By: Erik Vlietinck
Wed, May 03, 2006 - 9:14:00
Pros: 0

Score:

What do professional photographers need most in the era of digital photography? A camera capable of even more pixels than today’s 11 megapixel devices perhaps? Or software that helps them to quickly correct their photographs for the typical defects modern cameras introduce to photography such as noise, chromatic aberration, vignetting, etc? Not to mention Camera RAW to TIFF, JPEG or DNG conversion.

DxO Optics Pro v3.5 is photo enhancement software for professional photographers and amateurs who are dead-serious about the quality of the photos they shoot. The software is available in three versions, of which I had the honour and especially the pleasure of testing the Elite version --the most complete package. DxO Optics Pro just got awarded the TiPA Award 2006, so they must be doing something right…

The first thing you’ll notice when starting DxO Optics is the clean interface. There are a large number of buttons running along the top toolbar, but they’re all labelled with tooltips, so the navigation around the interface could hardly be any more efficient. Having only a toolbar also leaves much more space to the workspace itself and the thumbnail area.

The working area is divided in three columns: the thumbnail area on the left, the working window in the middle and the Inspector part at right. The whole looks a tiny bit like Apple’s Aperture. However, the comparison between Aperture and DxO Optics would be superficial: there is no comparison possible. Aperture really is a digital photography management tool with some processing tools built-in. DxO Optics Pro has no management features whatsoever; it is entirely and utterly focused on processing image data using very clever algorithms that use the camera characteristics. But just as in Aperture, you can change DxO’s interface layout.

DxO Optics Pro works its magic using information directly from the camera’s lens characteristics. The Elite version supports all lens modules including those for the Canon Eos 5D and all of the 1D series. DxO Optics Pro v3.5 supports most cameras’ RAW format. There are a few exceptions, though. For example, the Kodak P880‘s RAW format is not supported, but the camera’s JPEG format is. Why that is so, is an enigma to me; I’m sure DxO have their reasons.

Digital photography enhancement

Isn’t that an oxymoron? I mean, if the photograph was shot correctly --and we may assume professional photographers know how to shoot decent photography-- then what is there to enhance? Reality? With cameras costing 10,000 USD and upward, surely the quality of the gear must be such that enhancement and correction are words we may safely forget about.

Apparently not. The DxO site itself has some nice examples of photographs that were shot by famous photographers and which were enhanced using DxO. It’s amazing to see what software is capable of when hardware fails.

So, what can DxO do to a decent but not thrillingly good photograph? For starters, when the photography was shot in Camera RAW mode, and your camera is supported by the software, you can convert the RAW format into JPEG or TIFF, or DNG. I tested this feature first with two photographs shot with a Nikon D2 and two with a Canon Eos D1. It worked just as good as Adobe’s RAW conversion. As RAW conversion is very much subject to taste and therefore a personal matter, your mileage may vary.

However, DxO shines in other areas. For example, the software is capable of correcting geometric distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and lens softness, to name just a few of the capabilities.

For my tests, I started out whit the White Point correction feature, simply because that one is the most obvious in the interface as soon as you open a photograph in the working window. The White point setting feature is one of the best and most stunningly efficient I’ve ever seen.

In Aperture and Photoshop you get to set the white point partly as a process of trial and error, unless you’re really professional in which case you’ve probably developed a sixth sense for this from doing it on a daily basis. I’m not a professional, and so photography is more of a hobby and certainly not a daily occupation. I need some thinking before I set a white point correctly, especially with difficult photographs.

With DxO, setting a white point is child’s play. In a small square at the top, the software continuously informs you visually --in realtime-- what the colours will shift to when you click the point your mouse cursor happens to be hovering over. I find that a very useful and well thought out feature.

DxO is full of such clever manual fine tune settings. One thing isn’t that clever: scrolling in the Inspector with a scrolling wheel will not work. But that is, of course, a detail. The results are what count.