When I point DXO 7 to a directory on my hard drive it is darkening, by at least 1 stop and applying lens corrections even when I’ve selected option 6 - No Correction for RAW and RGB images. It doesn’t matter if I point to a directory from my import with Photo Mechanic, or a Lightroom directory.
I see the initial preview load when I point the PhotoLibrary to a new directory and then watch as DXO proceeds to darken the images in sequence. I must be missing a setting somewhere else. Can someone offer some guidance on this?
Did you change the default preset for RAW and RGB images after you loaded the directory into PhotoLab? If so, you need to clear your database or rename the directory in order for PhotoLab to forget what it previously applied to the images.
If you manually apply the No Correction preset to an image and it still looks dark, then might the image have been underexposed in camera? There are other possibilities, but you’ll need to provide more information and maybe a sample file.
Note that the initial preview of a RAW file is the embedded JPEG image in the RAW data and what you ultimately see in the viewer is DxO’s rendering of the RAW data. “No Correction” doesn’t treat the JPEG rendering as a baseline - it treats the RAW data as a baseline.
I agree. He is seeing the embedded jpegs with the in-camera settings first and then the unedited raw files which in most cases would look darker and flatter.
After reading your response I pulled up a directory DXO has never seen before, and watched it darken, left to right, row after row of the previews. (Using Canon R5m2 in this case but it happens regardless of the body.)
Your second paragraph inspired me to experiment with presets. When I select a specific image and apply No Correction, the image doesn’t change, but if I set it to DXO Style—Natural, the image lightens back up to what the (brief) original preview looked like!
So I changed my preferences to DXO Style—Natural, selected a new to DXO directory, and it darkened all the previews again!?
If I then go to Image > Apply a Preset and select DXO Style-Natural, the image lightens back up!?
I’m just stumped. While I understand it’s the JPG preview, I cannot understand why DXO 7 changes it after I select a directory.