Another excellent review - thank you! I've been only working in PhotoLab 7 for the past several months and as I've learned the nuances and capabilities of the suite I've come to really, really appreciate the approach. PhotoLab 8 seems evolutionary in nature, building on DxO's philosophy and approach and likely offers more value than initially may seem to be case. At least that's my hope, we'll see how I feel after I upgrade. ;)
Thanks for another balanced and in depth review, Andy. My main issue with Photolab 8 is that you still have to purchase the Nik collection in order to access DXO's HDR Efex module separately. I've been using PureRaw 4 for three months or so and as you say it is excellent. Again, though, we see a fragmentation of DXO products presumably to hike profit margins in that my copy of DXO Optics Pro for Apple Photos has both Smart Lighting, lens corrections, Prime Denoise and Clearview (not Clearview Plus) all for £9.99 (!) , whereas PureRaw 4 just has Smart Lighting. It's a similar story with the Essential vs Elite versions of Photolab 8, with Smart Lighting in the Essential edition but not Clearview Plus...
Yea that's a fair comment. It would be nice to integrate some stack functionality within the main app as in Lightroom. I think they definitely need to work on their messaging and line-up and be a bit clearer about precisely what you get in each app/suite.
...as well as FilmPack (for Luminosity Masking) and ViewPoint (for Perspective Correction). DxO PhotoLab 8 becomes a very pricey and questionable-value option compared to the competition, including subscription-only Adobe. I'm paying for both DxO and Adobe, but for me, DxO is a little hard to justify long-term in terms of value.
I've been using DXO for nearly five years and I find that it still falls far short of LR. The ability to select subjects, using AI in LR is an exceptionally powerful feature that is nonexistent in PL8. Factor in the ability to intersect masks and to add and subtract from them, then LR just destroys PL8 and local adjustments are far more important than global ones, at least in my experience.
Yea it's a pain - no argument from me. I think if they added the add, subtract and intersect functionality then it would at least be a workaround because you could create a subject mask using the autobrush and then use either luma or hue masks to finesse it.
@@bernardlanguillier7970 not at all - when a subject has varied hue, saturation, tonality, u-points don't do a great job whereas typically LR/ACR can still accurately select the subject
Thank you for this review! As an “old” DxO user with licenses for PureRaw 3 and 4 and since PhotoLab6 was released, the update from 7 to 8 is a given for me. Nice upgrade feature: All presets created in the older version 7 are automatically imported into version 8. But as with any new software, there's a small bug: after optimizing a RAW photo and trying to save it as a JPG, a random error occurs, indicated by a red exclamation mark in the bottom right corner of the thumbnail. Shutting down PhotoLab also causes a crash. However, after restarting the software, JPG export works.
Not just people, but main subject, sky, background, brush-selected element... As is so very easy to do in Adobe, Luminar Neo, and ON1 Photo RAW... omg... c'mon DxO.
I was surprised that v8.0 doesn't include the oval selection tools introduced in the most recent version of Nik. Hopefully that will come with a future 8.x release.
Great review and no doubt the upgrade has a number of strengths.with noise reduction and general image editing. I found my edited images were superior to Lightroom with better noise reduction and colour management. But the Print Module in V8 remains basic and in my opinion not the same standard as the rest of the product. The lack of a decent Print Preview window is a major drawback compared with Lightroom and Photoshop. Lack of flexibility with text editing and borders is also underwhelming. I needed up exporting images to Lightroom to Print.
Thanks Brian. I never used the Print module in either LR or Photolab because I always get them professionally printed, but that's interesting information to have.
Nice review. I will likely skip here. I was not surprised when they did not introduce AI masking in PL7, but am now. I do bird photography, and subject selection saves a ton of time and is offered by everyone else, even Photoshop elements. DXO is getting like Henry Ford refusing to improve or offer new features in the Model T.
Great review, Andy. I use both LR and PL, but always seem to come back to PL even though LR has better masking technology. I always enjoyed driving a stick shift car, so maybe that explains it :) .
Thanks for the review, I’m a newcomer to DXO and have not plumbed the depths of version 7.8 yet. I am struggling to see the justification of price they are charging for the upgrade based on the features in version 8, maybe I will have a lightbulb moment somewhere along the line.
I figure it's a bit like upgrading your phone. Sometimes you look at the new features and decide that there isn't a compelling enough reason to change.
Thank you very much for a great piece of info! I am just trying today the new version. I only miss that I can have a mask to hide some parts of my photos, ex: skies, subject.
@@Andyhutchinson I am sad I couldn't install the new update, but I wrote to support and I am waiting to know from them. I guess they will fix this, as not everyone hast the latests firmware in their computeres :)
@@DalsPhotography They can't fix it if you're not meeting DxO's minimum hardware and operating system requirements for PL8, including video processor (the most common gotcha), CPU, and RAM. I know it's expensive, but photo processing is very demanding in terms of hardware and software all up-to-date within the past, say, three-to-five years.
I agree with almost all of your review; Andy. I'm on the fence between upgrading from PL6 to PL8, or switching to DxO PureRaw (and will trial PL8 in November to decide), because I only do DxO's best-in-class noise reduction and (you just touched on this one) optical adjustments, and I do these from Lightroom Classic. Where the lack of masking in DxO really hurts, for example: your favorite PL8 upgrade feature, Lens Softness. With a landscape image, do we really want to sharpen globally, including sky and water? What LrC, Luminar Neo, and ON1 Photo RAW (all of these make heavy use of AI analysis, and are pretty darned good at it now) can do in seconds, isolate and sharpen a subject or other very limited elements we want the .eye to be drawn to, DxO PL8 can't do as fast or reliably as well.
Yea all fair comments mate. I'm actually going to make a video about the whole area of masking because I came to a realisation about AI masks in LR the other day. Pretty much every AI mask I make in LR I have to finesse using either luminosity, hue or autobrush. Because as good as the AI is, there aren't hard and fast rules when it comes to, for instance, the sky to land intersection. The sky tints and alters the brightness of the land in that edge region and if you just accept the sky mask you get a harder edge than would actually occur and it looks slightly unnatural - almost composited - I see it in people's post-processing all the time. And my thinking was, that if I'm having to finesse with luminosity, hue or brush - then why not just use them in the first place? I just don't think a computer has the ability (and I don't think it ever will) to make that judgement call about those edge regions because it's so subjective. I've been a hardcore user of those amazing LR AI masks since they first came out, but I wonder if we've placed too much faith in them. What do you reckon?
Very good review as usual 👍🏻 I stick with LRC though, can’t help it I am an Adobe guy even if that’s a crime today with some creators 😂 just love the how easy the different programs work together.
Yeah, Great software but they're very greedy. I only bought 7 a couple of months ago and they want £99 to upgrade to 8... Nah, it aint that much different. Especially considering the cameras/phones they don't support. Good review as always though!
@@Andyhutchinson If you do not update every other year, you pay full price again. If DXO decides they do not want to support your operating system they will not allow you to activate the DXO software you paid for. Even if it works perfectly fine on your current OS. Sounds like a subscription to me.
@@chris1leAh forget this software. You may as well get Capture One in that case. It has better color processing anyway. This was the comment everyone needs to know about.
I have used DXO raw software for many years - it remains fabulous with the quality of the NR and demosaic, but is slipping further and further behind in terms of masking, which is a big deal - really disappointed not to see AI-driven subject/person/sky/background selection - it's now available in pretty much every single competitor product, even ones from small teams like Luminar. I have bought the upgrade to keep supporting the folks at DXO but come on DXO, we need masking on a par with other products now
I enjoy your videos very much. Your manner is wonderful and I like your willingness to talk honestly about your ADD; not common for one to allow others to glimpse the real person inside. In the meantime, I am curious about your photo editor of choice. What is your go to editor. Ta ta
I decided not to upgrade this years after I did a careful comparison with adobe enhance raw & noise ai. adobe delivers, compared to all flavours of deep prime , less artefacts, better pixel level detail and micro-contrast at the price of some noise. the difference in under exposed and lifted shadows is rather great, xd2 performs good but is no match for adobe as even very low NR setting produce a smeared look in such areas. I also found that it seems adobe now adds a sharpness correction with (some newer ? ) lens profiles what really surprised me. but if quality in deep shadows is less important dxo is the clear winner for speed with very good overall quality. i also think it is rather unfortunate that dxo does not keep both apps PR and PL in sync for deep prime in hope for some extra money.
Certainly not my experience. LR's great - it's my daily driver if you like. But when I have a 5 star shot I use Photolab and have found that it does a far superior job on detail retention over LR's Enhance with the raw details enabled. Also the lens softness correction in Photolab makes LR look like there's vaseline on the lens. :)
Super tempted by DXO. one of the most frustrating things about dxo 7 i found was you had to buy a stupid upgrade to flip an image horizontally 😱. To me that is such a super basic essentials feature, to have to purchase an upgrade to flip your image seems soooo dumb idk.
Yes, that’s correct. They’ll add it in an update in a couple of months like they did with photolab 7 came out. Worked great on the Canon and DJI raws though.
Excellent review, simple and accurate. Question, I have DxO PL7 Elite, but the Luminosity mask will only work if I have DxO Film Pack. Does PL8 include the Luminosity Mask feature without the need for Film Pack. Thank you.
Same as you, I gave up on Adobe and I bought photolab 6. Upgraded to 8 yesterday. The only thing I miss is some supersize option. Now I use Topaz but I do not like it. I take bird pictures and the colours is not right
@@Andyhutchinson How do you like Gigapixel? I do not like it very much, think it change the colours. Of course, some of the pictures are getting very good, but mostly not so good.
Hey Andy, I hope you are correct as the 7.6 version I have (I haven't upgrade it to 7.8 yet) affecting the luminosity and the sharpens of the image then compared with LrC Denoise in a random 500 ISO image of mine to up 200% pixel pipping clearly the Lightroom file is obviously better as is not effecting the image but only the noise... IMHO 😊
A couple of questions. Is the Luma mask now included in PhotoLab as previously you needed to own FilmPack to enable this functionality? I also thought that the colour calibration function was introduced in V7?
No I think you still need the filmpack. The test version of the app we were sent did not have filmpack enabled (which is why I didn't reference it) and the luma masks were disabled. With the colour calibration - I didn't cover that feature in my v7 review so added it here for completeness :)
My understanding is Luminosity Masking requires FilmPack. But I believe Luma tone curve adjustments are a feature of PL8 (Elite 8anyway) regardless of whether you get FilmPack. Luma tone curve adjustments are not the same as Luminosity Masking. I may be wrong; DxO's feature set is a moving target, so try before you buy! lol
Hi, great review , just 1 thing, I am sure you say that one of the images you try in denoise xd2s is a fuji file, i have downloaded the trial and it says fuji is not supported for xd2s, did you just do the fuji file on xd? thanks
DxO will get there. Fujufanz need to be patient, because their camera sensors, while really good, are different from other manufacturer sensors and need a photo app software rewrite for a relatively small market share. You'll notice Fuji compatibility with photo software updates usually lags a bit, if it arrives at all.
@@matrixate because this RU-vidr didn't know if they were being told off for not listing the pricing or if the OP was suggesting that it was very expensive software. Perhaps if the OP had written something like, "What does it cost?" Instead of a single word, three question marks and an emoji, I'd have been able to respond better. To summarise - I ain't fucking psychic.
@@matrixateI’m not an affiliate for DxO or any other company for that matter. Affiliate deals comprise the content creator. I usually work off the 30 day trial version, but DxO sent me a key and according to RU-vid’s rules I have to declare that.
Nice review as usual! *sigh* I had my hopes up for some new auto selection tools. If not quite LR or PS quality, at least a move in that direction. But… alas. Still it remains my go to editor.
