I had been using PL3, PL4 and PL5, after that I stopped upgrading, as I did not see much new value added. I had switched to Lightroom, but despite the much richer feature set, I still prefer Photolab from a usability standpoint (Lightroom is a nightmare in my eyes).
To see if the Black Friday deal is worth it to purchase PL8, I downloaded the trial and tested it quickly. I just wanted to note down my first impressions. The test is on a Mac M1.
The positive:
I like the new loop tool, it’s also very fluent and a joy to compare the different noise reduction algorithms.
The new tone curve, it’s very nice to have the possibility to save custom presets directly from within the tool, and to use the hand-picker. Also the luma curve is appreciated.
Finally an image comparison tool, I especially like that it is possible to reference an external image.
It’s nice to see the adjustments directly just by hovering over some presets/LUTs, etc.
The neutral:
The new local adjustment interface (compared to PL5), I guess you can get used to it. After having tried PL8 and then returning to PL5, I must say, it is so much more fun to use the little equalizer of PL5 for local adjustments, somehow it motivates more to try out different settings.
I did not notice any performance improvements, but on the Mac M1, I had been happy with the performance already before.
Default sharpening settings are way to high (but can be adjusted)
The “DxO Natural” rendering is anything than natural, people of any skin color get red heads like apples (but I don’t have to use it)
Several LUTs have some heavy posterization? I am not sure if this is always the case, or I just had some bad images to test on. But I am not expert on LUTs, maybe that’s normal.
The negative:
Unfortunately there were several bugs and usability issues that jumped right to my eye just after using it less than an hour.
The comparison tool is not usable for local adjustments, it jumps back to the main image. It is also leaves the comparison mode when I select the color picker from the HSL tool. This is a shame, as one of the reasons to have the comparison tool is to adjust one image based on the colours of another image, so the HSL tool would see a lot of usage.
The reference image is always flickering when I make adjustments to the other image in comparison mode.
Some dropdown menus, for example the list of camera profiles, are HUGE. It covers half of the screen and the whole right image in comparison mode. It’s nice that I can just hover over it to see the adjustments, but unfortunately, I do not see anything.
How can I hide the masks in local adjustments? Neither the button “Show Masks” is selectable, nor the mentioned shortcut Shift+M does anything. I can only select or deselect the “Show Masks” button, when I do not have any control point selected. But then I see no difference, as there is nothing to show. Even if I hide the control point, the mask remains still visible. This must be a huge bug? This thing alone does not want me to do any update.
Why do the masks and the local adjustments tools stay active, when I leave the local adjustment panel?
The mask from Auto-mask is not visible.
It is not really clear to me which masks I can combine and which not? For example I can create a hue mask, and then use the eraser on that mask. But I cannot use the eraser on a control point. Why not?
When I switch from a Color to a B&W rendering, it always forgets my previous setting, and switches back to the defaults (Neutral color). Very annoying, when you quickly want to compare how something looks in black and white, and then you have to reselect your previous rendering. (A workaround is to use the history panel to return to a previous state, but it is annoying nonetheless).
All in all, I feel that unfortunately the negative points outweigh the positive points for me.
Thanks for the very detailed notes, madera, from someone who is a serious PhotoLab user. Media reviews are usually written by someone who is primarily a Lightroom, or perhaps, a C1 user. They always see PhotoLab through the prism of their existing software, which makes their evaluation almost pointless to expert PhotoLab users. We already know everything great they will find, and their “issues” with PhotoLab are almost always mainly a consequence of a lack of familiarity.
Your questions are exactly the ones I pose myself. I agree about PhotoLab, it’s gradually become less fun to use over the last few versions (I’m as far as 7, my Monterey Macs are staying on Monterey for another couple of years, and PhotoLab won’t run on Monterey). I did better work in PhotoLab 6 than in 7 and enjoyed it more, despite 7 nominally having better tools. Local adjustments have become too heavy-handed. The little sliders were way more efficient.
If I understand you correctly, some of the things you’re trying to do (the “negative” list) can be done, you just have to make your selections for comparison more carefully. If you can’t hide a mask, it’s because you haven’t made any adjustments to it yet. (Yes, DxO has been asked to remove this prerequisite.) You have to deselect the mask before leaving the local adjustment panel, or that will continue to be the current edit mode. The usability issues you mention are DxO’s design decisions. You’re not alone in wanting them changed, but if they’re showstoppers for you (as you said, the negative outweighs the positive) then I hope you can find software that meets your needs better. For what it’s worth, adjusting your workflow might make some of these problems seem a lot smaller.
You’re absolutely right in having that opinion for yourself, but I have to say I am so much happier with control of local changes being put into controls in the side bar instead. I found myself often battling with granular control of local adjustments thanks to the “distance from the tool changing how quickly you adjusted said tool” function.
That said, I’d defend the right to choose to the death. It’s a shame they couldn’t make it an option to bring it back.
About alternatives, I was specifically comparing to PL5. If those new functionalities added are causing me more headaches than they are helpful, than I rather don’t want to have them and keep using PL5. Although I have to admit some of them are quite nice, but adding 189€ to that long list of negatives does not help.
All in all, I think Photolab is a great software, just some of those bugs or be it design choices can be quite annoying.
Any small change to any of the LA sliders will “do the trick” - such as for Exposure Comp … then you can double-click the same slider to reset its value back to zero.
True - but you do realise that you don’t need to make a selection from this list if you wish to have PL render your image for the camera used to capture the image - Right ?
Simply use Type = Generic Rendering with Rendering = DxO Camera Profile and PL will auto-select the profile for the camera used to capture the image
The option to select a specific camera profile is provided for when you wish to over-ride default rendering to something else. For example, I override rendering of all my images (to standardise images from different branded cameras) to DxO One.
Not a bug, as such … It’s an annoying design decision by DxO !
Yes, that’s very annoying … but it’s not the only such example … Switching Smart-Lighting between Uniform & Spot-Weighted has the same unhelpful behaviour … Just lazy programming, I reckon.
For me, by far the largest negative is the requirement to have your computer connected to the internet - otherwise you lose use of the programme after 37 days.
Also, PL8 will not install on my graphics computer because it wants the latest version of Windows. PL7 runs well on this computer.
PL8 runs OK on my “office” computer but, is it worth the cost of updating my graphics computer?
This is how the Adobe open air prison started. With forced connection to the internet for re-authorising licenses. These leave all us entirely dependent on DxO’s existence, good behaviour and goodwill. Dark days.
This requirement is what has me looking for an alternative to DxO. Absolutely asinine requirement that completely ignores the reason so many of us came to DxO in the first place.
Yes, this time I ended the trial of PhotoLab 8 after 10 days. I will not spend more money on upgrades just to be able to compare the latest version with my fantastic Darktable. With DxO’s demonstrated progression of development, it will take years to reach the level of my free raw editor and manager* - even the level of Capture One and ACR.
Darktable proved to be completely useless for my type of work – 3k photos/session, variable high ISO, short delivery time. It’s nice software to get some insights on individual photos and learn about raw image processing, but it has typical freeware problems. To cite Developer’s guide · darktable-org/darktable Wiki · GitHub :
Too many programmers jump on their IDE before being sure they actually understand the problem they are trying to solve. darktable is full of saturday-afternoon projects that lack polish, disregard ergonomics and got their inner colour science wrong. Yet, they sort of help and allow to get some work done, but running the extra mile could have made them more (or simply) efficient.
Just try to read the darktable code. On surface it looks nice, but if you dig deeper…
When you exit local adjustments and return to a different corrections palette, the local adjustments cursor (brush or dropper) stays active. Is this intentional behavior with utility, or is it an oversight or flaw? It is pretty annoying, and it took a minute to figure out what was going on.
Intentional behavior. Same happens with some other tools: they have to be turned off - you can’t just change the context in which you are working. Though it took me a while, I got used to deselecting a given local adjustment type after using it. I now think of it as being not too different from the old way of toggling the Local Adjustments mode on and off.
7.6 is where they screwed up the HSL and LUT selection. I have some presets that are based on HSL and they did not work properly with 7.6 This was fixed with 7.7 along with the introduction of the internet rule.
With 7.6, they also introduced the tools for paid LUTs. Although the LUTs are still free at the moment, the tools are also in PL8.1.
if it’s not intentional, it’s a programming problem.
If it is intentional, it’s an analysis problem.
This does not work at all and is really confusing when working.
You get out of a tool and other tool do not work like expected. And then you can’t even know what produces the problem since there is no link, no visual feedback to tell what’s wrong.
