By: Yuri

Yuri — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:52:11 +0000

Really About Optics DxO is the software which perfectly and automatically (reading EXIF) corrects lens distortion, improves accuracy of a lens as necessary, and does the best work? Very much it would be desirable to trust, but it is necessary most it will be convinced…

By: K Rockwell

K Rockwell — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:08:14 +0000

[Note: Ken made what appears to be the identical set of comments on the Lightroom Journal blog, and Tom Hogarty inserted a number of corrections inline. --J.]
I just got off an illustrated conference call with DxO in Paris.
The new version 6 of Optics Pro is out for WIndows, but the Mac version won’t be out until next year.
DxO Optics Pro is software that perfectly and automatically (by reading the EXIF) corrects lens distortion, improves lens sharpness as needed, and does the best job I’ve ever seen of automatically optimizing highlights and shadows.
Not only does it do a perfect job of correcting the complex distortion of ultra-wide zooms, it creates perfect straightening of fisheye images, regardless of focused distance, and that was even in version 4 that I’ve been using.
Unlike other shadow and highlight programs (or Photoshop or Lightroom themselves), DxO magically knows how to apply just the right amount of whatever to get my photos to sing, automatically. I last used old version 4 for my photos on Rt 66 back in 2007, and it worked wonders. I pointed DxO to the photos I wanted, it crunched the numbers, and out popped perfected images.
New in version 6 is the ability to remove noise and even push-process images two stops past the highest ISO on your camera. That’s right: shoot your D3 at ISO 12,800 in raw, and processed through DxO they showed me it looking better than when processed in ACR or Capture NX.
Even crazier, set your camera, like a Canon G10, to underexpose by using negative exposure compensation, and DxO can push the image a stop or two to get you ISO two to four times the maximum that you thought you had on your camera.
Optics Pro works with both raw and JPG images, but to get the extraordinary noise reduction performance they showed me, it has to do that from raw files.
Of course you can control it manually, but for a guy like me that would rather be shooting than playing on a computer, the fact that DxO can be trusted to do its own thing, and do it extremely well, is a Godsend.
When you buy it. you buy a license to run it on two computers, just like Photoshop.
Dxo Optics pro is compatible with Lightroom 2. It can browse Lightroom catalogs, export back to to lightroom catalogs, and you can call up DxO as an external editor from inside Lightroom by right-clicking and selecting “send to DxO.”
Another advantage of DxO over most other software is that it doesn’t need to create a duplicate-copy library of all your photos, as Aperture, iPhoto and Lightroom do by default. It it these stupid libraries which cause the compatibility problems where you need to get things in and out of “libraries.” With DxO, it works with images as they are stored in my regular file system.
Other software makes duplicates of everything you “import” into them, and with the amount I shoot, I can’t afford that. With DxO, you show it what photos you want processed, and it goes to work.
DxO 6 has the ability to split-screen “virtual copies” of different sets of manual corrections. These virtual copies only exist in the software; they don’t clog up more hard drive space.
DxO Optics Pro 6 makes it easy to store and recall presets of settings you might like. There is a Presets box near the top right in the Customize tab, and in the other tabs, simply right-click a thumbnail image to use presets.
If you bought Optics Pro v5 since June 2009 you get a free upgrade to v6.
If your copy of v5 is older, you get a 40% discount on the upgrade through 31 December 2009.
If you’re new to DxO Optics Pro, there is a 33% discount through 31 December 2009.
So? The Mac version won’t be out until 2010. For Mac, as of course I use, the key is to buy or upgrade to version 5 today, and then the upgrade to v6 ought to be free when v6 becomes available for Mac.

By: Dan Milham

Dan Milham — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:48:02 +0000

The download seems useless to those of us who have no intention of owning one of those cameras. Is there more to it? [It provides an improved profile for the Leica M9, and it fixes a PPC bug: "An issue limited to Mac customers using PowerPC hardware has been corrected. The issue, introduced in the demosaic change to address sensors with unequal green response, has the potential to create artifacts in highlight areas when processing raw files from Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and various medium format digital camera backs." --J.]

By: PL

PL — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:50:30 +0000

release candidate…..
i wonder if there is moire new in LR 2.6 then camera support?

By: F

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:04:24 +0000

release candidate or definitive release?

Comments on: Camera Raw 5.6, Lightroom 2.6 available on Adobe Labs

By: Yuri

By: K Rockwell

By: Dan Milham

By: PL

By: F