mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I don't believe it's backwards at all. I select the target I wish to remove and the tool makes its best attempt to find an appropriate source replacement. Although it is often an appropriate selection, when it is not I just need to move the source mask to something better.

Keep in mind that this tool is less about cloning an object and moving it to another location then it is about removing some obstruction or distraction and replacing it with something more appropriate.

However, it can easily be used to clone an object and place it elsewhere in your image. The beauty of the new version is that the cloned object can be resized, reshaped, rotated, and mirror reversed. I'm not aware of any other software by any vendor that has that same functionality.

PierreD

If nothing else, the new denoising technology (called Deep PRIME XD), based on AI, makes the new version completely worth it IF you shoot at high ISO. I didn't notice much of a difference at ISO less than ~6400, but above this, images definitely look sharper and have more fine detail than with the previous version (DxO 5).

The new version also offers the option of a new, enlarged color space called DxO Wide Gamut. Not sure exactly what this does, though, and on the few photos for which I used it it didn't seem to result in much of a difference compared to the old color space (Classic (Legacy)) for pictures seen on my computer screen. Maybe this improves the colors of PRINTED photos?? Curious to hear from others on this.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

There is also the extra step of overriding the tool should it guess incorrectly. It is not only counter-intuitive, it is frustrating when it keeps guessing poorly.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Meaningless -- it's a clone tool. I have never used a clone tool in a parametric editor such that I didn't have to tweak both the clone source and target positions.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Looks to me like they added support for ProPhoto. This was a sore spot previously as output to a 16 bit TIFF was limited to Adobe RGB. For those who might want to output a TIFF for further editing the assumed target is a 16 bit TIFF in the ProPhoto color space. Don't know of any raw converter that won't do that except DXO PL versions 5 and lower. They've upgraded to be compliant with everybody else -- about time.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

It also applies to the repair tool. There are editors that allow you to establish the relative distance and direction between source and target before first application. Those will be kept until you change them. Doing it that way is sometimes useful. Also, establishing the source beforehand saves the missteps that must be overridden. It is not, I repeat, not meaningless.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Therein lies the rub. In my experience, it has been a very bad judge of what is appropriate, at least through PL5. It is sort of like having the camera be the judge of your intent.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

You mean do it backwards and counterintuitively compared with most everyone else? PL6 is a parametric raw editor. A like comparison should be done with other parametric editors. Being familiar with most of the parametric editors in common use I much prefer that PL6 works intuitively as they do. To use the repair tool in PL6 you begin by identifying the area to repair. Can you identify a parametric editor that functions by making you select the source first? How about name one? Not a pixel pushing raster editor like Photoshop -- that's not a like comparison.

Even the healing/clone tool in ACR works the same was as PL6.
That goes for Affinity Photo as well.
Also working the same way as PL6 we have:
Capture One
Lightroom
ON1 Photo
Luminar
DarkTable
SilkyPix
Even Nikon's NX Studio (Although it gives you no option to re-position the source.)

Have you thought of a parametric editor yet that works as you describe? I can think of only one and I'm betting you can't -- so definitely the one I know is the odd out app that does it backwards.


Sounds a lot like Photoshop there. Photoshop is a raster editor and not an appropriate like comparison. PL6 should be compared with LR and/or even ACR and they both work like PL6 by requiring you to identify the target first.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

The key word is "repair". That's the goal of the tool.

You select what needs to be repaired first because it's defective or you don't want it. Then you search for something to replace it. All software I have encountered start the cloning this way.

If you want to copy something and paste it elsewhere in the image, that's not a repair. It's copy-and-paste, a different operation.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

First, you need to define your terms. Here is an example:

"Parametric Image Editing (PIE): An introduction

Parametric image editing is a class of non-destructive image editing in which the editing software does not alter original files, but instead records changes to images as sets of instructions or parameters. Software that adjusts images in this way — like Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), Aperture, Bibble, and Capture One — is particularly well suited to the challenges of digital photography, as we’ll see. And because you can save your work as a set of instructions, it’s the adjustment method that best suits a DAM environment."

Based on it, as long as the end is that the adjustments are not applied to the source file, but are saved as instructions for how to make those changes, it is a parametric editor. How does what I have suggested make it non-parametric? The answer is that it most certainly does not. Nothing I have mentioned requires alteration of the source.

If you want to clone a sheep, for example, you start with the source, not the target.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Where have I suggested copy-and-paste? I have not. See my previous post. I have suggested specifying the source and target in a different order, not changing the way that the source area is used, without regard to how the result is obtained.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

You didn't suggest, you implied it.

You have been wishing that you could click on the source first and then the target. That's what you might do if you wanted to copy and paste. If you might want to copy a bird and paste it onto a blank area of your image. Once you have selected the source you can move where you want to paste it.

But they can't guess where you might want to place the bird if you haven't selected a target first.

Capture One and all of the others assume that you want to repair something so their attention is directed towards what you want to repair. Then they try to find an appropriate replacement to repair what they assume might be a blemish. If you don't like their default replacement you can move the source around.

It's a chicken and egg question.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

It doesn't but as a matter of convention in this industry parametric editors tend not to work that way. PL6 is a parametric editor and functions like you'd fairly expect a parametric editor to function -- you identify the target to be repaired first.

You said: "There are editors that allow you to establish the relative distance and direction between source and target before first application." The editors that I know that function that way are raster editors. I asked if you could name a parametric editor that works as you suggested and I see you have failed to do so.

I think it's the logical and intuitive approach that PL6 works like all of us who use parametric editors expect it to work because that's how most of them work. Again, can you name a parametric editor that works as you describe? More than one? I'm still betting that you can't.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I agree. In this new PhotoLab tool even the clone functionality is primarily intended to remove, replace, or repair an object. Alhough it can also be used to copy or move an object somewhere else in the image, that is not the purpose of the cloneing functionality, merely a side benefit.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

No, you inferred it. How is cut-and-paste an implication of what I said? After all, even PLx has a source and a target. The difference is what transforms it does to get from one to the other. I did not state, or even suggest, that it do anything different in that area.