Thoughts about DxO Optics Pro 3.5?

[AlanDunne]

Philippe,

bienvenue au forum (c'est un mot en francais?) "The DAM Book". Ici, il y a plusier gens bien experimente sur le siject de " raw conversion".. Vous avez trouve un joli coin d'Internet.

You ask some good questions. The side file from DxO is indeed what is often refered to as a sidecar file, like an XMP file. I do not think the DxO file is XMP compliant, but it does contain metadata that controls how the raw file is rendered.

I would not use DxO as a simple DNG converter. it does not support the full DNG feature set. It only outputs a demosaic'd linear DNG file. It does not support the embed original file option of the Adobe DNG converter.

I do welcome the fact that DxO is embracing the DNG specification, however.

Chees ... Alan

[Philippe]

Thanks four your answer in French.

I am stil investigating DxO, up to now :

1.   the quality is very impressive
2.   it’s slow : at least 2 minutes per image …
3.   the files are heavy : around 20 Mb plus the sidecar (if kept)
4.   the preview image in iView is useless : far too small (placed a call to DxO)
5.   Metadata : the only thing doable is  putting a copyright and an author (even if I can automate this (with a preset) it’s not enough…
6.   About speed : if no other manipulations are done outside of DxO (nothing in ACR) in the end it can be faster.
7.   About metadata : can be done in iView

The Adobe DNG converter is very fast but the quality of the file need to be improved hence speed is lost. I made a conversion of the same file in Adobe DNG and in DxO (automatic mode) and the DxO file is almost perfect. It only needs Photoshop manipulations for my creative satisfaction. (I am speaking in general : some files will need more work of course)

Not sure to understand your remark about the way DxO converts to DNG : are you implying that it is not a full DNG complient or did I miss a point ?

Well, I keep going and will post other thoughts … if any !
Philippe

[AlanDunne]

Philippe,

your list of pros and cons is pretty accurate and matches my own. The quality can be impressive. It can also sometimes produce results that look too artificial, but under manual control this can be improved.

Metadata is an issue. It is possible to use IView, or even Bridge to add metadata back to the DxO output file, but it adds extra steps to the workflow.

I am not in front of DxO right now, but there are some options for saving previews that are large, but not full size. I think the largest you can save is 1600 pixels on the longest side. The default is much smaller and limits how it can be used by IView, but the 1600 pixel wide preview works pretty well with IvIew.

I am not an expert with the DNG spec, but the Adobe tools (ACR, DNG Converter) give you the choice of saving a true raw file or a file after the demosaic process. DxO only outputs DNG with a linear demosaic'd format. The DxO output DNG can be viewed in Bridge no problem. I would say that it is DNG complaint, but perhaps not fully compliant. In other words a subset of the full specification.

Hope that helps ... Alan

[Fredrik_Norrsell]

I have bought DxO 3.5 and is still learning the software, so I'm sure I'll hit a few more speedbumps before I get all working correctly. Here is some thought! I love the image quality it produces, I seldom has to any other adjustments. If you convert to DNG with DxO, I would turn of any sharpening in ACR, otherwise they might be oversharpened.

I use it in two ways, often letting it run while I sleep, because it is sloow.
1. I use ACR, at original Camera Raw default settings, and use the Image Processor to produce a batch of high res JPEG's from a selection of images. I later run these JPEG's through DxO. In this way I can very quickly produce a set of very nice looking JPEG images, for my clients.
2. In a more full fledged DAM system, I have started to integrate it very early in my workflow. I simply import the images, then use bridge to quickly weed out all rejects. Then I run the images through DxO and convert them to DNG. Then it's back to Bridge for applying metadata etc. Since DxO doesn't support XMP, it is no use applying metadata during the import process.