DxO Optics Pro Elite 5.3.3 - A Review
DxO Image Science has recently released DxO Optics Pro Elite 5.3.3. The DxO RAW image converter seems to hold a niche corner in the marketplace amongst professionals due to the fact that it tries to fill a gap that many perceive not to exist? It’s relative complexity of use and previously poor implementations have not helped its cause either over time and its adoption rate is relatively low. With many other RAW image converters available such as Adobe Camera RAW, Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture or Nikon Capture NX there seems to be little space for DxO? It is the very niche nature of DxO however that actually makes it all the more compelling and worth the effort to learn to use effectively. The results can speak volumes and many professional photographic artists have turned to DxO to produce their fine results.
Since its inception DxO has always strived to provide the best image quality by supplying unique profile-based lens correction techniques to camera manufacturer’s proprietary RAW files. This ability to optically perfect images based on specific camera and lens characteristics usually results in RAW image conversions that are more optically correct and representative of the real-world scene which they captured. DxO’s ability to correct optical imperfections can result in reduced distortion, less vignetting, increased sharpness and fewer aberrations than any other available RAW image converter. More recently, DxO has made great strides in actual RAW conversion (the demosaicing algorithm), noise removal and overall colour fidelity.
Included in your DxO license is the ability to download a variety of camera and lens profiles which describe the characteristics of that combination. Mapping out the lens strength and weakness tells the software how to correct the optical geometric defects such as lens distortion, vignetting, colour fringing, lens softness, volume anamorphosis and keystoning or horizon correction. During the RAW import process this profile is applied automatically if you have it loaded on your computer. At regular intervals the DxO science laboratories profile new camera and lens combinations and make them available. For a complete list of currently available profiles visit their web site here. If you do not have the appropriate lens profile loaded then you still have access to other DxO image processing functionality but optical corrections are performed manually.
The RAW converter included in DxO achieves some of the best RAW conversions available in part with its ability to correctly demosaic the Bayer pattern found in most dSLR’s. Other RAW converters exhibit artifacts, false colours and maze-like structures during interpolation whereas DxO generally does not. Comparisons of this nature are easy to do for oneself and compare with your existing RAW converter. The results are quite remarkable actually. DxO achieves this improved interpolation largely through a proprietary mechanism as well as an interpolation of a larger selection of surrounding pixels in order to make a more informed decision. By making a larger selection of surrounding pixels DxO is also able to improve on noise reduction quite dramatically producing cleaner and more precise images. According to DxO their noise reduction techniques provide an overall two-stop gain. Results may vary but this is quite significant. Due to the increased complexity and additional overhead of RAW interpolation the conversion process in DxO is processor intensive and can take a while even on a high-end machine. With the extensive batch processing functionality built into the software however, this comes at a small price as you can simply set up your conversions and walk away.
The overall processing speed and stability of DxO 5.3 and higher is one area where significant strides have been made recently. DxO in the past has been known to be slow and prone to crashes. In DxO 5.3 or higher however this is a great deal better and works effectively on a graphics accelerated 64-bit system with the ability to leverage additional RAM to improve on overall performance. During the transition from DxO 4.x to 5.x the company went through significant change and this affected overall application stability and delivery to its detriment. It does appear however as these issues have now been resolved and updates have been rolling out more frequently and consistently and the application runs without fault on my Vista x64 8Mb system with full support for my camera and lens range.
Apart from the underlying technology in understanding camera bodies, lenses and RAW interpolation the DxO application actually provides a complete environment for managing your Workflow and processing your images. In DxO parlance the application summarises that workflow into ‘Select’, ‘Prepare’, ‘Process’ and ‘Review’ and is not unlike many other tools such as Adobe Lightroom. The ‘Select’ component allows you to import images into DxO, rank them according to quality and filter based on rankings to select the best images for manipulation. The ‘Prepare’ step allows for the full range of image manipulation techniques and is discussed in more detail below. The ‘Process’ step applies all the adjustments made in the ‘Prepare’ step and writes the output in a variety of formats (including JPG, DNG and TIFF). Finally, the ‘Review’ step in the workflow allows you to verify the process for accuracy and compare before and after images for quality-assurance.
DxO integrates with Adobe Lightroom in a variety of ways and does allow you to place DxO in the beginning of your workflow or use Lightroom as your primary image repository and DxO as a stand-alone RAW converter. My preferred workflow solution is to use Adobe Lightroom as my image repository and DxO on selected images that I intend for high quality fine-art reproduction. In my opinion Lightroom excels in the management of image catalogs and does a better job more intuitively in ranking, ordering, keywording and filtering images. I will still use Lightroom for more general purpose image adjustments as it is still simpler and quicker to use. Previously I would convert my images straight into the Adobe DNG format during the Lightroom import process but as DxO works most effectively on native RAW images (.CR2 or .NEF for instance) the conversion to .DNG is then deferred until after the DxO raw adjustments. DxO is also available as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop but in my opinion this is less than effective as that is generally too late in the workflow.
Therefore the ‘Prepare’ step in DxO becomes the most significant aspect of the application after the implicit optical correction and RAW image conversion. Naturally this is where the wealth of the application comes into its own with the available palettes indicating the type of operations that can be performed, including: Move/Zoom; Histogram; Edit EXIF; Preset Editor; Light; Colour; Geometry; Detail and My Palette. It is import to realise that any adjustments made in the ‘Prepare’ stage are not actually applied to your images immediately; they are only applied in the ‘Process’ stage on creation of the output.
The ‘Move/Zoom’; ‘Histogram’ and ‘Edit EXIF’ palettes are fairly self explanatory with the ability of the Histogram to show clipped shadow and highlight areas.
The ‘Preset Editor’ allows you apply a custom developed presets or load a variety of presets available on the web. Creating presets is a simple affair and in much the same fashion as Lightroom a preset is simply a stored combination of the adjustments made to the various sliders in the other modules (Color, Detail, Geometry and Light).
The ‘My Palette’ palette is more useful on screens with less real estate as you can drag a virtual palette into the ‘My Palette’ region to customize the user-interface to your liking and make the more common adjustments easily available.
The ‘Details’ palette allows you to adjust sharpness or softness, grain, dust, chromatic aberration and noise. Any sharpness adjustments take into account the specific constraints of the lens used. In addition you can at this stage apply a more conventional Unsharp Mask if you wanted to. Luminance noise (noise caused by excessive granularity) and Chrominance noise (noise caused by unwanted coloured artifacts in neutral areas) can be adjusted very effectively at this stage. Chromatic aberration can be further adjusted in this palette over and above that which is performed automatically by the lens profile. A dust removal brush is also available to clean up the image with the addition that these settings can be automatically applied to a whole batch of images. (I still find Lightroom or Photoshop dust clean up easier to use however).
The ‘Color’ palette allows adjustments of ‘Vibrancy’, ‘Color Rendering’, ‘Color Modes’, ‘Hue/Saturation/Lightness’, ‘Multi-Point Color Balance’ and ‘RAW White Balance’. The ‘Color Rendering’ option also facilitates access to the DxO Filmpack 2.0 plugin module which provides access to a variety of authentic looking film types emulating exposure latitude, colour, contrast and grain. The Multi-Point Colour Balance tool is unique to DxO and allows selective colour adjustments for up to four areas in your image using a colour wheel. The Multi-Point colour balance works in a similar way to the Nik Viveza tool but with colour adjustment in mind only.
The ‘Geometry’ palette allows for keystoning and horizon adjustments to straighten an image. As long as you have the appropriate camera-lens module installed geometric corrections are performed automatically so adjustments in this panel should be minimal. The ability of the ‘Geometry’ palette to correct volume anamorphisis is quite remarkable and has to be seen to be believed. Particularly useful for correcting art-work or architecture photography when perhaps you weren’t quite level and centered with the subject matter. You can also crop images in the Geometry palette according to various aspect ratios.
The ‘Light’ palette allows for Exposure Compensation; Tone Curve and DxO specific lighting adjustments. The DxO Lighting section includes adjustments for Intensity, Black and White points, Brightness as well as Global and Local contrast. Highlight recovery is particularly powerful in the DxO Light palette but this is available for RAW images only. The Tone Curve gives you precise control over the luminance levels for each color layer in the image.
At any stage during your image adjustment you can quickly and easily see a before and after view to verify that your corrections are going in the right direction. DxO provides a variety of split before-after views or simply holding the mouse down on an image toggles between the two views.
Once your image adjustments are complete you then Batch process your images into their desired output format. DxO supports output in JPG, TIFF or DNG format with the ability to resize, specify image resolution and ensure a proper ICC profile tag (which currently only supports sRGB and Adobe RGB although you can reference a custom profile such as ProPhoto RGB as well with an additional step).
This is a processor intensive step of DxO and can tie up your machine resources quite substantially so it is best to prepare and batch your images in volume and then start the output process. Once completed DxO provides you with a full audit of the results including any errors that may have occurred and you now have the ability to ‘Review’ the images to compare in complete detail the Before and After results. You can also simply return to your image editor of choice and continue further image adjustments where desired.
DxO 5.3.3 is available as a trial version from their web site and in my opinion is a worthwhile addition to your RAW image processing arsenal. I do not use DxO on all my images but those that I have identified as my portfolio images definitely get the special treatment and adjustment that is available with DxO. Further adjustments are then usually made in Lightroom and Photoshop CS4 to complete the image before printing.
The DxO product is fairly complex in terms of the underlying adjustments that it makes to your images and to what it makes available through the various adjustment palettes. The documentation and videos are however relatively approachable and accurate even to the point of suggesting a variety of workflows to best satisfy your needs. The application does however require some experimentation and finesse to achieve perfect results.
DxO comes in two varieties: Standard and Elite with each version offering slightly different degrees of functionality. In particular the Standard version does not offer support for the high-end professional cameras or lenses. In my case the lack of support for the Canon 1D range or the high-end lenses in the standard product version necessitated the Elite purchase. The DxO Filmpack product is also an additional purchase if you want access to a larger variety of colour adjustments and various film-type emulations.
DxO has previously received bad press due to inconsistent updates that lagged behind industry standards and provided poor performance. Recent strides in product delivery and stability have however made DxO a valuable tool and one which I highly recommend if you’re after the very best from your RAW images.
Disclaimer
This essay is based partly on my experience with DxO Optics Pro since version 3 and information contained in the manuals and other online tutorials. I did not receive any financial compensation from DxO for the production of this essay nor am I affiliated with DxO in any way.
If you wish to purchase DxO Optics Pro you can use the following Sponsor Code which will entitle you to an immediate discount of 15% on DxO Optics Pro or DxO Filmpack if used before the 31st March 2009 - RAF8SBR6E. (See Referral programme regulations for further details).
For a downloadable PDF version of this review click here
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