Anyone using DX0 software for RAW conversion

[Phil Crean]

With the announcement of DX0 9 I'm wondering if anyone uses it(or DX0 8) and has compared the results with ACR for Raw conversions?

Which is better and why?

 

 

[Imagery by Charly]

Of course all replies will be subjective, but last year I gave DXO a try. Personally I didn't care for it over Lightroom 4 and Perfect Photo Suite (by onOne software), so deleted the trial off my hard drive. Best advice I can give is try it out for free with their trial and if you like it better, then buy it.

[Vincent Lowe]

Downloaded the trial last week.  Tried one file and it looked fine - difficult to say whether it was better than ACR or not, just a bit 'different' - like Charly says, purely subjective.

 

Tried second file and it crashed.

 

Deleted trial.

[Joe Gaul]

As above, software use is always subjective. With this in mind I generally use CS5 or 6 but having recently got a free copy of DXO Optics Pro 6 with a magazine I occasionally process troublesome files in the latter if the former doesn't yield the desired results and the DXO results are sometimes preferable although on files such as DH56K8 I tried both and although DXO opened up the shadows better the file shown is the photoshop version as I felt it corrected the verticals better; although you can always use DXO and open the result into Photoshop's raw converter (if I remember correctly). I therefore believe that it depends on the image, and of course that doesn't answer your question but maybe it helps a little.

[M.Chapman]

I've been testing DxO 9 versus LR4 for processing raw files from my Canon G15 and Lumix G5 a couple of weeks.

 

Pros

 

I like the fact that I don't have to import images into a catalogue before processing

I like the fact that it's distortion correction is better than LR4/ACR with my Lumix G5 and Canon G15 (better correction and it retains more pixels - see my other posting).

 

Cons

 

I just can't get as good a trade-off between noise and detail as I can get in LR4. Especially on my Canon G15 files. Another problem I found was, although the DxO lens softness correction is very sophisticated, it tends to apply progressively more sharpening towards the edge of the frame. Unfortunately with my G15 it significantly over-sharpens the corners, (maybe my G15 has a better lens than the one they developed their profile with). With my Lumix G5 lenses it's fine, but it really messes up the corners of my G15 files.

 

There also seems to be a bug in the resizing function in DxO 9, if I downsize during raw conversion diagonal edges show significant jagged steps. LR4 does a far, far better job. I didn't see this problem in earlier versions of DxO I tried.

 

Since I want the same workflow whatever camera I'm using, I've just decided to ditch DxO 9 and stick with LR4.

[Reciprocity Images]

I thought about trying DxO-

 

But gave it up after downloading when I realized they do not allow one to use DNGs created by other programs- That effectively rules out 90% of my archive.

 

-Jason

[Phil Crean]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Think I'll not bother trialing it based on your feedback and a few other items I've seen on t'internet.

[Number Six]

Although I don't doubt the above opinions, I'm genuinely surprised about the negative responses about DXO Optics Pro. I've been using V7 since early 2011 for processing RAW shots from my G12 and have been very happy with its output. Certainly no QC fails and, more importantly, several resultant sales. For the sake of a free download, I would strongly recommend trying it and forming your own opinion (but no offence to the other posters!).

[Joe Gaul]

Just an update on my above comments: when processing a particular image in CS6 I could not get rid of noise without destroying the feel of the photo, and pretty much as a last resort before giving up and moving on to the next image I processed it in DxO Optics Pro 6. The result was a much cleaner and usable image which opened into the CS6 raw converter for tweaking. The only downside as stated by others above is that there appears to be slight sharpening halos.