This thread is about PhotoLab differences on Win vs. Mac and if we think of such differences as of issues, we might as well widen our field of view in order to make eventual improvements act in a more general way.
Hang on guys, if this feature is Sony specific it would mean creating completely different profiles for their lenses and cameras. It also means the profiles we know and love for all our other cameras and lenses are effectively crippled.
Iâd like to see some examples of the benefits of this feature before complaining so ardently about its absence. This feature would seem to be more important the worse the lens. Ideally lenses shouldnât vary all that much at different focus distances and should not need an enormous amount of correction.
Photographers who care about distortion should probably avoid camera manufacturers who primarily rely on electronic correction (hint: Sony). Low-end Canon lenses are also awful but is the low-end lens crowd really using tools like PhotoLab?
Can someone show some examples of the benefits of this focal length correction, even using other software?
Hereâs the example for PhotoLab:
Thanks Platypus. Note:
Distortions between FD set to 60m (DPL max.) and 4m (shooting distance) almost the same (nil).
Extreme close distances with wide angle lenses seems a good case for ViewPoint manual correction. Even what seems technically correct could look wrong. If DxO can automate such corrections for focal length across all manufacturers so much the better. Not sure why Sony should get special treatment, as reconciling the manufacturer corrections with DxO corrections would involve redoing the corrections for all focal lengths. And in that case DxO could make the same additional measurements for all camera and lens combinations, including focal length distortion.
Distortion depends on distance and focal length settings of a lens. We can see that in the example I linked to above. Nevertheless, DxO will only be able to correct distortion (and other properties of a real lens) if metadata provide enough information to clearly establish at what FL and FD a photo was taken. Alas, not all camera models do this, depending on (age of) model, (version of) camera firmware, (version of) lens firmware and more. And if something has gone off in the sensors for FL and FD settings, we might also get info that is simply wrong. A kingdom for manual overrides! (Also in module selection, but weâre not dealing with this here.)
The raw information on focal distance appears to be present in Nikon NEF files when used with autofocus. Itâs probably true of Canon as well. So there is no Sony innovation here, just clattering of cymbals as usual.
Making the lens database focal distance aware â thatâs a huge project. Taking the manufacturersâ word on the right corrections would go against the whole original point of the OpticsPro/PhotoLab project (better lens corrections).
Quite a conundrum.
Actually, PhotoLab already isâŠin many (but not all) cases. If metadata are conclusive, the sliders for focal length and -distance are greyed out on Mac and the tools are hidden in Win. As soon as metadata is inconclusive, the sliders will activate. I had checked my 60 (Canon) test images and found active sliders with photos taken with old bodies and zooms mostly. Photos taken with newer bodies and prime lenses all had the necessary data to disable the sliders.
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DxO already using the distance info for some camera models w/o letting people any option to correct the distance in UI 
âŠ
Iâm okay with that. If the focal distance is recorded then thatâs where the photographer was aiming so correcting for that distance is just fine.
Dear @Franky
maybe this Are dop files the same on pc and mac - DxO PhotoLab - DxO Forums will be a point for your list.
best regards
Guenter
Hi,
What if we helped DxO identify the differences between Win and Mac ?
After a long time without activity on this post, I will continue, please help me update if there have been changes with the last versions.
Not present in Win
- Add items on palets with icon at the extreme right in the title bar
- Rename virtual copie
- The Advanced History is not saved after relaunch
- The option grid color
- Be able to move pallets between other pallets and not just after
- Adjustments with up / down arrows for local adjustements
- A floating palette visible in the PhotoLibrary tab (camera settings, arrows to navigate and trash)
- The brush floating panel for repair tool
- The brush floating panel for local settings
- The check box for âdisable automatic update checkingâ
- A compare tool, before and after images together with slider in customize tab
- There is no distance reading on Sony E lenses
- Not status of optics module
- Focal Distance and Focus Distance sliders are automatically displayed
- The program selects the last image edited at the opening of a session
Not present in Mac
- In source browser, no right click for create, rename and open a folder in finder.
- A compare tool, images side by side
- Delete icon on thumbnail
- Image status information on thumbnail - Image correction has been modified after export
- Canât set database location in preferences
- Focal Distance and Focus Distance sliders are permanently displayed
- Zoom value change while cropping ( add in v6.2 )
Different between Win and Mac
- The switch to display only active tools (blue on Mac, gray on PC)
- Organisation the menus and shorcuts
- Undo is managed differently on Mac or Windows
- DOP files arenât the same in Mac and Win
Please tell me what you found as a difference, I will update the list, thanks
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- DOP files arenât the same in Mac and Win
Does this mean that when I change from Win to Mac, my Win dops will not work/render in Mac when I navigate to an image folder?
Related aside ⊠I donât know Mac architecture at all. In Win I have a drive d:\ and put all my images in an image folder thus:
d:\images\camera make\camera model\reverse-date description
so a typical structure might be:
d:\images\Nikon\D800\20190101 London Trip
On the Mac, there is only one disk so what is the best place and structure to adopt please?
Clive
Not at all. The DOP files are readable, itâs just that their internal layout is different.
The default is the Pictures (in English) folder under your user folderâŠ
But you are free to place your images wherever you want. There is no concept of drive letters, just volume names. I use an external SSD through a high speed USB-C connection and canât tell I am not working from an internal driveâŠ
Ejecting and reconnecting always uses the same volume name.
Thank you Joanna (Iâm sorry but I have not yet mastered links and quotes).
In anticipation of moving, I copied my images to a Sandisk external SSD (formatted such that both Win and Mac can read it) though whether that is up to Mac speeds I donât know, but it performs well enough on a Windows USB 3 port. Initially I was planning just to plug that in to the Mac and access the files to see what happened! I will, of course, update my backup copy before going that far. Then, I need to decide whether to continue using this method or to copy the files to the Mac and in doing so, move the âmasterâ set (and the SSD becomes a backup resource).
The disk is a Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD Model SDSSDE61-2T00
Well, I would say just keep your files on the SSD and work on them from there. Youâve chosen a 2TB drive so that should give you more space than the internal drive.
Personally, I would only use DOP files and ignore the database, as it could get confused if you accessed the files from both Windows and Mac. That way, you can always scrap the database if necessary.
You could also do what I have done and bought an ordinary external disk (costs less) and use SuperDuper to clone the SSD onto that every so often
Due to differences in what DPL does on Win vs. what it does on Mac, DPL will only be able to understand and display the things they have in common (the green slice in the image belowâŠbut differences are not as huge as the image suggests, phew!)
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âŠand loose sensible search in the process - unless you re-index the lot afterwards.
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@platypus @Joanna I have read enough posts here to understand some peopleâs positions on some topics. For me, the search is useful, though not everyone finds it so. With help from another poster here I have discovered that PL6 does not like to share the SSD database between two Windows computers - it looses the Projects and on more than one occasion, created virtual copies of images with additional information in the dops - fortunately I had accessed files in only a handful of directories and was able to sort the mess out manually. Message to me - donât do that again and even more so, donât try to mix Win and Mac!!
Thank you all for your advice.
Clive
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Basically, as long as you only use one computer (your Mac) with your files on the external SSD, you should never run into the kind of problems that might require database deletion. Thus ensuring you donât lose your projects.
The only thing you do need to remember is that, either you remove files in Finder only while PhotoLab is closed, or you use PhotoLab itself to remove them. But this applies in Windows as well.
Dear @Joanna,
I donât understand this part
becauseâŠ
The photos are stored on a external SSD, I donât use DOP files.
With the MAC I use the database stored on the MAC
With my PC I use a database which is stored on the second internal SSD
I havenât had any problems with the database on the PC(but I save it regularly after work with DXO)
But thatâs only my experience
nice weekend to you
Guenter
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