Beware of New "DxO Style – Natural" Default Preset

Thanks @Stenis! I’m not giving up for sure. I did exactly as you describe above and am getting the same results I got with PL6. I’m just frustrated I spent on something I’m actively working around. Hopefully the good content above saves someone the same…

Did you buy pl7 for DxO style natural ?
You still have DxO standard.

I don’t understand what bother you.

camera is an input device… so what is “Olympus’s color gamut” ? unlike ViewSonic which makes output devices ( that indeed have gamut ) Olympus makes input devices ( that do not have any gamut ) .

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After many years of getting similar results of from DxO updates, I was suddenly getting different results from PL7. It took me much trial and error to determine that the default preset had changed drastically. I initially thought HDR - Realistic had changed, as it overrides most of the new default presets. It seems I’m the only one who experienced this, so maybe this post is pointless…

A camera is also an output device when photos are exported and displayed onscreen. Gamut might be the wrong word, but Olympus’s colors differ from Canon, Nikon, and other brands. My point is that DxO Style - Natural changes those colors, overemphasizing the red end of the spectrum. Regardless of how one chooses to describe it, it’s a first in my experience from DxO…

Default presets can change when a new version is released, but since preset you like still exist and you can decide what preset is used when opening an image (this choice is done in preference panel), what is the problem (maybe I don’t understand your point) ?

There’s no problem, @JoPoV. I’m merely pointing out a change in something that hadn’t changed substantively in many years and wasn’t advertised as such. I found nothing Googling it, so I posted this description for others to find should they do the same…

Indeed, google have become how to learn things for many, and DxO should really take care of it.

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@deserator

You might not have seen this (or too late)
Image Browser vs. Editor - #6 by Wolfgang
Photolab 7 Elite Not Saving Preferences - #3 by Wolfgang
:man_shrugging:

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Thanks, @Wolfgang! Indeed, I missed it entirely, but misery loves company, so I’m relieved to know I’m not the only one who noticed and corrected it…

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I believe you can choose what the default is , and even if not a simple ‘selec’ and a click to apply will set it up . Every option is still available to get the exact same rendering as earlier.

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It’s a default which as you have done, is easily changed, never to be thought about again :slight_smile:
I have played about with a couple of Olympus images and I don’t see a big difference between camera profile and natural. Could you post a couple of examples of the differences you are seeing?

On a separate topic, given you are sensitive to Olympus renderings, how accurate do the Camera body renderings look to you ie do the Olympus camera body renderings actually give good results?

I get your point, Deserator, and why the PL7 default setting change was messing you up. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to check that, either, right away.

I’m also an Olympus shooter lately, previously Canon, and what makes most sense to me, rather than relying upon either the DxO Style - Natural or DxO Standard presets is to set up a custom preset for each camera body that includes the settings Stenis showed you:

Try to stay with “Wide gamut” and Type: “Generic rendering” and Rendering: “The DXO camera profile for your camera”. (see image)

With an open image, set those settings and whatever other settings you want applied to your images by default. Then create a new preset with those settings, label it with your camera body name, and set it in Preferences as the default preset. When you open an image to work on shot with a different body, remember to choose the preset you’ve also created for that body in Preset Editor. While working on a particular image, you can always change a default setting applied in your preset. Working this way really speeds the workflow because many settings, you won’t change for different images.

My reply to this post, and to the one about Lens Sharpening: why do you bother about default settings, when you have the option to choose different ones from the default?

It makes no sense to use a powerful tool like PL and then to complain about default settings: make your own. The program allows you to do that and to get better results/results that suit your taste best.

Laziness!

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Thanks, @IanS! I’m new to posting on this forum, but I’ll give it a try. Here’re two images straight from my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk III via DxO, the first with the DxO Standard preset with the correct camera profile…

Not a great pic, sorry, but it illustrates the reason I love Olympus in the first place: it accurately represents the colors of the desert. The DxO Standard rendering of this pic is pretty much what you’d see if you were standing there next to me in the McCoy Mountains…

The DxO Style - Natural preset yields tangibly different results…

The McCoy mountains are overwhelmingly brown with hints of orangish red. The DxO Style - Natural rendering is bringing out way too much of the orange/red. I like how it renders the sky, but the DxO Standard rendering is more accurate…

On your separate topic, I’ve only experimented with Camera Body renderings a little. I rendered a pic from current camera like my E-M1 Mk I and found the results acceptable but different. I still have that camera (and an E-M5 Mk II), so I can get more into it if this topic takes off…

As a landscape photographer, I like the new Natural rendering a lot. The old Standard one is dull, IMHO.

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Thanks for the reinforcement, @dxodm! I’ve been doing as you describe for years to save my white balance and noise reduction settings for quick application…

Screenshot 2023-11-26 at 12.06.46 PM

Fortunately (or unfortunately, more on that in a minute), all are based upon what was then the DxO Standard preset, which hadn’t changed terribly in years so I never considered it…

Now that I think about it, I might want to change my existing presets to include Wide Gamut and the corresponding camera rendering, as I still have thousands of pics on which to catch up…

Finally, is there an Olympus group on this forum? I think some of my thoughts might only be applicable there, if anywhere…

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I have earlier pointed out that there are issues in version 7 compared to version 6 when it comes to the image rendering and the color management. The white dot is between d and a in Kodak

Classic - Rendering:

Plese look carefully at the position of the “Intensity slider” (the value is set to 41)

Wide Gamut - Rendring
Nothing is changed other than switching to Wide from Classic

Please look again!
The color has become more brownish BUT, the value is still 41 DESPITE the slider is definitely more to the right than with Classic and in this case the white dot is just under the hyphen in T-Max. If I should fend of that I would need to pull the slider left to about 20.

In this example it will be hard for you to see the difference I see on my Display P3-profiled screen because the web application probably turns everything into sRGB anyway.

I don´t know why this color cast happens and it is limited to images I have given a slight touch of Sepia under “Style - Toning”. So, I guess DXO has some toning of their own to look into because even this is an example of things that have changed compared to the color management of version 6.

Of this reason I have decided not to convert these images to Wide Gamut.

These examples we have discussed here have alerted me and I feel that I just can´t trust the Color Management and the Rendering of version 7.

The downside with that might be that it might affect the export with Display P3 ICC since Wide Gamut is more suitable to handle that than the Classic.

@Lucabeer
We have to distinguish between a Standard preset and a default rendering that in version 6 by default leaned on and used the default camera profile for the actual camera the user is using. That was automatically set when Photolab detected the camera model code in the very image file.

The problem with version 7 even for me, has been that the choice/default of the "Renderings"with Wide Gamut of some reasons (not all the time) have been ignoring this camera model code and instead Photolab 7 has picked “DXO - Natural” as default and that chiose definitely affect the colors.

Is it all that strange that a normal user at first might miss that?? I am rather convinced most people will start using version 7 right away assured that their settings will not change after an upgrade. It is not the user that have made something odd here but DXO. It is very natural that users expect not having to adjust all the images they already have fixed just because the manufacturer of Photolab have reworked their Color Management??

I don´t think laziness is the appropriate word here at all. It is DXO that have to safe guard that they don´t fuck up the rendering for their users.

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deserator, I do not know of an Olympus group or subforum here. I know DxO PhotoLab Elite is used by many Olympus shooters, and it’s not hard to understand why. The Olympus sensor is a noisy little sucker at ISO 800+, and PhotoLab, DeepPRIME and DeepPRIME XD clean up noisy Olympus images quite efficiently.

Actually I have since realized from other posts here that I don’t need separate profiles for each camera body… you can certainly run it that way if you prefer, but you risk accidentally importing images set to the wrong camera body and not notice the issue. If you just set your default import profile (or manually run this profile after import) to Color tab > Color Rendering > Category > Generic renderings, and Light tab > Vignetting > Correction > Auto with DxO Optics Module, PhotoLab should automatically select the correct supported camera body and lens. You can verify it did this for the camera body, anyway, by looking at an image after import or manual use of the profile under Color tab > Color Rendering > Rendering and seeing the correct camera body is designated.