Clipped highlights, but only in Photolab?

so I am doing some further experiments with first NEF raw files provided by OP … let us do the full set of tests to make sure that DxO code indeed converts DNG exactly as it converts NEF in terms of image frame data …

NEF → Adobe DNG Converter → DNG

then


NEF → DxO PL7.4 (default RAW preset) → TIFF(NEF)
DNG → DxO PL7.4 (default RAW preset) → TIFF(DNG)

MatLab >> T1 = imread(‘z:\_PAP2059DNG-DXO-FULL.tif’); T2 = imread(‘z:\_PAP2059NEF-DXO-FULL.tif’); isequal(T1,T2)
ans =
logical
1


NEF → DxO PL7.4 (default RAW preset) → linear DNG (all corrections applied)
DNG → DxO PL7.4 (default RAW preset) → linear DNG (all corrections applied)

MatLab >> R1 = rawread(‘z:\_PAP2059DNG-DXO-FULL.DNG’); R2 = rawread(‘z:\_PAP2059NEF-DXO-FULL.DNG’); isequal(R1,R2)
ans =
logical
1


NEF → DxO PL7.4 (default RAW preset) → linear DNG (Denoise and Optical Corrections only)
DNG → DxO PL7.4 (default RAW preset) → linear DNG (Denoise and Optical Corrections only)

MatLab >> R1 = rawread(‘z:\_PAP2059DNG-DXO-NROC.DNG’); R2 = rawread(‘z:\_PAP2059NEF-DXO-NROC.DNG’); isequal(R1,R2)
ans =
logical
1


so thankfully DxO code works as expected… DNG from NEF → same output

so we can surely just change the sensel data for our purposes to produce synthetic raw file