Retrobug

I learned about DxO image processing software from a UHH post a few days ago. I visited the DxO site, and discovered their software is on an introductory sale at 30% off. I really liked the looks of everything, so I wound up buying it all. I don't have a lot of money, but it seems like this will be money well spent.

Here's the thing: It's about 1:00pm PST on the 31st. This sale is only on for another 10 hours. It's over at the end of today, so if you've been fence sitting on a DxO purchase, this is the time to jump.

I feel like I just purchased two lifetimes of learning curves with all this new software, and I only have about a half a lifetime left. I guess I better get started!

I imagine I will be making some posts with questions about using DxO stuff in the future. UHH is a great place to come to learn.

(I should mention I'm just a UHH amateur photographer with no affiliation to DxO, except that now I'm a customer. I don't intend to "push" their software. I just want to be sure people know a great savings opportunity exists for another 10 hours.)

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Congratulations on your purchase. There is a small but growing number of people here that use PhotoLab.

PhotoLab is relatively easy to use, but there is still a learning curve, especially if you have no experience with other post processing software. It is primarily a raw processor but will work on jpegs and tiff files as well. There are two flavors of PhotoLab, the Essential edition and the Elite Edition. The Elite edition adds PRIME noise reduction (raw files only), Clearview Plus haze removal and a completely configurable interface. Which version did you purchase?

If you have questions I will be happy to assist. You can private message me. I currently use all the DXO products. PhotoLab 3.2 Elite, Viewpoint 3, Filmpack 5 Elite, and DXO's version of the Nik Collection. While I'm not employed by DXO, besides using all their software I am also a beta tester so my opinions are definitely slanted in their favor.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Good choice. DXO is excellent raw processing software.

Joe

twosummers Loc: Melbourne Australia or Lincolnshire England

Great choice - see if you can add Viewpoint3 too, in combination they are terrific. VP is integrated into PL once you licence it. These 2 plus Luminar should get you to wherever you want to go!

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Great choice - I use Lightroom to manage my images, do initial edits, apply keywords, then will send it off to Photoshop to finish an image, but I also use DXO Photolab 3 transferring images from Lightroom for a different look. DXO uses its own raw engine to develop a raw image and for certain images it really makes things pop easily.

PRIME noise reduction does a great job as well.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

And DXO is one of the few raw converters that will accept a Lightroom-exported raw file, and create a Lightroom-readable dng file and send it back to Lightroom.

Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

Excellent choice in Processing Software. There are excellent video tutorials on the net about DXO PhotoLab and its predecessor DXO Optics Pro. I don't visit UHH much anymore but I happened upon your post and wanted to offer a link to an excellent tutorial with some great information http://dxo.tuto.free.fr/ its easy reading and the author explains the various features of the software really well. A great resource is DXO PhotoLab forum https://feedback.dxo.com/c/dxo-photolab . Take your time to learn the Software and you will be rewarded. Also user @mwsilvers is a very knowledgeable PhotoLab user.

Larry

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

The link to Pascal's series of tutorials you provided is an excellent staring point. Although the date indicated is 2017, he has always kept it current and it was updated a few months ago for version 3, which was released towards the end of 2019. I don't know whether he has already incorporated the updates from the most current version, PhotoLab 3.2, which was released very recently, The tutorial was originally written in French. English is a second language for him and he had some assistance with the English translation which may occasionally be a bit confusing for some people.

In addition, here are a couple of side notes for those not familiar with DXO or PhotoLab. DXOMark, the lens and camera rating company, and DXO Labs the publisher of PhotoLab, were divisions of the same business entity until late in 2017 when they split in to two separate companies.

The current version of PhotoLab is 3.2. However, it is a very mature product. Photolab 1, introduced in late October or early November 2017, was a rebranded upgrade for its predecessor Optics Pro which was in its 11th version. The rebranding coincided with the split from DXOMark. It also was a major upgrade from Optics Pro 11 since for the first time it included local adjustments using U point technology taken from their purchase of the Nik Collection from Google in 2017.

Retrobug

Thank you for all you r encouragement and comments. When I originally posted, I thought I might be able to tell a few people about the sale. Foolish me, I forgot the next UHH post would be after the sale ended.

But I'm glad for the comments. I appreciate the advice I've gotten for learning the software, and hope that advice might continue in this thread. I don't have Lightroom (I'm actually working with PS Elements 18), and I'm presently planning to stay with Win 7, so I've barely scooted under the table on ViewPoint 3 and FilmPack 5. I have to stay with PhotoLab 2.

My background is love for a 6x9 view camera and classic B&W nature photos. Also color for nature animal and bird photography. What brought me to UHH was buying a Canon 70D. I'm very excited to learn of ViewPoint's ability to bring the rectilinearity I'm accustomed to in a view cam to the digital format. And of course (as a dyed in the wool film guy), it's exciting to see the different sensitivities to light that FilmPack and the Nik collection offer. But now I actually have to learn how to do all that! Yikes!

Any further comments will be most appreciated (and noted for future action). Thanks again for your comments.

Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

Yes, Pascal's tutorials are a great resource for anyone using PL or even using the evaluation copy to decide if the software would be what they wanted. His latest update was as of 10/2019 for PL3 which covers most of the recent improvements.

I'm using PL 3.2 Elite build 4344 plus FilmPack 5 Elite and ViewPoint 3 along with an older version of NIK collection.

Larry

Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

I'm a bit confused did you buy PhotoLab 3.2 or PhotoLab 2? Either way, learn about virtual copies, its an excellent way to have several processed versions of the same raw image without a lot of hard drive load. Any time you want to process a raw image always create a virtual copy and then do your processing on the virtual copy instead of the original. When you do this the original becomes the Master Copy. One caution when using virtual copies.......never delete the Master Copy as you lose the virtual copies also but you can delete the virtual copies and not lose the Master Copy. Enjoy your learning process.

Larry

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

The only difference between our software is that I am using the latest version of DXO's Nik Collection

Retrobug

Since I'm on Win 7, I'm limited to PL2. My original plan was to use Nik as a plug in for Photoshop Elements 18, and PL 2 came with the Nik purchase. Now I have it, I will want to learn it though. Thanks for the tip on virtual copies.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

That is unfortunate. PL2 is very good software but PL3.2 has significant improvements over it.