update their copy of the Nik Collection from version 1 to version 2. Shame on you DxO, I will never purchase anything from your company again.
I am quite upset with this company and its product. I bought PL version 1 to process my Oly and Leica T files. It worked very well. It became an essential part of my workflow. I sold the T and bought a Leica CL. While the CL's files are DNGs, PL I and II fails to recognize them. It is the ONLY raw processor I have (and I have many) that does not "see" those files. I wrote to the company on various occasions over the last year. They have, in essence, blown me off. I loved the program's "PRIME" noise reduction feature, among other things, and have been unable to use it for my CL files. I will NEVER purchase another one of their products. The company is unresponsive and simply doesn't care about the needs of its customers. I really tried hard to reason with the; all to no avail. Purchase at your own risk. And, whatever you do, make absolutely sure that your camera is supported, especially if it creates DNGs. I've tried all kinds of workarounds. All failed. I'm a pro fotog, and I can't tell you how frustrating this has been. They deserve to fail.
DxO PhotoLab works wonders on my Olympus .ORF files. Compared with Lightroom images are sharper, chromatic aberration is reduced and I can usually recover some extra pixels on the edges of the image. And the PRIME noise reduction is phenomenal. I used to limit my cameras to ISO 3200, but now I'll go to 6400 or even higher if I need to because PRIME is so good. I still use Lightroom as my main RAW converter, and for managing my catalogue of images, but I turn to PhotoLab once the going gets tough.
My main RAW converter. I love that it doesn't require a database and you can just point it to a folder to start working away. The lens and camera profiles are very good, and it's proprietary technologies are awesome.
I'm getting VERY annoyed that I come here to MacUpdate and the Site takes control of my Browser and opens-up these Windows that I don't care about. I can only assume your company pays MacUpdate to have them do this.
How is this any better than Capture One Pro (8.1.1) by Phase One?
I have never experienced any raw converter that is remotely as good as what Phase One has done with Capture One in terms of noise reduction, sharpening and such.
No support for the most popular and pervasive mirrorless camera system on the planet. Intentional and willful ignorance of Fuji X-Trans is a great way to avoid having me as a customer, and at these prices I'm MUCH better off with competing software.
This so-called Lightroom integration stinks. Without even getting into DxO's lack of proper support for DNGs, when I try to edit a TIF copy I usually get a question mark icons where my image is supposed to be (actually, for all of them). Instead, it may open my Photos folder - not where I keep my files - and not open the one I'm trying to edit. The one time a file opened properly I tried exporting to DNG, but got a batch error about RGB - despite only exporting one photo and it wasn't originally RGB.
I've had this app for about 6 months, but I'm not impressed due to its limitations and flakiness.
You can get Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for less and get support for just about every camera available. Is there a significant advantage to DxO Optics Pro that makes it preferable despite the cameras it does not support?
Excellent software but please note that $99 becomes £79 in the UK rather than the £60.50 it should be at this exact moment. Yes they are adding VAT but that still does not add up.
This not a review, I just wanted to point out that I don't have this product but was interested so I checked the store. Price is NOT 99 USD, but 169, or for europeans is 149 EUR.
99 USD could be an interesting price, while 149 Eur is totally not
also because 169 USD should be about 130 EUR and being developed in Germany the EUR overcharge is simply absurd.
Please correct the price and remove this, as I don't have tried it.
With this new version, DXO support my new Sony RX1....and the results....wouaw...
Love the results with the default preset, the more I use DXO 8, the more I take pleasure developping my files.
Very good work DXO, thanks.
It "was" a great app during my days with Canon G11. But after buying the Fujifilm Finepix X10 a year ago I can't use it because there is still no support for that camera. It was announced for May 2012, but I wait and wait...
great soft with a lot advanced features for light & colour control. I specially love the "pre-set" feature, to apply to a bunch of RAW images the same filters and also the fact that it "knows" all my lenses. for someone who takes a lot of RAW pictures it's worth every penny!
Great app! I bought a Canon G12 and wanted to learn Raw Processing after many years of shooting only jpeg. After struggling with Aperture 3 and then ARC I got frustrated with the result. No matter how much I tried I couldn't get it right without too much fiddling around. I tried Raw Developer, Lightroom and Digital Photo Professional too, but couldn't settle with any of them. Then I downloaded DxO Optics Pro and played around with it for a few hours. I decided to perform a test. I selected 100 shots taken in various light conditions and developed each in all six apps. Then I selected what appeared to me to be the best result (without knowing the actual app). 70% of my selections turned out to be from DxO and the rest distributed almost evenly among the other apps! That convinced me to buy DxO and I never do RAW development in any of the other apps. After having processed the images in DxO I load the tiff's into Aperture and do some small fine tuning if necessary.
I'm a happy Lightroom user but wow, after trialling this for just one day, I can say this is better than Lightroom and therefore way better than Aperture. The downside for me is that this is sluggish on 2GB of ram which isn't the case with Lightroom - you can see that DxO (which is still way faster than Aperture) is optimised to work on the latest spec machines. However, bottom line is that DxO seems to have all the processing and rendering qualities of Lightroom and more, but with noticeably superior end results. The issue for me is whether its worth the sluggishness for the better quality processing and output and the answer is yes, its that good.
I'm giving this 4.5 stars only because it will take a while for me processing and rendering my pics, but make no mistake, if I had a new Mac loaded with the latest specs and ram, this would be the best 5 star rendering and processing software. Whatever software you use on raw files, you should definitely take advantage of the available month long trial.
Hi. I'm a photographer and I've been working with DxO Pro from two years. This for me one of the best raw converter we can find in the market. The results are simply amazing. If what you like about photo is quality you won't be disappointed by DxO which is not destructive at all. See also Capture One which is also great.
Great software for RAW image files. This is the first stop for all my photo's, after using this software (their presets are spot on for what i need) I find that there is rarely any need for me to open Lightroom anymore, Lightroom is basically used as a library these days.
Corrections are carried out according to your camera model and lens you were using to shoot the image.
Would like to see the processing speeded up a bit but you must also realise the depth of changes these adjustments make to a photo.
Would highly recommend to people who shoot mainly RAW image files.
I had a very bad experience with version 5.x of DxO, but the company reacted quite well and gave us a VERY smooth and pleasing transition to version 6.x.
DxO 6.x is stable, has a nice user interface, is reasonably quick (it does MORE than most raw converters around) and processes the pictures very, very well. Some results are extraordinary and it gives the impression you bought much better and more expensive lenses. The default settings provide already very good results, and the parameters can be tweaked at will The only aspect of the software which is not miles above the competition is noise reduction - but it is pretty good anyway.
They also changed the way the copy protection works, so that it is not intrusive in the operating system.
It is not cheap, but you get a TON of functionality for the price.
I cannot but recommend it.
- The demo version of this cr@p expires at launch after a few minutes.
- The only option to test it, is to buy it... bozos!
- No easy uninstall. Log in as root to delete this... virus.
- And now I've just read it installed a root kit on my computer :-(
This is not a pro software for photographers. A joke, a malaware.
Pro tools are the Canon suite, Photoshop, Lightroom, Noiseware, NoiseNinja, Alien Skin Exposure... not this lemon.
I have been an Elite + FIlmPack "customer" for several years now, but enough is enough with PACE. I own a significant amount of commercial expensive software packages, and none has saw the need to use this kind of tool; which amounts to consider all users thieves implicitly.
Just say no to software using things like the Interlok PACE rootkit and other such DRMs, this kind of crap.
As for DOP itself, it's not bad but not that good either considering the price and its downsides. Adobe Camera Raw as a RAW converter is very good, for those that are using Lightroom and/or PhotoShop, Noise Ninja for noise removal and PTLens for barrel distortion, chromatic aberration, vignetting, and perspective correction are superior to DOP equivalent features.
All-in-all DOP main feature is perhaps its automation, but then again its automated results are sometimes very goofy (e.g. "over the top" saturation of colors), its user interface is clumsy and counterintuitive, the Mac port of the Windows version not following Apple's GUI guidelines, the software processing algorithms are themselves very slow - not to mention that the app itself is a RAM/CPU hog, and the number of supported lens per body is quite limited.
Unless DxO gets its act together and dramatically updates the v6, removes the rootkit and provides improved Mac OS X support - it still is not SL compatible at this time, even though they had ample time to use/test beta versions of SL; I won't upgrade.
Can not install the pace protection, unable to write to....bla bla bal directory, repeared the autorisations...no difference...
Is DXO Snow Léopard ready ?
I have an Elite licence and can not install on my Mac..arghhhh !!!
When I asked the support days ago about this problem...answer SL is not yet supported.
Yes I know I will have to write to the support, and wait and wait to have an approximate answer...
Wish I had never bought this Expensive soft...
DxO Pro 5.3.2, as much as it ÒlooksÓ good it does have a major flaw ...
Since this application is mostly design for batch processing, well it will NOT process CANON small RAW format which is used by professional studios shooting catalogs or fashion.
This DxO will simply refuse this format which makes it useless !!!
Unless this issue is fixed the Dxo application will remain as hope for amateur photographers since pro-photographers can use LIGHROOM, APERTURE OR PHOTOSHOP to create perfect images.
This application as it stand now is virtually a waste of money for those who own above mentioned applications.
I can only comment on the latest version (5.2.1), since I just tried and purchased this application, If stunning image quality and ease-of-use are your requirements, this app has no peers!
I have used the lastest versions of Photoshop CS3, Aperture 2, Lightroom 2, Lightzone, and SilkyPix, but none of them can come close to the image quality produced by DxO on high quality RAW images.
The organizational/database features in Dx0 are the only shortcoming. If you frequently deal with a large volume of images that need to be sorted and stored, DxO may not be the best tool, but when the ultimate image quality of each photo is the goal, this is the tool I want.
FINALLY we're seeing stability returning to this fabulous product. So far, so good. However, why does "Save Project" do nothing, and no "saved projects" appear in the "Recent Projects" menu? This certainly needs fixing (Whoops!)
One of the things that makes this product less productive than apps like Aperture, is a lack of either keyboard combinations for many of the commands (mousing is always slow...) or scripting.
Another is somewhat slow redraws. It would be very useful if the dust brush corrections would be visible at least at two settings, 100% and 50%, instead of 100%. For those NOT working on a 30"+ monitor, this is an oversight. Most images from todays cameras are huge, so zooming in and out - to fix, and then find imperfections - gets unnecessarily tedious.
I set up several very useful commands on my "Shuttle®" but there are still many I cannot control via keyboard shortcuts. This needs to be amended.
As for stability, it appears to be functional once again. And, as expected, no comment (publicly) from the manufacturer. At least, it appears they ARE listening.
Absolutely useful program! 5 Stars (4 for ease of use).
A small addendum to v.5.1. The problem - which appeared in the beta using the latest Apple Leopard OSX - is still with us. It did not seem to be a problem before about a month prior to the release date of the final Mac version of 5.1 (hope this helps?).
I use this application for time-lapse, primarily. This means loading 300-1500 images (usually only JPEGs) into the processing set-up window. After the last few OSX upgrades, the time to move the images into the pre-process que (for stacking) now takes about 20 minutes+ for 500 images. At 600+ images times ran into an hour or more. This is only half the problem. After running the first batch, if I try loading a set of images, Pro Elite fails. Throw away all plist files and reset permissions and I got one more batch to run. Then, crash on the next, and so on.
What gives? As it is - at least for people like me with a large batch to run - this is close to unusable.
Time to get this fixed!
And what's up with the lack of controls over the famous DxO lens softness. It seems...disabled...using JPEGs. This was one of DxO's best features.
I already bought the upgrade, so I am a "believer." However, I am starting to wonder if I made a mistake. As the last reviewer mentioned, version 4 was pretty solid. What gives? I hope the DxO gnomes are busy fixing all these -should-have-been-fixed-in-beta issues? H-E-L-P!
I am using an 8-processor Mac Pro with 16Gb of RAM and virtually unlimited hard drive space.
When I see some fixes I'll change my rating.
[ROBERTOAVANZI wrote:
DxO used to be a useful piece of software. The tragedy began with the development of version 5...Now, even though version 5 was promised for, like, 10 months ago, mac users are allowed to suffer, too. Wow. An alpha-level release. Not working, just a shell with a PREVIEW of functionality.]
Yes, this was a pain, but the Beta I tested was pretty solid in most of the important areas. There was some work needed. However, this statement...
[ROBERTOAVANZI wrote:
Simply put, it just does not process my images. I select them, import in the project, select the parameters, then hit "start process". After just a few seconds, DxO outputs images that are identical to the input. No change whatsoever. Discussion on the closed beta forum brought nothing]
...seems a bit one-sided?
Probably the reason this happened is you did not understand how to use their new and improved (what do you want for Windoze developers) not-very-intuitive interface. However, once you figure it out...it DOES work. I think the reason no one responded is that there are not a lot of developers in this company, and most of those you might tell this to would likely laugh at you, and assume you are a novice.
The fact is, the last few days using the Beta (I think it quit a day or two ago), followed an Apple QT update. I think this broke the Beta. I hope that the commercial v5.1 release has already taken the problem into consideration, and fixed it?
Other than issues like this (not uncommon for smaller developers) I believe that there has been a genuine effort to produce a stable and powerful image processing solution here. To state your complaints only, especially when one of them as likely your own problem (perhaps unique to your machine, or your lack of expertise) is a bit unfair and may mislead those looking for something this powerful to turn away. Is this your intent, or are you simply grousing?
Hope you figure things out. I also hope DXO stays on top of the on-going Apple OSX fixes? Perhaps a small note in this forum from a DXO rep would help all concerned to get behind this very good software. When it works well there is no substitute.
HANG IN THERE DxO, and thanks for supporting the Mac/Apple community!
DxO used to be a useful piece of software. The tragedy began with the development of version 5.
Version 5 was supposed to support new camera bodies. I was going to buy a 40D, which would not be supported in 4.5 - but was to be supported in version 5. In the meantime, I got my camera, but of course I cannot process the images. Because DxO version 5 does not work. Sadly, I did buy 4.5 then with the promise of a free upgrade, which was supposed to be "real soon now".
First Windows users had to suffers through tens of non working versions, from last november to just recently.
Now, even though version 5 was promised for, like, 10 months ago, mac users are allowed to suffer, too. Wow. An alpha-level release. Not working, just a shell with a PREVIEW of functionality.
Simply put, it just does not process my images. I select them, import in the project, select the parameters, then hit "start process". After just a few seconds, DxO outputs images that are identical to the input. No change whatsoever. Discussion on the closed beta forum brought nothing, the developers are not really interested in developing. I think they are just waiting for the company to go belly up.
I started to admire Microsoft because of DxO. Stay away from their products. They do not even *attempt* to work. At least some microsoft products can be used in production environment.
EXIF Restricted file processing issue!
I think it would be helpful if the developer provided a workaround for one of this application's little snafus. Since all processing is as automated as possible, the developer seems to have felt that once images are tweaked in DXO that no one would want to re-tweak them, and so all EXIF data is stripped from the image. Since hard drive space is at a premium, users might (I do) throw out originals. Ooops. Once this is done DXO's products will not allow ANY modification. In other words, not EXIF data, no processing. This is a major oversight, as I see it.
(Almost) All of the features in DXO's products can be controlled manually. Why not allow EXIF-stripped images to be processed? After all, there are many features which might be used to alter already cleaned up images, or to modify (like the nice dust/spot repair tool) to adapt them for some other use. If you're going to strip our EXIF data in the first place, give us an option to go back and reprocess stripped images using as many other functions as possible. Or better yet, simply ALLOW AN OPTION to retain all (or relevant) EXIF data. This would eliminate the restriction on files.
This is probably my biggest gripe with this otherwise incredibly useful software. Such a superior application should allow us some sort of work around for this problem. This SHOULD be included in the official retail release. It's not too late developer(s)!
It's gratifying to see that DXO has FINALLY made their interface a lot more logical. The new beta (been running it for a couple of weeks now) shows that the development crew is finally making some really good interface decisions. Their list of bugs was pretty long, but they do know the problems and are working them out.
Some memory issues with the beta, especially when you're trying to modify presets a few times. Hopefully these will also be worked out asap and we can have a stable working version.
DXO DEVELOPERS TAKE NOTE:
A VERY useful feature might be a slide strip sort of preview, like that in ViewIt. ViewIt loads thumbnails, and then allows you to scroll through the images at any speed. For things like time-lapse footage and reviewing VR shots, this is really neat. It also permits one to see the shifts in exposure and framing for a series of stills, in a way that no other program does. Add this feature, and you've got the quintessential automated correction tool.
I would like to give this a good review, and when it works it's superb !
But in general
a) it fails to start for no reason
or
b) constantly asks me to validate my licence !
What use is an app you cant run !!!!
Am getting very fed up with the lack of support !
Yes, DxO is great - as long as it starts up. For me (and others see http://www.dslr-forum.de/showthread.php?p=1723660), it crashes on launch randomly (always in "stub_binding_helper_interface + 18"). Tech support is not able to help. For me it is the most expensive piece of non-functional software. I cannot recommend this software since you cannot rely on it!
This is the best digital photo processing software out there. All its missing is automatic red eye correction and a clone tool. Other than that, there is no other program out there that even comes close to its ease of use and absolute accuracy. The photo output is spectacular with no user input needed. Its universal (YA!!) and it blazes on my Core Duo iMac.
Way to go - DxO!!
This is the best software of its sort that I know of. The results range fromg reat to amazing. New licensing agreements finally make the pricing structure more reasonable (Pro version is $150 and Pro Elite version is $300.00), but this is not cheap software. It's sole purpose is to process your images and make them as clean and sharp as possible. The specificity of lens, aperture, focal length and camera body setting, coupled to a truly professional sharpening algorithm means that your images come out as good as their going to.
I wish DxO would come out with a dongle-protected version of the software, because I loath the upload/download IP-address licensing scheme (something a lot of companies have gone to). I may want to move an installation to a specific machine for processing, and then put the software back on my main machine, and this is not feasible as you're locked into a two-machine install by IP.
But my biggest gripe (are you listening DxO garçons?) is this is NOT YET A UNIVERSAL application, and I bought an Intel Mac for one reason - SPEED!
Update us...p-l-e-a-s-e!
Overall, this is a must have package for pros.
Fred Mirand's sharpening tool is nice (and inexpensive), and PanoTool's Lens Fix PS plug-in is certainly an option, but this is the best, hands down (plus Lens Fix does not yet support the Canon 5D).
I process hundreds to thousands of shots for time-lapse applications and I'd be dead without being able to batch process my images with this great tool. If you need this, you'll know it!
