Dxo 4.1 for Mac

So I finaly upgraded from 3.5 to 4.1
Though I don't have spent much time playing with the new version (BTW not very expensive upgrade, about 79€) but I must say I'm not impressed at all.
The UI is not that better, windows are black as Light room and others, it seems that this is the "new" fashion...
It is still so slooooow even on a bi pro G5 with 4 Gb of ram.
Tif export is better, no more need to go thru DNG and ACR...
Denoising, even if desabled is to strong
Colors are not that better than from C1 or LR
Geometry correction is more complicated than before and not sure better...

Seems I'm not happy with it ! For sure I won't quit like that and give many more trials.

What about others here, what are your experiences with DXo 4 ?
If you post about, please precise if you're PC or Mac.

Come on Alain (Briot) I know you're one of Dxo experts, explain me I'm wrong! I would be so glad! (I must be getting old to say I'm glad if I'm wrong ;-))))

Hi Nicolas,

If this is the version that was due to come out right now then I'll be getting it too!

Asher

Yep!
they have a free trial for 2 or 3 weeks, better try before buy ;-)

Well, I'm going to start soon!

Asher

they need more lens modules

I've got DxO and when it works its great. The problem with it, IMHO, is that they only have a few lens modules so it won't work for a majority of my images - including anything that I shoot with my Leica DMR. I've made comparisions against other raw converters and it really is good but if the modules are not there for all the common lenses what's the point?

I guess I'll have to download my free update and see the changes for myself.
Eric

Well, I´ve only tried it on a Windows machine, but my findings are similar to Nicolas. The GUI looks good, but the old one was better to work with. Some things have become more complex and tedius to setup. And it's dead slow (400% faster, you've gotta be kiddin), sometimes seem slower than 3.5.

I only tried the 4.0 release. I mostly liked the results; the lighting engine does some great work on auto. Noise removal was kind of a disappointment though. However, it takes it a full 12-15 seconds to display an image, and making adjustments means another 1-3 seconds wait every time. This is on WinXP, Dual Core 4400+, 2GB mem. It is far, far, faaaaar too slow to be even remotely interesting.

For the windows version v4.1 build 2124 I have noted some problem areas:

1. If you have the "automatically check for updates" ticked under Preference my machine will go crazy and use 50% of the processor capasity even if I'm doing absolutely nothing (3,2 GHz P HT 2Gb ram)

2. The Enhance display is now color managed (V4.0 was not) but the View module seems to be doing something wrong with the color management. If you develop to sRGB the picture in the View module will be oversaturated, if you develop the same picture using the same process settings to AdobeRGB you will have a match between the picture displayed in the Enhance and View module.

Is the color management working in the Mac version ?

/Stefan

KrisCarnmarker said:

I only tried the 4.0 release. I mostly liked the results; the lighting engine does some great work on auto. Noise removal was kind of a disappointment though. However, it takes it a full 12-15 seconds to display an image, and making adjustments means another 1-3 seconds wait every time.

Click to expand...

My questioin with the slow refresh is who made the unintelligent decision to show a gross pixelated version after a change so that one can never see one variation morph into the next without a useless intermediate rendering making comparison impossible.

That said, there are some situations where it cannot be beaten by any other RAW converter and when it does well, it does very well. But the workflow is dreadful.

I just could not justify the cost (relatively low) without having a specific image that is already sold that needs it as this is not a tool for use in an efficient workflow. It is a good tool for specific images that need it but I could never justify wasting that much time reviewing images prior to RAW conversion.

My testing was with version 4.0.* and not 4.1 on XP. It is nice that the software uses dual cores, but it is too slow except for rare one offs.

enjoy,

Sean

Sean DeMerchant said:

That said, there are some situations where it cannot be beaten by any other RAW converter and when it does well, it does very well. But the workflow is dreadful.

............ It is a good tool for specific images that need it but I could never justify wasting that much time reviewing images prior to RAW conversion.

Click to expand...

So Sean,

Do you have an example of where DXO was uniquely suitable to implement your picture as you wanted it?

Asher

I have been using the newest version on DxO since it came out with a Nikon D70s on windows XP.

Before I bought it I compared it to seven other RAW processors and DxO came out on top for most photographs that I take. Silkypix is just about as good and is great for speedy processing of many shots. Nikon Capture NX I use exclusively for shots of flowers. Nothing beats its colours in this area but the interface is really clunky.

Hi John,

I'm glad you have defined an area where DXO works best for you. DXO is an original software with devoted gus behond it not a super rich corporation with gezillions of Euros/Yen/US $ behind them.

Could you possible dig up exaamples of your 7 RAW test so we can have an example of how this turned out. I know this is a HUGE request but even several would help us.

I'd love to see how each processor shines especially well (as opposed to just a "Buzzzz" created by those who have spent their good hard cash or say 40 hours trying to understand SilkyPix like deciphering a glyph text on a Maiyan temple wall).

With appreciation

Asher

Stefan Hellstrom said:

For the windows version v4.1 build 2124 I have noted some problem areas:
2. The Enhance display is now color managed (V4.0 was not) but the View module seems to be doing something wrong with the color management. If you develop to sRGB the picture in the View module will be oversaturated, if you develop the same picture using the same process settings to AdobeRGB you will have a match between the picture displayed in the Enhance and View module.

Is the color management working in the Mac version ?

/Stefan

Click to expand...

Hi Stefan
Seems that it is the same with Mac:



Of course the Argb is the version that I wished, but sometimes when working for web only, I export Srgb (OK, not from DXO, too long for that...)

And even with Argb the colors are not looking the same in Dxo preview and CS2

Nicolas Claris said:

Hi Stefan
Seems that it is the same with Mac:
Of course the Argb is the version that I wished, but sometimes when working for web only, I export Srgb (OK, not from DXO, too long for that...)

And even with Argb the colors are not looking the same in Dxo preview and CS2

Click to expand...

Hi Nicolas,

This is what I wrote to DxO after getting a first answear that the 4.1 View module doesn't support colormanagement:
"I rechecked the color handling in the View module by developing 3 versions of the same image using the same Enhance settings but using sRGB as destination color space for the first one, AdobeRGB for the second one and ProPhoto RGB for the third one.
Result:
-sRGB version: Enhance and CS2 gives a perfect match. View module is off and gives an oversaturated picture.
The oversaturated sRGB display in the View module matches what you get if you open the sRGB picture in CS2 and use the "Assign profile" command with AdobeRGB as chosen profile.
-AdobeRGB version: Enhance, View module and Photoshop CS2 gives a perfect match
-ProPhoto RGB version: Enhance and CS2 gives a perfect match. View module is off and gives an undersaturated picture.
The undersaturated ProPhoto RGB display in the View module matches what you get if you open the ProPhoto picture in CS2 and use the "Assign profile" command with AdobeRGB as chosen profile.

Conclusion:
Alternative 1: The View module assumes that you always develop to Adobe RGB color space.
Alternative 2: The View module assumes that you always develop to the color space that your camera is set to. (in this case my Canon 350D camera was set to AdobeRGB)


It would be nice to hear if other PC user is having the same problem !

DxO is one of my preferred programs what I lose in the slowness of the program I win in less or no post processing. I take the opportunity to post a night shoot from Ginza Tokyo that I also tried in other converters, DxO came out as a winner on almost the default settings. The noise canceling worked very good on this one, the result from other converters ended up in PS with multi layer and local noise cancelling.


BR/ Stefan

Test Image

Asher Kelman said:

Do you have an example of where DXO was uniquely suitable to implement your picture as you wanted it?

Click to expand...

Try:

http://www.envisagement.com/opf/dd87653bb8c15676b5eaea4e9033e732e6fb56a3/SPE12560.CR2

Please only use the file on this site. I will leave it up for a week or three.

The shot itself should be underexposed in RAW by at least a stop (exposed to the right). This shot has 3 primary light colors (orange street lights, whiteish stadium lights, and skylight) plus colored lights.

But the rendering feature I have yet to see achieved in another tool is the handling of debayering.If you note the blue lighted arch on Qwest Field you will note it is a worst case scenario for RAW. The lighting ranges from moderate shadow to blown highlights with a background ranging from deep shadow to quarter tones. Looking at the left end of the arch at 400 percent zoom and you will see lots of aliasing on the varying angles of the high contrast edges. DxO 4.0 is the only tool I have seen render those edges without excessive aliasing for an upsampled print above the native resolution.

Yes I know it is pixel peeping, but I spotted the problem doing a 12x18 inch print for someone. I appear to have deleted the DxO 4.0 rendering. But that is minor since at arms reach the obvious aliasing is not visible. But to take a clean shot like this up to 16x24 inches makes such aliasing unacceptable.

While I could really care less about resolution test charts, real world images to matter to me and hence this landed in my test image collection for testing aliasing and extreme highlights.

enjoy,

Sean

Hi, took me a while to find you in that corner on the inet, I had been at RG too... (montespluga)

I gave DXO 4.1 for mac a try too, and was most interested in its CA- & lens-correction, while I wanted to keep RAW Developer as my RC. After a few hours of tests, I found DXO pretty disappointing; very, very slow on my Quad (4.5 GB of RAM) too, and point of view workflow pretty user unfriendly.

Do you know any good CA-tool ?? - apart from PS-CS-2, which is degrading pixels pretty much..

Did someone - from the PC-mates - has given lens corrector from a try?

The first macversion should be released soon, they say on Sunday, Monday...

Its advantage would be to have not the center of the image altered , as does Lensfix/PTlens but the border, therefore the important parths of the image - often in the center - will be untouched...
plus the ability to calibrate alternative lenses too - as its possible with Lensfix/PTlens - but not good fun...

Bonjour Michael
Welcome here (though there is a special forum for this... !

It seems that you bring a very good news with the announcement of Proxel Lens Corrector for Mac.
Can any Windows users that have tried it post some comments about it?

For now, the only RC good for CA that I have used is C1. DxO did/does good (very!) but too slow, does these guys imagine we treat one image per day?

I've been a lover of DxO 3.5 for some files, but it is definitively too slow, will give another try with my next machine (Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon) soon, but I doubt it is optimized...

PS BTW, Michael, I've deleted your doubled post ;-)

Bonjour Nicolas et merci bien
for deleting the double post, I've the problem, that I've to log in for every single step,
here; as the login-status isn't stable. Well, that's what the browser, Firefox signs..
So maybe it took the post already, without the signs of beeing logged in...

Back to topics
As DXO forces me into a closed workflow - its generated DNG's are already decoded - in linear space - plus the time it takes, it's not a option for me; I'm searching in other corners of the problem.

Clearly the best would be to have CA- free lenses, but we all know, that even the distagon's aren't CA-free.

BTW: Nicolas, do you still like the Sigma 12 - 24 as a Canon 17 - 40 replacement?
I'd like to use it in the 15 - 20 mm-range, as from 21 mm, I'm fine with the zuiko's and distagon's.

Talking about Proxel's Lens corrector:
They released the first mac-version last night; the demo has watersigns.
You might notice, that one need to have X-11 installed on OS-X, to run
Lens analyzer - the tool to calibrate the lens . I'm giving it a try.

Hi Michael
for your log problem, have you ticked the little "remember me" square button, close to the login fields when login in? it store a cookie on your HD so it remembers you but also the last posts you've not read yet... This cookie is trashed from your HD each time you click on "log out" on top left bar. If you wish so, otherwise, just quit OPF when finished reading/posting, and your browser should "remember" you next time you'll get connected to OPF. If that doesn't work, it may be a Firefox issue.

I've never seen a CA-free lense, so they are some that are better "born" than others...

Yes I still like/love my Sigma 12-24, so much better than the 17-40! (and wider;-)
AT 24 mm I do prefer the Canon 24-70 wich is faster (ƒ2.8)
I think it is best used with ƒ8 to ƒ13, more sharp, more DOF. not that much of vignetting.
I'll try to built a hood to avoid max of flares... as Sigma doesn't provide one, maybe because the front lens is really not flat.
If you want to buy one, TRY it! before, they are good and bad ones as it seems that Sigma isn't straight enough on the quality of the lenses at the end of the production chain... (especially for softness in corners).

I'll give a try to the Mac Proxel's Lens corrector, but I'm not so used to X-11 so I dunno if I'll be able to run it ;-(

Have a good day

Thanks Nicolas

I'm aware of the variations on the Sigma QC, therefore I can go and try 3 copies at the national importer...

Concerning X-11 and Llensanalyzer : need to get into it, too ;-)

Please post reports when you'll have done so...

Good luck for the Sigma

Michael Fontana said:

Thanks Nicolas

I'm aware of the variations on the Sigma QC, therefore I can go and try 3 copies at the national importer...

Concerning X-11 and Llensanalyzer : need to get into it, too ;-)

Click to expand...

ok, I found the bug, its was a pop-up-blocker which avoided to accept the cookies from the OPF-server.

I gave Lens corrector a quick and dirty try; the calibrating is really much easier with it than with Lensfix; it's important though to have good shots; this means to have a long, and clear straight line in the image.

X 11 isn't a problem at all; lensanalyzer makes it easy.

I' link some testscreenies later on...

for now, just a screenie of the plugin's interface:

Ok, so here my first insights, far away from knowing it well.
Lenscorrector and Lensanalyzer work smooth, without crashs, and make the job they' re build for. Not alwith usual, with 1.1-versions, as we all know ;-)


Calibration with Lenscorrector is really a piece of cake, and takes about 5 - 10 minutes,
meanwhile I never was really getting it, with Lensfix. I dunno, if the PC-counterpart of Lensfix, PTLens is easier to calibrate than Lensfix, but IMO its a BIG point for Lenscorrector. Should be easy to correct exotic lenses, also...

The tests were done on a unshiftet PC-28 Schneider; but it looks as shifting the lens would be calibratable too. Good news, again.
Pixel distortion, aka image degredation:
Lenscorrector has different settings as well; in that test, I tried the faster bicubic, plus the slower sync 16 x 16. Lenscorrector uses one cpu only, even if you got 4 inside. The good quality sync 16 x 16 takes a while, to render the image...

That' s a point for Lensfix, but one might notice too, that the Proxel's is in version 1.1 - Lensfix took a while too, to support multicpu's.

Looking at the added images, Lenscorrectors has some advantages; at the the center
what do you think??

Testimages
screenshots at 400 % in PS, converted to sRGB, with save for web...
the original jpg had been taken at 2400 x 3600 pix, only.

In the center:



at the border:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/LC-border.jpg

and a sizereduced 2layer tiff; with the Proxel's Lenscorrector on top of the lensfix version:


http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Lensfix vs Lenscorrector_small.tif

please ctrl-klick for download, as two-layer-tiffs can't be displayed in a browser...

Thanks for that Michael
I don't have X11 install on my Powerbook nor the original DVD, will have to wait tomorow to install and test Lensanalyzer.
But one have to run Lensanalyzer for each picture or once for each lense?

Nicolas Claris said:

Thanks for that Michael
I don't have X11 install on my Powerbook nor the original DVD, will have to wait tomorow to install and test Lensanalyzer.
But one have to run Lensanalyzer for each picture or once for each lense?

Click to expand...

Once you've the corrections in the database, (that's Lensanalyzer's job) you can apply it on all images....
Obviously it fits only for the same lens.

When using zooms, one has to calibrate a few times, to get the different focal lenghts.

Forgot to add the unaltered shot:



IMO, this tool is very usefull and handy for someone having alternative lenses, shift lenses - if you take a note about your shift distance when shooting.
I think it might it works on shift- or flatstiches, which is hard with the other tools.

Michael Fontana said:

Once you've the corrections in the database, (that's Lensanalyzer's job) you can apply it on all images....
Obviously it fits only for the same lens.

When using zooms, one has to calibrate a few times, to get the different focal lenghts.

Click to expand...

Good thing
the problem will be when one have to correct shot done with lens that you don't own anymore therefore you can't get them in the DB...
I wonder why they don't build a database aka DxO...

See, generic databases are less good than the custom made ones, cause of lens variations (did I hear Sigma 12-24 ;-) ) and sensor offsett. These things can only be precise on custom calibration.
The thing I like about lenscorrection is, that generating the db is a easy task...

First: sorry, I don't want to turn this thread into a Proxel-thread, but sometimes it happens like that...

Second: after doing some calibrations with existing images, I 'm convinced, that Lenscorrector and Lensanalyzer are good tools; therefore I bought a license.

The devs will make it multi-cpu-aware as well.

Did you tested it, Nicolas?

Hi Michael
No, I haven't test it, beleive me or not but I've not been able to install X11 (had few times, not enough) But I'll do for sure and post here the results.
Off topic:
Tomorrow I'll shoot a 105 footer sail boat, weather should be OK, temp: -2°c - 28°F with wind about 15 knots from NorthEast, we gonna feel like -8°C-17°F plus water spreay, not gonna be like in the Bahamas!