I’m on the fence, about to make the purchase, but I need regarding PL8 Elite…does it have the ability to flip/mirror the image. Seems a bit odd that I’d have shell out another wad of cash for viewpoint, for such a basic task. Is it now included?
Thank you,
No - I’m about 98% sure that VP is required to enable an image to be “flipped” (tho, I have VP so I cannot be absolutely sure that it’s not possible without it).
I would suggest that VP is absolutely worth the spend … especially for its ability to correct for “volume deformation” in shots taken with a wide-angle lens.
…VP also enables the “Reshape” tool … Tho, I’ve not found much compelling use for it.
…
Yeah I’m sure it’s worth to spend… But when you’re disabled and on a limited income, by the time you add up everything that’s needed to equate to Lightroom for 20 bucks a month… Which I can use on all of my devices, or the fact that I could use darktable, and then just get a denoiser… Just seems a bit ridiculous to me. How about offering one simple package that does everything? I think a lot of people have gone into this thinking that they were getting the same capabilities as Lightroom just by buying photo lab.
Welcome Matt
DxO’s marketing policy is a mystery 
But. In my experience, PhotoLab is in the middle price range.
DxO uses the add-on trick to gain a little more by dissociating specific functions.
Pascal
No, it’s about pressing as much money out of unsuspecting buyers.
Essential functionality is moved to other products and in the end, we pay too much.
Note: The bundle of PL, FP and VP is USD 350.
@McFaul
It really pays to sit back and check what functionality you need, test thoroughly before investing. 350 USD pays about three years of Adobe’s Photo subscription if you get the codes around black friday. Prices might change though - with all the uncertainty out there.
And yes, flip requires a ViewPoint license, the app itself doesn’t need to be installed.
Here’s a comparison of what PL and do with and without FP and VP:
From top
I made the lists by creating a new palette and (not) adding tools 
Photolab, after many years of requests, still does not have the ability to Flip an image without adding Viewpoint which, in my case, is an extra C$150. So, why should I spend C$150 + for a simple feature that free software provides?
If you are on a PC, then the free Faststone can Flip an image with ease.
Note - Viewpoint is already part of the package and is not really an addition. However, you need to purchase a licence to unlock it.
Also, be aware of the 37 day no internet rule. If you use a computer that is not normally connected to the internet (e.g. my graphics computer is not) you will be prevented from using PL after 37 days until you connect. This “feature” was added last year. The last good version of PL without this nonsense was 7.5
Some will also mention Filmpack which is more money again. However, the Free version of NIK from Google - which is an older version of DXO’s NIK package - is still available. This will integrate into PL and give you the same tools - just a bit older. I have done this and it works. Look for “Google NIK”
Wow, thanks. At this point I think I will weather the AI garbage of Adobe for a little longer. I think the DXO needs to keep in mind that it’s a sacrifice to switch, just because of the lack of mobile apps alone. You have to admit, it’s pretty nice to have the ability to edit while you’re sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for your appointment, or be able to edit in the field without having to have two solar generators to power a 230 w high-end laptop.
There seems to still be an awful lot that DXO does not offer, at least not without multiple purchases.
Me too don’t understand the point of having it as part of Viewpoint 4. It’s not even an editing just a (re)arranging of the pixels. Just like rotation.
George
Really? Have you not been around here long enough to have grasped:
DXO had a big advantage in a few years back especially in noise reduction. Topaz and even Photoshop/Lightroom have made so many advances that it would be difficult to really give DXO any advantage. The inability to work on layers or have a true selective mask function in my opinion makes Photolab a hard pass. DXO is also incredibly slow at lens and camera updates.
I think you miss understood me.
George
DxO Photolab is very easy to use and provides excellent demosaicking. If you want to limit expenses, you can complement your processing with Picture Window Pro 8, which is free. PWP8 has image flipping and much of the capability of Viewpoint and much more
WORKAROUND
CAVEAT
Tested with DPL 8.3.0.build 39 on macOS Sonoma 14.7.5 and DPL set to NOT automatically r/w .dop and .xmp sidecars.
Testing this, I found that DPL also accepts image re-orientation … when it comes with the respective orientation information in a .xmp sidecar written by Lightroom Classic.
I welcome PhotoLab’s ability to understand the orientation info from Lightroom. Whether that means the DPL will act on further Lightroom edits remains to be seen. If DPL were able to handle (most) Lightroom edits, it would ease the transition from Lightroom to PhotoLab. Good news for all who would like to switch. So far, the following transfers work (to a certain degree; no info means that I cannot comment on it due to not having tested it or by not remembering what I found. Maybe someone can set up a interoperability table for all to access and edit)
Others who also use Lightroom - please test if my findings can be reproduced.
Of course, @platypus, all you have said makes sense, as long as you use XMP files.
But, if like me, you write directly to RAW files, then it gets rather more complicated.
If I set keywords or star rating in the RAW file, then PL will read them without any problem but, if I then edit them from my own app, PL will not read the new values unless I explicitly re-read the metadata. It will then create a DOP file that contains those values.
But, if I change the original values from within PL, they only get written to the DOP file and an XMP file doesn’t get created.
The “colour label” tag is actually an abuse of a simple text tag, which uses localised colour names which, once again, only gets written to the DOP file and, if the machine reading them isn’t set to the same localisation, they will not get read correctly. And Mac’s colour tags are totally invisible outside of the Finder ecosystem.
If orientation is written to the RAW file, PL will read it but will only ever write it to DOP and XMP files.
But, be warned, instead of following the SPOD (single point of definition) rule, for a RAW file, PL can actually use up to four!!! - the database, the DOP file, an XMP file and it can also read from, but not write to, the RAW file itself.
In summary, if you do want to “DIY” the orientation, do so with care and don’t forget to manually both read and write a file’s metadata.
Except flipping. I tried it changing the orientation tag in the RAW, only orientation worked. I think for flipping can’t be archieved directly in the camera, rotation can.
George
The test was meant to see if DPL could flip without ViewPoint. As I found, it actually can and, of course, manually editing sidecars can wreck them. And as always, I never set DPL to r/w/sync sidecars, I do it manually if I want or need it, like in this test.
The interesting lesson for me is, that flipping seems to be part of PhotoLab and the ViewPoint license is only needed to un-hide the respective user interface elements in the menus.
I’ve never seen a camera that can. In normal photography, flipping is not needed, for reproductions like camera scanning negative film, flipping gets very useful as is tone curve flipping, which no camera I’ve seen can do either. Some cameras can flip the rear screen though 
Negative conversion: The D850 can do it, but it doesn’t conserve results in RAW but writes to JPEG.
I changed the orientation tag in the RAW file and checked it with Irfanview. The normal rotations are shown, not the flipping. And Irfanview can flip the image. When flipping the image in Irfanview and save it as JPG the original orientation tag is not changed. The new orientation tag, the flipping, is written somewhere else. I remember that this was discussed before.
George
I suppose you’re on Win. How did you change the flag? Did you use
exiftool -n -orientation=1 file.ext
Yes.
Post must be at least 20 characters 
George
This can be done on all Nikons but need some carefully custom tuning specifically for the film type and expression.
You can create your own picture profile with a negative conversion curve which then applies to the NEF and jpeg.
The jpeg is inverted accordingly and the NEF gets the flag set which NX Studio will read.
