I've been looking at some of the image processing aspects of the latest version of DxO.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/software/dxo_optics_pro8.html

It's software I've used for several years, as a RAW processing tool for some individual images, hence my looking at that rather than the workflow side.

Hope it's of interest...

BTW I should note that some of my images are used by DxO as examples, but I've no commercial connection with them.

What advantage does this RAW converter have over Adobe RAW or Canon DPP?

What advantage does this RAW converter have over Adobe RAW or Canon DPP?

The lens profiles are camera specific, free to download and are very effective. When shopping for a lens, I check to see if there is a DXO profile for my camera and the lens I am interested in.
The noise control is impressive
The new lighting sliders are as good as LR4, Smart lighting
Easy to use interface
Processed files can be made in multiple formats at the same time (eg 16 bit Tiff & jpg for the web)

I use it for some images where I like the look of the results better than ACR. For me it's about having a choice of ways to approach my RAW conversion - curiously enough I've quite often found that using DxO makes for colour images that make better B&W when converted (for my landscape work, where it appears to be related to handling of dark saturated colours and shadow)

ACR is still my default for general work, but every so often I have images that come out better in DxO. My workflow tends to be low quantities of conversions at a time.

There are a few more examples in the article.

One area that is not so good, is preparing images for stitching, where you need to deactivate quite a few of the best bits of DxO since they are based on analysis of local image content, and can seriously impact stitching quality

One area that is not so good, is preparing images for stitching

This is where I only use lens corrections. The distortion is corrected, but exposure is left alone. The stitching program can then line up the exposures a lot more easily. Then adjust exposure in LR or PS as one photo.

One more benefit to using DXO is batch processing.

I downloaded the trial version of DXO Optics Pro Elite v8
the program has some interesting adjustments.

I still thought DPP produced better RAW conversions after my testing.

I still convert RAW with DPP & then when needed edit further with Photoshop CS6