Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: sacchini on March 29, 2008, 05:29:07 pm
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I'm a regular reader of articles (reviews, tutorials, essays and so on) published on "Luminous Landscape" website.
I really appreciate what I find on the website and my appreciation extend to authors and contributors, Alain Briot included.
But I can't read latest tutorial to DxO Optics Pro v5 without surprise; and it's a negative one.
The tutorial describe missing functionalities as they were working.
As an example: "Clipping indicator buttons for highlight and shadows are available under the palette (not visible in this screen shot)."
They are not visible simply because DxO has not develop that functionality yet, even if it was there in previous version 4.51 and it's described in the user guide.
So, my question is; Alain Briot has ever used DxO Optics Pro v5 or has written the tutorial just reading the user guide?
Reading DxO forums would be enough to know how many missing features have been discovered in DxO Optics Pro v5; Undo, clipping indicators and many others.
Is it correct to publish a tutorial that describe what is not there?
I decided to post this critic just because I really appreciate your job and I would like to know that every article published is top quality, as I was used reading the precious resources on your website.
(Sorry for my poor english)
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I would like to know if Alain has received or will receive any compensation from DXO in regards to reviewing and recommending this product? Certainly, such things should be revealed upfront ("Yes, I do receive" or "No, I don't") so that a truly informed decision can be made.
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I would like to know if Alain has received or will receive any compensation from DXO in regards to reviewing and recommending this product? Certainly, such things should be revealed upfront ("Yes, I do receive" or "No, I don't") so that a truly informed decision can be made.
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As a matter of fact, I don't want to be (or to appear) suspicious about that.
Simply, I would like to know if it was a "hands-on" tutorial (but I wonder on which version, sure not a public one) or based on news published by DxO.
For more transparencies: I'm a long time user of DxO Optics Pro and I bought it some years ago and always upgraded when new versions came out.
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Since I am not familiar with the product myself I have assumed that Alain's write up was accurate.
I will be touch with him on this, and if there are errors or omissions they will be corrected once Alain has had an opportunity to respond.
Michael
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Before my present career in photography, I designed and built custom furniture and as such read the very fine publication "Fine Woodworking" put out by Taunton Press. I had always read the reviews of equipment with a pretty keen eye, basing purchases on them sometimes. An issue came that included a very intensive review of a tool I had had for quite some time and the article was so filled with misinformation and glaring omissions that I came to the conclusion the author spent about a hour with the tool and put pen to paper.
I never trusted the author after that.
Not in any way implying this is the case, just a reminder how important it is to get it right the first time.
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Since I am not familiar with the product myself I have assumed that Alain's write up was accurate.
I will be touch with him on this, and if there are errors or omissions they will be corrected once Alain has had an opportunity to respond.
Michael
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Thanks
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I believe Alain's article appearing in this site is the same one appearing on his site and linked to from DXO.com home page. I'm not implying anything with this, just thought I should let you know.
My personal recommendation to anyone contemplating buying DxO V5 is first to scan carefully through their user forums. Funilly DxO have recently decided to make these forums unreadable unless one registers first.
I have been a DxO user for long and I have purchased DxO V5. I am not using it though since I find it a. too buggy b. not properly documented c. not being able to support what I think should be a proper Pro workflow (e.g. no way to import, export or merge project databases) and d. its project database implementation leaves much to be desired in terms of protection from data (work done) loss (too many instances of project database corruption).
Additionally I have decided I hate and can't tolerate their protection and activation scheme (which has been in place long before V5).
I would have expected any objective review (unless Alain's piece is not meant as a review but only as a usage tutorial) to at least touch on some of the above issues.
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I believe Alain's article appearing in this site is the same one appearing on his site and linked to from DXO.com home page. I'm not implying anything with this, just thought I should let you know.
My personal recommendation to anyone contemplating buying DxO V5 is first to scan carefully through their user forums. Funilly DxO have recently decided to make these forums unreadable unless one registers first.
I have been a DxO user for long and I have purchased DxO V5. I am not using it though since I find it a. too buggy b. not properly documented c. not being able to support what I think should be a proper Pro workflow (e.g. no way to import, export or merge project databases) and d. its project database implementation leaves much to be desired in terms of protection from data (work done) loss (too many instances of project database corruption).
Additionally I have decided I hate and can't tolerate their protection and activation scheme (which has been in place long before V5).
I would have expected any objective review (unless Alain's piece is not meant as a review but only as a usage tutorial) to at least touch on some of the above issues.
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I'm also a long term user of DXo and at present v5 is, in my experience, not ready for release. It is clunky an dbuggy at present on my dual core 3.4GHz PC with 4Gb ram. I'm currently using LR for almost everything and hope that DXo get their act together and sort out the software so it's worth the upgrade fee I paid.
I now start it up periodically in the hope that it will let me know there is a new build available (and that it will work) and that it supports the 1Ds3. It would be nice if it worked with DNGs as well, but I can live without that. Also, the LR integration is a bit of a joke - although in fairness I think that the sort of modular raw conversion we'd like is maybe a step too far at present.
Mike
Mike
Mike
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I have tried that software everytime it comes out with a new release. It has got to be the biggest pile of crap I have ever sludged through to attept to use. I think 20 different people, none of which ever actually worked on a photograph, all got to gether and designed it seprately, without ever talking to one another.
Lightroom and Aperture put it to SHAME for those parts that overlap. The other parts - not important whatsoever to me.
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I would have expected any objective review (unless Alain's piece is not meant as a review but only as a usage tutorial) to at least touch on some of the above issues.
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I assumed from its tone that Alain's piece was meant as a usage tutorial and not as a review. As such it goes a long way toward filling the gap left by DxO's woeful documentation.
I haven't had time to explore V5 further to see if I can find any of the missing or broken features. I hope to spend some time with it in May, after I get back from a New Mexico trip.
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I assumed from its tone that Alain's piece was meant as a usage tutorial and not as a review. As such it goes a long way toward filling the gap left by DxO's woeful documentation.
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That was my impression as well. It's not as if he compared it to Lightroom or Aperture. It was useful to me to read a logical overview of how the thing is supposed to work, and I learned some helpful tidbits from the piece.
I have been disspointed by some of the missing features, but I still find DXO can produce really excellent output in spite of them. It still needs a lof of bug fixes, and can be ferociously slow (perhaps due to the new noise reduction architecture?), but when it stabilizes, I plan to use it quite a bit.
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I downloaded the trial 4.5 after reading Alain's piece. On the 50 or so photos I processed, it made a noticeable difference.
I would be willing to buy the product for my MacBook Pro to prep files for LR/PS, but the standard version doesn't support the EOS 5D and as a non-professional I see no reason to pay twice the price for the Elite version that does support the 5D.
Regarding Alain's review, I assumed it's no coincidence that he's French and DO is based in Paris. Fine by me.
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I would be willing to buy the product for my MacBook Pro to prep files for LR/PS, but the standard version doesn't support the EOS 5D and as a non-professional I see no reason to pay twice the price for the Elite version that does support the 5D.
I faced the same issue with a D2x, to me this pricing model is pathetic and I would never consider supporting them as long as they keep it.
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I use DXO version 4.5 on my Mac for my Canon 5Ds. It does make a noticeable difference that I do not think can be duplicated in any other software I've used -- and I've used Photoshop extensively for over 10 years. Whether or not it's worth the price is up to each individual. For me, it's easily worth it, though I am not a professional. I don't evaluate the price as, is it worth more than twice the elite version, but rather is it worth it for me to get better prints at this price? My answer to that is a resounding "yes." And it saves me tons of time. It's a great product, notwithstanding the apparent birthing problems for version 5 (which isn't out on a Mac yet).
I downloaded the trial 4.5 after reading Alain's piece. On the 50 or so photos I processed, it made a noticeable difference.
I would be willing to buy the product for my MacBook Pro to prep files for LR/PS, but the standard version doesn't support the EOS 5D and as a non-professional I see no reason to pay twice the price for the Elite version that does support the 5D.
Regarding Alain's review, I assumed it's no coincidence that he's French and DO is based in Paris. Fine by me.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=185779\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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Curiously - when I was using the 20D + 17-85 and photoshop I found DXO indispensable, but with the 5D + 24-104L and Lightroom I find it often does more harm than good and has fallen into disuse.
I guess the superior images produced by the 5D + 24-105 mean that the stuff that DXO is good at becomes much less important.
Also somehow the lighting corrections which worked very nicely with my previous setup seem to destroy all the subtle tonality of the 5D images.
And of course we're still waiting for a Mac v5.
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I've just read the update that Alain Briot has written to his "Introduction and Tutorial to DxO Optics Pro V5".
Every question has found its answer and I really appreciate the way this topic has been managed.
What happened has made me even more satisfied about reading articles on this website that I rate as accurate and reliable.
Many thanks to everyone for the commitment in their job (or hobbies...).
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My only gripe with Alain at this point is that I had never really considered such a product before. Now I have tried it, found that it makes a significant difference and have to decide what to do about this additional element of complexity and expense.
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My only gripe with Alain at this point is that I had never really considered such a product before. Now I have tried it, found that it makes a significant difference and have to decide what to do about this additional element of complexity and expense.
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Wait until the program at least stabilizes and most of the bugs are ironed out and then reconsider seriously?
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I use DXO and the 5D and 24-105mm and 17-40mm, and find it indispensable for enhancing local contrast with DXO lighting. I also use Lightroom. For landscape images, DXO lighting (a module within DXO) is fantastic. For portraits, I often prefer not using DXO lighting and relying more on Lightroom. But even where I use Lightroom as my main raw conversion program, I always use DXO for chromatic aberration, lens softness (evening out lens defects so that the image is uniformly sharp across the frame), and vignetting before correcting white balance, highlight recovery, etc. in Lightroom. And where geometry is important for perspective correction DXO also is fantastic.
Curiously - when I was using the 20D + 17-85 and photoshop I found DXO indispensable, but with the 5D + 24-104L and Lightroom I find it often does more harm than good and has fallen into disuse.
I guess the superior images produced by the 5D + 24-105 mean that the stuff that DXO is good at becomes much less important.
Also somehow the lighting corrections which worked very nicely with my previous setup seem to destroy all the subtle tonality of the 5D images.
And of course we're still waiting for a Mac v5.
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ευχαριστώ Niko. Good advice, although the version I'm trialing is the older 4.5 on the Mac. Version 5.0 hasn't been released for Mac yet. And from what I'm reading, it seems the developers are exactly speedy in ironing out bugs or enhancing usability.
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Hello everyone,
I am pleased that my update is being helpful in answering the many questions that readers have about DxO 5. Here are a few more solutions that were emailed to me following Michael posting the update:
A - Applying image corrections to several images at once.
Here are several solutions to apply image corrections to several images at once:
1 - Make all your corrections then create a preset for these corrections. You can then apply this preset to any photo. You can also use the command "load with preset" when selecting the images.
2 - Copy and paste the settings from one image to another or to a group of images. When you are done with adjusting the settings for a specific image, go to the Prepare tab, right click on the image in the scrolling image well at the bottom of the screen, and select "copy setting" from the drop down menu that comes up after you right-click on the image. Then, staying in the image well at the bottom of the screen, select all the images that you want to apply this setting to with Control-A, right click, and select "paste settings."
3 - Create a stack of images and apply the preset or copy the settings to the stack.
B - Batch Processing (from Jim Nash)
1 - Choose one photo to apply your corrections to
2 - After that photo is spotlighted on your screen select all of the other photos that you wish any changes to apply to (these will not appear on the main screen but any changes you apply to the first photo will also be applied to
the others selected).
3 - Select "process" and go get a cup of coffee. My Mac Pro (quad processor) works on 4 images at a time and takes about 36 seconds to do the 4 images- a net of 9 images per transformation (running Windows).
C - Mac version
The day after I wrote my update I received an email from DxO saying that the Mac Beta Version won't be released until sometime this April. As it stands we may not have a Mac version until this Summer... Realistically, the Mac and Windows versions should be made available at the same time, or within a reasonable time delay, not 6 months to a year apart. Again, here too this is turning some loyal users away from DxO for no other reason than not having the software available for their platform.
Again, if you have any comments or questions simply email me at alain@beautiful-landscape.com
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Alain,
Thanks for both the update and the update to the update. You have answered all my questions very clearly. I had wondered about the issue of "Applying image corrections to several images at once" because I have been using presets regularly in earlier versions. It's good to have that cleared up.
And I certainly hope they do get their revisions on a speedier schedule.
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1) - Thank you for the updates and this thread.
2) - I agree with Stuarte when he said that he now has a decision to make about complexity and expense.
I'm still in the 2 week trial of V5 and have found:
* - that for "push the button" automated conversion of several hundred images to JPG for distribution to the family, DxO is demonstrably superior to DPP.
* - that for intense effort work (not being expert at either) I find that DxO and ACR are about equal, but different. DPP loses.
* - after washing through PS, they seem mostly equal (ACR, DxO, DPP)
Perhaps, one of these days, you might wish to write an article about all of the tools that you are experimenting with and find to be of value; i.e., Photomatic, PhotoAcute, etc. I check Outback Photo every couple days and find that the reviews are not as useful as the article just written - especially the paragraph about which converter you use when and why.
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ευχαριστώ Niko. Good advice, although the version I'm trialing is the older 4.5 on the Mac. Version 5.0 hasn't been released for Mac yet. And from what I'm reading, it seems the developers are exactly speedy in ironing out bugs or enhancing usability.
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Stuarte you're welcome. Not often you meet non-Greeks in forums speaking a bit of the language. How come?
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Regarding batch processing, be aware that quite a few users (including me) have discovered a memory leak problem in current DxO release (under XP) which will result to dxO crashing due to virtual storage limitations when trying to process many images. Your mileage may vary depending on image size and OS configuration but most users get hit by this when trying to process more than 200-300 images in a batch.
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Stuarte you're welcome. Not often you meet non-Greeks in forums speaking a bit of the language. How come?
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I love learning languages and I have friends on Syros, so I took some Greek evening classes. Great, great language, even Νεοελληνική Κοινή, let alone Καθαρεύουσα. Also very photogenic place and people.
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1) - Thank you for the updates and this thread.
2) - I agree with Stuarte when he said that he now has a decision to make about complexity and expense.
I'm still in the 2 week trial of V5 and have found:
* - that for "push the button" automated conversion of several hundred images to JPG for distribution to the family, DxO is demonstrably superior to DPP.
* - that for intense effort work (not being expert at either) I find that DxO and ACR are about equal, but different. DPP loses.
* - after washing through PS, they seem mostly equal (ACR, DxO, DPP)
Perhaps, one of these days, you might wish to write an article about all of the tools that you are experimenting with and find to be of value; i.e., Photomatic, PhotoAcute, etc. I check Outback Photo every couple days and find that the reviews are not as useful as the article just written - especially the paragraph about which converter you use when and why.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=186565\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
After my earlier comments I had another go at DX05 last night and succeeded in converting 5 images without any artefacts being left all over my screen. Comments in comparison to LR/ACR for the 5D are basically below:
* Colour rendering in DXo is much better than LR, even after LR calibration it is easier to get to my desired endpoint. However, LR has some really useful colour controls that DXo lacks. I still prefer the approach DXo takes to white balance to that of LR.
* Lighting engine in DXo seems improved over v4.x and offers a useful alternative to some of LRs functionality. Makes some images sing with much less effort than LR/CS3 approaches. Both have their place here I think, as the LR exposure, blacks, recovery and fill lsiders are very helpful.
* Lens softness in DXo is excellent, but there are some glaring omissions from the supported lens list, e.g. does nobody else use a 100m f2.8 macro on a 5D!. The usm in DXo is very good, but the LR capture sharpening is outstanding in its flexibility.
* LR/ACR has vastly improved demosaicing than the ealier versions (pre v4) that means that it is now very close (maybe even equal to) to DXo. I got some output from DXo that looked better than the bare output from LR, but there could be differences in capture sharpening that would deal with this.
* Obviously DXo does a good job at automated optical correction with supported lens body combinations, which LR doesn't. However, there are some galring omissions, including the 1Ds3!!!! and the Canon 100 2.8 macro on full frame. As an aside (Alan, you may be able to flag this to DXo??) Canon appear to be recording the focus distance in the exif data of the 1Ds3 and I think in the 5D for firmware 1.0.6 on - DXo should be able to read this and improve the automated function.
* The dust function works well on both, and on DXo can be used to remove hot pixels (night exposure - 2.5s at iso 1600)
* LR has an absolutely brilliant interface and workflow that DXO would do well to emulate or to improve integration with.
Overall as a converter I still prefer DXo to LR/ACR, but like the LR workflow and the stability. I am still not happy with the LR colour rendering and even notice this on my GX100, where reds in particular are rendered radically different from the camera jpeg - which is actually pretty good in this respect.
At least this thread has got me looking at DXo seriously again as one of my tools. I will be very pleased when they get v5 running better, introduce support for the 1Ds3 and tidy up the gaps in the supported body/lens lineup.
Mike
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Mike,
Thanks for the excellent mini-review of DxO 5. I, too, have been waiting for a long time for the 100 macro on the 5D to be supported. Not exactly a new camera or a new lens, either.
Eric
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I've never seen a macro lens supported for any camera, although I haven't checked lately.
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A couple more things I wanted to mention about DxO 5.
First, there is now a book available on DxO 5. Unfortunately it's only in French but the content is excellent. It is written as a tutorial, very much like my essay, but it goes much further being 160 pages long. Here is the link to the book, titled DXO pour les Photographes on Amazon.fr:
http://www.amazon.fr/DxO-pour-photographes...07319845&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.fr/DxO-pour-photographes-Jean-Marie-Sepulchre/dp/2212122780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207319845&sr=8-1)
If you can read French, like DxO and want a detailed tutorial this fits the bill. I have a copy and I attest that it is written in a very clear and practical manner, has a detailed table of contents and covers DxO 5 in great detail.
Second, several readers pointed out that DxO 5 won't run on Vista either. I think that's because 64 bit is not supported, be it Vista or Windows XP. I asked DxO about that and they confirmed that DxO 5 is not supported and not designed to run under either platform. They are working on an update but have no release date as of now.
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Second, several readers pointed out that DxO 5 won't run on Vista either. I think that's because 64 bit is not supported, be it Vista or Windows XP. I asked DxO about that and they confirmed that DxO 5 is not supported and not designed to run under either platform. They are working on an update but have no release date as of now.
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DXO runs fine on 32 bit Vista.
I suspect the reason that DXO doesn't spend resources developing corrections for macro lenses is that they aren't generally needed. Even my cheap Sigma macro is extremely well controlled. No perceivable distortion, CA, fringing, etc. I don't really need any corrections for it.
On the other hand, the sophisticated DXO lens corrections for zooms allow me to get some really nice results from lenses that have awful CA and loads of distortion. (And I'd say PTlens gets you about 85% of that lens improvement for a lot less money, though obviously it can't do all of the other things DXO can.)
I've postulated before that we may reach a point where lens makers can simplify their optical formulas by allowing all kind of optical flaws that will be automatically corrected in post processing. That way, the lenses could be smaller, faster, lighter, and much cheaper to manufacture. If you think about it, Canon is almost there now. If you buy a Canon DSLR with one of the kit lenses, DPP can automatically correct many of the optical faults they have, and DXO can do even better.
I know I'm admitting heresy (and will draw fire from the matters/doesn't matter warriors), but I've actually taken some pretty decent pictures with an 18-55 before. DXO can fix the horrible distortion and CA pretty completely. I wouldn't rely on one for paid work, but it's pretty cool to get a great 8X10 from a cheap crop DSLR with an essentially disposable lens.
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I've never seen a macro lens supported for any camera, although I haven't checked lately.
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DXo actually supports the 100 macro for the 20D, so it's a mystery why the 5D isn't supported. I know the lens is already excellent, but even without the geometry corrections I think the lens blur function could add even more to what is already excellent.
Mike
Alain,
thanks for your comments and further notes.
Mike
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After a couple of weeks of checking out DxO Pro on my Macs, I'm impressed with some of the results but EXTREMELY frustrated with the interface and workflow.
When they eventually get round to releasing V 5.0 for Mac, I'll check it out again. Until then, I'm keeping my money.
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After a couple of weeks of checking out DxO Pro on my Macs, I'm impressed with some of the results but EXTREMELY frustrated with the interface and workflow.
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Reminds me of RealViz Stitcher's nonstandard(weird) interface, documentation and (lack of) manual (but it's capable of great results). Do the French software producers in general approach that aspect of software similarly, and if so, why? Or is it just coincidental? Or does that approach work as "intuitive" for French users? There has to be a reason they make them the way the do, doesn't there?
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Do the French software producers in general approach that aspect of software similarly, and if so, why? Or is it just coincidental? Or does that approach work as "intuitive" for French users?
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First : No, it's not easier for us Frenchies .
We could dissert for hours about cultural differences between France and the barb... errr, sorry, outside world, but that would lead us very far away from photography...
PS : you know, Qimage is being developped by a guy living in FL .
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I couldn't give a rat's ass about the nationality of the developers. Je m'en fous royalement.
DxO is an application that delivers impressive results but the interface of 4.5 has stumped me so far and, while I'm at it, the pricing policy sucks. Ils pourraient faire mieux.
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The public Mac Beta version of DxO 5 is now available:
http://dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro/beta_mac (http://dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro/beta_mac)
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I am still wondering, aside from the obvious distortion corrections, what exactly this software is offering, that is so compulsive. Maybe I missed something, sure its ok..but far from the best I have used overall.
Now I am not suggesting Alain is being easier on them, on the basis that I believe they are a french company or anything like that ;-) But..hmmm, I think they can do better, speed wise it not too amazing either, even on a decent pc.
Quick note to Alain, like you shots on your site, but I think you are undercharging for prints ;-) lol
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I am still wondering, aside from the obvious distortion corrections, what exactly this software is offering, that is so compulsive. Maybe I missed something, sure its ok..but far from the best I have used overall.
What other applications are out there offering comparable distortion correction? I've found it most striking on the EOS 5D + 100-400 mm combination - less so with the 24-105 mm.
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What other applications are out there offering comparable distortion correction?
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[stating the obvious]
Well, PTLens... Not exactly the same league in terms of use, but not the same price either.
[/stating the obvious]