Wilbus
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 p.16 #1 · Panasonic G9 image thread and discussion | |
@Kit Laughlin I'll hijack it on your request 
I haven't used DXO 6 any more than 20 minutes so far, it was just released and I upgraded to it yesterday.
I've used DXO 5 for the past year and it has been nothing short of a game changer in terms of image quality for me.
It's not the most intuitive software to use (not for my brain at least and I've been using computers since I was 7, 33 years). Lightroom is the easiest RAW converter to use in my opinion but the one that gives the "worst" image quality (bad choice of words as no mainstream converter gives bad image quality).
Lightroom is the worst at handling high ISO noise as well as details and sharpening. It's a great photo library and has great interaction with Photoshop.
Capture one has a clear advantage in image quality, better noise reduction and far better detail extraction in my opinion, it's not quite as easy to use or as well planned but once you start to get to know it, it's faster both in use and in exporting.
Now to DXO, I had to write a little quickly about Lightroom and Capture One first as I've used Lightroom since it was in Beta and Capture One Pro (up till 21) for several years.
DXO isn't as good as a library though it has improved a lot with DXO 5 and now with DXO 6 to a degree where it's quite good though different to Lightroom and Capture one.
I loved Aperture on Mac as well, it had good image quality and I loved the processing nature of it, I loved the light table which is something I still miss. I also loved Nikons Nik Software with control points for editing which, at the time was and still is unique in terms of masking quickly and easily with great results (most of the time).
Nik Software was sold to Google which in turn lowered the price on all the products and then, eventually released it for free. After that DXO bought it and has incorporated the Control Points masking (and other ways) in to DXO which makes it a super powerful and useful image editing software.
What blows me away though, and the other RAW converters is the image quality. With DXO 5 they introduced Deep Prime Pro noise reduction and it was witch craft on the darkest kind. Nothing short of black magic. It made me go back to my 2012 Olympus m43 files and re-edit them with the noise reduction and demosaicing and have the files look several generations better.
DXO has several benefits to me, DXO 6 now has improved the noise reduction even more and it's not just noise reduction as I said before, it's demosaicing in the same process as well as detail extraction. It's amazing how much it reduces noise and maintains detail, like no other software does for me.
DXO also has lens profiles for most lenses. They do these profiles in their own laboratory and once you click in "lens sharpening" it sharpens the image (and some other magic) based the lens test and performance form their lab.
The software it self is a bit different compared to Lightroom for example, it's not as well laid up in terms of how easy it is to find stuff. Lightrooms process is to go from the top to bottom in the editing panel. You just scroll down as you make changes.
DXO has different pages, Light, Detail, FX etc. You can enable an advanced mode where you have everything you want under the same panel and can add/remove but it's quite messy IMO.
DXO is feels most like Aperture IMO, not as easy to use but in many ways similar. The local editing tools are the best of all RAW converters. You can use control points, paint it in or a number of other ways, or mix and match.
Control points is the most powerful tool IMO, you simply set a point and drag it to size (circular). You can than make a number of adjustments, exposure, color, detail, temperature etc. It only affects the area within the circle but also only similar colors and light of where you have dropped the point. You can keep adding points with the same effects applied within the same "group" of points and you can also add more groups with their own settings.
So if you have a wall that's half green and half orange and you place a point on the green and raise the exposure only the green will be affected even if your point circle extends over the orange.
I do sometimes mix DXO 5 (and from now 6) with Capture one or Lightroom. If that's the case I simply run the RAW file through DXO with Deep Prime and lens corrections and then import it in to Capture one or Lightroom as a DNG RAW file, when I do that I seem to be able to extract even more detail, especially when I use Capture One. But to be honest, it's not needed.
You do get a 30-day trial with DXO, just download, choose trial and start playing. Let me know via a PM if you need assistance
/Rasmus
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