RAW processors

[digipeter]

In the often animated discussion concerning AP3 "versus" LR3 "versus" Capture One "versus" ..., I miss any reference to 'DxO Optics Pro 6' and its remarkable tool of optic corrections (as LR3 has also), optimized exposure and more.
I got confirmation by this company that "one will be able to use DxO directly and use iPhoto for resulting image management".

'DxO' is highly praised on sites as Ken Rockwell's, byTom, The Epoch Times, photographyblog, northlight-images, cnet uk and twin-pixels.
As a newbie to this forum, the workflow DxO to iPhoto looks interesting and attractive.

Any experience so far?

 

[Ruahrc]

I used DxO when it was version 4. It had been out a while, and the lens distortion corrections really impressed me. It was the first RAW processor I used. In general the consensus regarding DxO was that the usability of the software was a bit kludgy, but if you put effort into it you could obtain superior results to what ACR could do at the time.

Then they released v5, to which I received a free upgrade (because I purchased v4 shortly before v5 was released). It was a steaming pile of junk. The software was released essentially unfinished, with many bugs/crashes and performance issues, missing core features (like photoshop integration), etc. IIRC it took them several months before they released a mac compatible version of v5. You can do a search now on various photo forums and you will see that there was not a lot of good comments to be had regarding the release of DxO v5.

If you read their forums on the release of v5, it was awful. Every post was some problem or another, and many were deleted by mods. It took them months and months just to acknowledge these issues let alone begin to address them. Shortly after using v5, I changed to using Lightroom (v1). Lightroom ran much better on my powerbook g4, and had a superior workflow for my needs. It is more of an integrated solution with everything from import to storage to output. DxO is more of a batch converter tool, meant to work into an existing workflow already.

I heard that eventually DxO v5 became decent (more than a year after its release), but at the same time Lightroom 2 came out and rapidly improved/matured the quality of the ACR engine. I don't know what response DxO v6 is getting, but again with the release of LR3 and AP3, the competition has kept up with or surpassed the advantages that DxO used to have IMHO. The only thing that DxO had going for it after a while was the geometry correction, and now that it has been introduced to LR3, there is not a single feature that DxO has that I can't get in LR3.

To summarize, after seeing the poor quality of the software and how badly they handled the release of DxO v5, the time it took them to acknowledge and fix the problems in the software, and their general lack of customer support and dedication to customer satisfaction, I did not find them to be a company worth supporting any further. All I can say is that I was glad I got my v5 upgrade for free and that I have not missed DxO since I switched to LR.

 

[digipeter]

Ruahrc:
"general lack of customer support and dedication to customer satisfaction"

As a potential user of version 6, I mailed since last night 3 questions that all were answered swiftly, friendly and helpful. This certainly is the right attitude to incite trust in both their actual customer policy and most recent version, as shown by this informative response:
"I'd suggest a workflow where DxO takes in RAW files out-of-camera, does it's "magic" which is quite substantial, and then using iPhoto to manage resulting JPEG or TIFF image Library subsequently. DxO does not alter original RAW file, but as an option, can output a "sidecar" file with same name as the original RAW and a ".dxo" extension. When these two are re-input as a matched pair you will recreate in DxO all of the adjustment that were done to make the output files managed by iPhoto for further alterations if required. So quite a bit of synergy exists even though there is no direct interface".

 

[compuwar]

I find color and tonal range to be far more important than lens correction for most images, so I generally stick with RPP for my raw conversions.

Paul

 

[OreoCookie]

RAW conversion is in many instances a matter of taste: RAW converters have strengths and weaknesses, situations they handle more or less gracefully. Plus, many criteria are matters of taste (any RAW conversion is an interpretation).

Hence, people have various solutions to the problem:
(1) They use software like Aperture or Lightroom for everything.
(2) They use Aperture or Lightroom. For their picks, they develop in a RAW converter of their choice (e. g. the camera manufacturer's RAW converter).
(3) They use Bridge and ACR.
(4) ...

If I were you, I would not use any software that is not work flow oriented such as Aperture or Lightroom. If you have good reasons/particular taste, you can also use another RAW converter for critical work or your picks.

I would never ever entrust my RAW files with a piece of software which requires me to develop RAW files from scratch and that doesn't manage the files for me (not necessarily in the sense of a managed library, but in the sense that it keeps track of my files, versions, etc.).

 

[toxic]

this is an interesting read: http://www.twin-pixels.com/raw-processors-review-aperture-bibble-capture-one-dxo-lightroom/