# Any DXO PL experts out there?



## Zenon (Jul 8, 2018)

When I double clicked on a RAW file it used to open in PS which is what I prefer. I only use DXO for specialty work. I don't know how this changed. It may have been with the last DXO update. When I right click DXO is the default. I went through preferences on both and I can't see where I can change that.   I realize I can right click and select PS but I'd like to know how to change that.


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## Zenon (Jul 8, 2018)

I figured it out


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## mcasan (Jul 11, 2018)

New release of Photolab is not.....and not cheap.


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## Zenon (Jul 11, 2018)

I got PL about 2  months ago. I did get an update email which is generic but it shows the update is 1.2. The version I currently have is 1.2.


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## Colin Grant (Nov 6, 2018)

It is now at 2 but I am not convinced by PL. Have grappled with to for some months. Don't like the interface and I cannot get results as easily as in LR or ON1 for that matter. With NIK/TS on the side there is no need to use anything else in my books.


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## Zenon (Nov 7, 2018)

I'm not using it nearly as much as I thought I would. They offered a photo library with version 2 but it is just a rating system. It doesn't even have a stack to show you what you have done. You go back  the next day and where do you start to fine tune. It's core is pretty much full automation and it does a pretty  decent job. While optical correction is good lens sharpness - over sharpens. That was what I didn't like about it when I first tested it over 5 years ago. It took over too much for me.  

Like a few other Adobe competitors it is designed to catch the eye of a first time tester quickly. I have a feeling that is why Adobe introduced Adobe Colour and bumped up default sharpening to 40. It was a few months after C1 put out a video about how much better it looked out of the box. If owned Adobe I would have done that too. I'll keep DXO around in case I drop the plan but it won't be easy.


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## Colin Grant (Nov 7, 2018)

I agree. I do not find DxO easy to use and the online training is pretty hopeless when compared to others. There is no way I'll drop the plan for DxO. Now ON1 is perhaps a different thing altogether. The 2019 version is looking very good indeed.

Re that DxO DAM, it is a work in progress. They are already testing version  2.1 which takes the concept further.


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## davidedric (Nov 8, 2018)

OTOH I have both DxO and "the plan".  For my (micro four thirds) images, I find the RAW conversion plus PRIME is worth it for me.  So I am trying a workflow of  cull in DxO and batch transfer with preset to Lightroom.  The nice part is that the images arrive in Lightroom one at a time, so I can start in Develop pretty much straight away. Does make the fans hum, though.


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## Zenon (Nov 8, 2018)

Version 1? What do you use for colour? After it goes to LR you can only use legacy profiles. With version 2 you can choose from Adobe profiles and others. That would have been the only thing that might have motivated me to get the upgrade but I purchased version 1 six months ago and they wouldn't do anything for me.


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## Zenon (Nov 8, 2018)

davidedric said:


> OTOH I have both DxO and "the plan".  For my (micro four thirds) images, I find the RAW conversion plus PRIME is worth it for me.  So I am trying a workflow of  cull in DxO and batch transfer with preset to Lightroom.  The nice part is that the images arrive in Lightroom one at a time, so I can start in Develop pretty much straight away. Does make the fans hum, though.



What is your workflow regarding a folder. It


davidedric said:


> OTOH I have both DxO and "the plan".  For my (micro four thirds) images, I find the RAW conversion plus PRIME is worth it for me.  So I am trying a workflow of  cull in DxO and batch transfer with preset to Lightroom.  The nice part is that the images arrive in Lightroom one at a time, so I can start in Develop pretty much straight away. Does make the fans hum, though.



What is your workflow. I have only exported select files from LR to DXO and back. I just tried opening 5 new RAW files in DXO first and exported them to LR. Now I have a set of CR2 and DNG files.


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## davidedric (Nov 9, 2018)

It's early days, but so far...

I start in DxO, so there no files in Lightroom.
I select the files in DxO and Export to Lightroom with a Preset of PRIME and a little Smart Lighting
The .dng from DxO appears in my Lightroom catalogue (I assume it knows to put in the same folder as the original)
So yes, I have the RAW files and the .dng's on disk, but only the .dng's are imported to Lightroom
It does default to displaying it in the DxO Collection, which is irritating.

I don't use any Lightroom Import presets, so I don't know if they would be applied.

Dave


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## Zenon (Nov 9, 2018)

Yeah I find the collections part annoying as well. I made a mistake as I haven't used it for a while. If you export as a DNG you have access to Adobe and camera profiles in LR.  I found this info on the web a while ago. If you want your color adjustments in DXO to stick then you need to export as TIFF to Lightroom. If you use DXO for lens correction and noise reduction only and want to do all color work in Lightroom export as DNG.  Tried 5 files yesterday and it is slow. DXO is even slow when exporting to disk. Apparently Prime is the culprit.      

I can say for sure it does not apply any LR setting if you export from LR to DXO. As for directly from DXO I looked at those files and it applied my Clarity and Sharpening settings that I set up in the Default Develop Settings so it will honour presets. It disabled Lens corrections because my guess is I used it in DXO. Can't say if it would honour NR presets because mine are disabled. I use a plugin for that after import.


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## artHarris (Jan 14, 2019)

Zenon said:


> Yeah I find the collections part annoying as well. I made a mistake as I haven't used it for a while. If you export as a DNG you have access to Adobe and camera profiles in LR.  I found this info on the web a while ago. If you want your color adjustments in DXO to stick then you need to export as TIFF to Lightroom. If you use DXO for lens correction and noise reduction only and want to do all color work in Lightroom export as DNG.  Tried 5 files yesterday and it is slow. DXO is even slow when exporting to disk. Apparently Prime is the culprit.
> 
> I can say for sure it does not apply any LR setting if you export from LR to DXO. As for directly from DXO I looked at those files and it applied my Clarity and Sharpening settings that I set up in the Default Develop Settings so it will honour presets. It disabled Lens corrections because my guess is I used it in DXO. Can't say if it would honour NR presets because mine are disabled. I use a plugin for that after import.


I have been using DxO for several years and rarely export to Lightroom, preferring Aperture, even tho’ Apple have given up on it. Aperture is my filing system, so the recent ‘as yet’  imperfect approach in DxO is no problem for me. DxO can do everything I need in photo-editing, it just needs learning. I agree that the working of some of the modules are difficult to understand and the instructions opache but persevering works.


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## Colin Grant (Jan 14, 2019)

Have been playing with DxO for months and cannot get on with it. It is far from intuitive, it is geeky even. I can get better results from Lr and I can also still use Nik as a plugin. So PhotoLab is now on the  back-burner and I cannot see me upgrading it again - not unless they do something with that awful user interface. But we are all different thankfully


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## Phil Olenick (Jan 14, 2019)

I'm a fan of DxO but not an "expert." I export from LR Classic to DxO (using it as a plugin), because I like DxOs noise reduction, perspective correction (it gives me undistorted wide aspect ratio images from my inexpensive EF-S 10-17 lens, turning it into an "anamorphic" widescreen lens, instead of a distorted mess), and it gives me great looking color and contrast without extensive fiddling with curves and such. I haven't had the time to experiment with the features added in the transition from "OpticsPro" to "PhotoLab", but their email support (which is reasonably prompt) helped me move a few tweaks I had made by copying one file to the new program's folder.

To keep the benefits of DxO's adjustments, particularly to color and contrast, I export back to LR as a TIFF, since if I send it back as a DNG I lose those and am back to Adobe's rendition. The export has ".dxo" added into the filename before the filetype extension.

If you're someone who, like me, coming from Bridge and Photoshop to Lightroom, finds the whole "catalog" process off-putting and has never, several years into using Lightroom, put in the time to learn how to use collections and virtual versions of the same image - DxO's import from disk is much more like using Bridge. At this point, I only use Lightroom and Photoshop for layer work or final export to jpg or printing.


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## Zenon (Nov 23, 2019)

Zenon said:


> I figured it out



I wish I had written down what I did. New computer with fresh installs and I can't figure it out - again. Been all over the internet and I found this link.


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## Colin Grant (Nov 27, 2019)

I am afraid DxO are now none runners - they do not, and never will apparently, support Fuji X.


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## Zenon (Nov 28, 2019)

Figure it out - again. This time I'm posting in case I need to do this again one day. I also wrote it down.

Right click on a RAW file and select get info. Change to PS and then "change all" to apply to all Raw files. Not sure how Windows works but it is probably similar.


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