Oh, my! I saw the announcement on Twitter over breakfast and within 30 seconds of reading I was excited.
This is a whole new ballgame. PhotoLab is not my perfect processing tool, but I refused to give up the RAW conversion because nothing else comes close in my experience. Now we have the option to choose our preferred processing engine, preferred DAM, and still get the benefit of the best RAW conversion in the business.
See the DxO homepage for all the details. I can see some potential pitfalls, but I will be testing this out for sure.
DxO PL can do this already. This new software simply converts the RAW file into a linear DNG file. The DNG file has been demosaiced, noise reduction applied and lens corrections supplied. The data is pixel data that is still in the cameraās native colour space.
The output of PureRaw appears to be similar to using the Export to DNG(Denoise and Optical Corrections) feature. The settings supported by that export include Chromatic aberration, Lens distortion, Lens sharpness. Vignetting, and PRIME/DeepPRIME. A potentially terrific feature for Lightroom users as well as users of other software which can read DNG Files.
The regular price of $129 USD may be a bit steep, especially since PureRaw is apparently completely automatic and lacks functionality to tweak the results. .I would suggest that DXO keeps it at the introductory $89 price for at least a few months. The added sales at that price point once the reviews are out there may be very significant. They will likely also be competing with Topaz Denoise AI 3 which is selling for $79.99 USD, .
Yes it can, and it will go ahead and catalogue all your photos while you try to do it, and youāll need to preconfigure various parts of the software to not interfere so generally it is a sledgehammer to simply do the job of RAW conversion.
But aside from whether current PhotoLab owners need it, it is, I think, a potentially big market expansion for DxO because many people wonāt use PhotoLab due to the UI and processing features may still buy this.
There would not seem to be any need for users of PhotoLab 4 Elite to get this since everything PureRaw does can already be done in PhotoLab with the addition of being able to tweak settings. This is clearly meant for non Photolab users. Its a brilliant idea but it should have the ability to do some basic tweaking of the settings and be marketed at a lower price point. .
I hate to be a pessimist but I hope they donāt get the idea of following the Viewpoint model. Up until and including Optics Pro 9 viewpoint was included with no extra license purchase required. They could disable the āExport to DNG: NR and optical corrections onlyā in Photolab and require a new license purchase for PureRAW in order to enable it. I think Iāll keep a copy of PL4, even after the release of PL5, on hand just in case.
The ability to tweak settings can be seen as a downside, too. In that you will have to (or want to) do this for every image. There is something to be said for the black box approach. Letās for a moment leave cost out of the pictureā¦
Using PL4 Elite, launch PL4 (11 seconds), navigate to the folder in the sidebar (which Iāve never liked the scale of), select your photos, apply a preset that contains your default noise and sharpness etc, potentially change any of the several sliders in those per image, select all the photos again if you did anything to any individual, Export to Disk and pick the preset to export DNGs, then click Go.
Orā¦ launch PureRAW (5 seconds), drag the images from anywhere (Finder/Explorer or your DAM), 2 clicks, and youāre done. Meanwhile you havenāt built a pointless database if the intention was never to load up the images for more work in PhotoLab.
Iāve run a test folder of images through PureRAW and opened them alongside the originals in ON1. Bringing up the compare mode between the two versions it is perhaps hard to tell on ānaturalā shots, but my usual fare of aircraft shows a night and day difference. So Iām going to take another look at ON1, which I liked a lot about, but did not have RAW conversion anywhere near as good as PhotoLab.
So no there is not a need for PhotoLab 4 Elite users to purchase PureRAW, and I have zero concern with people using PhotoLab to achieve the same things, but there is definitely value in using PureRAW from a workflow point of view.
If I switch to ON1, which is odds on likely at this point, then I will of course retain PL4 and maybe it will have a role for those borderline shots that do need some tweaking of DeepPRIME or lens module parameters (and indeed I have not tested PureRAW on noise yet), but I will think very carefully before paying for any upgrade to PL5.
You seem to have already made a choice. For me there is absolutely no need for PureRaw.
I process all my images in Photolab 4.2 and will purchase PL5 the minute itās available. If it is needed I finish up my images in Affinity Photo but that happens very infrequently.
The breadth of control in Photolab is quite extraordinary once users understand how to get the best from all the tools individually and gain an understanding of the relationship between the different tools when used in combination. I spend at least 2-3 hours a day in Photolab and have done so almost every day for over 3 years after I stopped using Lightroom. Other than traditional layers, there is very little I canāt accomplish in Photolab. I have little need for anything elseā¦ .
Iāve made a choice to look at a new way of working because I do have issues with significant aspects of PL4. Most obviously for me is the DAM feels underdone (a topic which has been discussed at length elsewhere in these forums), but also after coming from Lightroom-Aperture-Lightroom-Luminar I still donāt feel comfortable with many of the basic adjustments. (Again, the highlights slider has been discussed at length.)
I feel confident that if the RAW conversion in PhotoLab was similar to that in ON1 I would have switched a while ago. I do still need to do some further research as each time I have looked at ON1 in the past I have crashed up against their RAW conversion and stopped investing too much time. Todayās quick test suggests that hurdle can be efficiently addressed by PureRAW.
Maybe PL5 will surprise me, I donāt know plans, and plans may change anyway. But the sense I get from the PureRAW release is DxO understand their core strength and have done the industry (and themselves) a huge favour by releasing this product. I hope they sell gazillions of licenses for it.
(And I also hope they quickly support newer smartphone cameras, including Apple ProRAW and Fuji XTrans sensors ā two things friends often ask me when I try to sell them on PhotoLab. Even if I donāt want them for myself.)
m-photo
(ļ£æ Marc (macOS Sonoma on MBP16" Intel))
13
We already pay extra for (Deep)Prime by buying PL Elite
This new App is a great move in my opinion.
I might never use it but I understand who will. If you can Ā« prepare Ā» your raw overnight with as less human intervention as possible with this new tool it is a great benefit.
We get a lot more than just Prime or Deep Prime NR when purchasing PL4 Elite. I agree that it is great for non-Photolab users and Iām not saying this new software is a bad idea. I hope it sells like hotcakes. I just hope they donāt disable the capability of exporting to DNG: Optical corrections and NR only in Photolab and require PL users to acquire a license to use the feature as they did with Viewpoint.
The workflow using DxO PL that you describe is somehow flawed. You make it sound cumbersome whereas itās actually really fluid.
1st, yYou donāt need to navigate, select photos, etc. in DxO. You can stay in LrC and then send the photos to PL directly. 2nd, you can define a default preset that is applied automatically, you donāt need to select your photos and select to apply a preset. 3rd, the export back to LR button appears automatically and on top of that you have a collection created automatically in LrC. Finally, are you actually complaining that you have to click on āGoā at the end to export? Really? As if you wouldnāt have to do it with PureRaw? I do not mean to be rude, but you try to paint a certain workflow using DxO PL that is not true.
What @mwsilvers is saying is not that PureRaw is useless. He says that thereās no need for PureRaw when you have DxO PL and is 100% right.
I canāt imagine DxO PL doing such a thing. It would be such an a-hole move. This would be such a bad move from them. I just cannot conceive it.
If I had a concern myself, it would rather be: is there a future for DxO PL? When you read DPReviewās test of PureRaw, it starts by a statement from DxO admitting that almost every photographer is using Adobeās or non-DxO products. They do not seem to believe DxO PL can compete with C1, LrC and the likes in terms of market share. So, delivering a product that provides users what they know how to do best (optical corrections and NR) makes total sense from a market share point of view. But does keeping investing time and money in DxO PL also make sense from a market share point of view? Iām not 100% sure the answer is yes.
That is unlikely to happen. We are paying a premium for PhotoLb Elite primarily for the addition of PRIME/DeepPRIME NR and ClearView Plus. It is unlikely they would remove the single most important feature for most people who own the Elite version.
Iām not privy to market share figures but it would not surprise me that an old and well-established company such as Adobe would still command the lionās share of the market. With Adobeās subscription only model I think that there is plenty of room for small companies like DXO to make some inroads into that market share. For my uses and IMO DXO Photolab Elite suite(including NIK) is the best photo-editing package available. I know that you disagree, but to each his own.
