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.
Finally the seventh major feature is Highlight recovery. This happens when one or more of the color channels are maxed out. If only one of the channels is clipped, DxO's Highlight Recovery can correct this when working with the RAW image.
Ok, this is what you got if you bought version 4 of DxO Optics Pro. Version 4.5 has been just released and what new features do you get with it. You get integration with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. This version has an exclusive plug-in that you can send your Lightroom images to DxO Optics Pro for processing and once processed they can be sent back to Lightroom. This can be done from either product.
Next there is the Flickr plug-in that will allow you to send your DxO Optics Pro processed images direct to a Flickr account. Then there is the Auto-Crop tool that can automatically crop a batch of images that have been corrected for horizon alignment or perspective. There is also the fact that this version is 25% or more faster than before, it is a pretty ambitious upgrade.
There are things that I haven't covered like the fact that DxO Optics Pro also has the ability to build projects and organize your photos. You can work with images as a project in which you can prioritize your photos by giving them star rankings. You can stack related images together for processing. You can also remove and rotate your images as well. This would be handy if you did not have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom or similar product to handle these tasks. It could then be as simple as pressing Process.
![Adobe Photoshop CS3 [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31rPo-fLAjL._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.