With the release of DxO Optics Pro v4.5, DxO Labs became the first company to have a photographic software application that builds a common work flow with Adobe Lightroom. Pioneers in establishing compatibility with Adobe technologies, they found out early that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom would be an important platform for photographers and are now taking advantage of it.
So just what is DxO Optics Pro? According to DxO Labs, it is "The Next generation automatic image enhancement." It can perform image corrections to your photos without human intervention; but once you have the skills you can take control. In fact they have three different levels; Auto, which automatically adjusts your images, Guided, which takes you by the hand and lets you choose which corrections to implement, or Expert in which you handle everything.
So what kind of corrections does DxO Optics Pro do? First it will eliminate distortion, vignetting and lens softness. It does this by requiring you to enter in the kind of camera and lenses that you are using. In fact you should check out which cameras and lenses that are supported by which version before purchasing the product.
Second, it will remove camera noise and chromatic aberration; that purple fringing that is sometimes seen on photographs, especially when enlarged. Third, it fixes exposure and contrast problems without degrading the image. It does this by using local correction techniques. That is each area of the image is treated separately so that the image is fixed where the image needs to be fixed. A lot of other products try fixing the whole image as one. DxO Optics Pro does it without seams or halos.
Fourth it has Advance color control and adjustment. It does this by incorporating all new color functions that include Color Rendition Profiles through Color Modes and DxO Multi-Point Color Balance to give you more flexibility and control. Color Rendition Profiles let you switch from one camera body to another as well as between film looks. It even allows you to achieve color fidelity when developing RAW files. Multi-Point Color Balance allows you to exploit the full range of available color space for RAW or JPEG files. As seen in the picture below, you can see the before and after image side by side to compare.
Fifth, DxO Optics Pro v4.5 gives you the ability to correct perspective using the Auto-Crop feature. This is a keystoning correction feature that fixes a perspective problem when a picture is shot; usually when shooting a building up at an angle, the top of the picture appears wider than the bottom. Previously this could only be corrected by having a specialized "shift" lens or other technical camera.
Sixth, it allows you to make the best optical, lighting and noise corrections on RAW images including a tight integration with RAW applications that support the DNG format. There are some cameras that this RAW engine support is not available for. Please check with the DxO Labs website for current information on product support.
![Adobe Photoshop CS3 [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Yn29U8lYL._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - Prospective DxO user
Hi, while I found your article informative, I find it comes off not so much as a "review" so much as a "plug" for the product. You list all the great features it has (which I agree sound great), however aside from the new things in 4.5 you never bother to address what most people want to know - whether DxO actually does a got job at what it claims to do... leaves me finding this review not that helpful as it basically paraphrases the brochure on DxO's website.
2 - T. Michael Testi
Thanks for your comments and I am sorry if it sounds like a plug, but I guess that in a sense it is a plug since I was really thrilled that the product does exactly what it claims to do.
I spent several days working with it an testing the claims that DxO shows on it's website and so tried to address the ones that worked with. The ones that I did not work, with, I mentioned that they exist; such as the building projects and organizing workflow. The image that I provided in the article was one that I worked with in my testing.
Since that time, I have found it to be quite handy in my workflow. While at the price, this may not be for everyone, it certainly is for me.
Thanks again for your comments and I hope this helps.
T.