Off-Topic - advice, experiences and examples, for images that will be processed in PhotoLab

DxO PhotoLab
2892

I’ve been here since PhotoLab 3.

I wonder if anyone posting here now remembers the first post in this topic:

During the past four versions of PhotoLab, I’ve had questions that related to the use of PhotoLab, but which could easily be called off-topic. This thread is being deliberately started as OFF-TOPIC, as while these discussions were mostly about how to get the most out of PhotoLab, many of the questions and comments were mostly about photography in general - cameras, techniques, presentation - with the common thread being they were all being edited using some version of DxO PhotoLab.

Posting a photo here is highly recommended - one picture being worth a thousand words. How to get the most out of these pictures is the goal of this topic. For anyone posting an image here, please expect others to reply with their views, which may be complimentary, or negative. Speaking for myself, I may or may not agree with comments/responses, but I always learn (often a lot) when people suggest ways they think the image could have been improved.

The common goal is how to get the most out of PhotoLab, which starts before an image is even captured, long before the editing. It would help if people posting an image in this thread would say something about what they were thinking when they took the photo, and what they were hoping to show others. It would also be helpful to try to explain what someone tried to do with PhotoLab, and needed help on how to do it better.

This thread is for new “off-topic” questions or discussions that don’t fit into the existing discussions.

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Many people posted, for many reasons. In terms of learning PhotoLab better, I learned the most from @Joanna, who I think is a wonderful teacher.

Regarding the last few comments, I think they are rather silly. Contrary to what’s being posted about me, I now use PhotoLab exclusively for photo editing, using the tools I wish to use, of which there are more every year. I certainly failed at being the type of photographer several people thought would be good for me, as I eat, breathe, and feel like a “photojournalist” and it is difficult for me to break out of that mold, and even more difficult to do it well.

I’m being told that I don’t “get it”. And also that some people wasted their time trying to teach me. They are probably correct as there is a lot of stuff I “don’t get”, and the thread was not intended to be “teach Mike PhotoLab”.

Those recent posts are silly, as between the DxO help, Joanna, and all these discussions, I think I now know much of PhotoLab well enough to do whatever it is I need/want to do. In retrospect, I agree, I posted much too much, and posted far too many images. I also spent many hours doing, and re-doing, photos edited with the new (to me) capabilities of PhotoLab. This forum started to feel (to me) like a “club house”.

All good things come to an end, but to me, these discussions have been a wonderful way to discuss “photography” in general, and “PhotoLab” in particular.

Have you wasted your time here?
Have I wasted my time here?

The statistics imply otherwise, and the posts (in general) and Joanna’s posts (in particular) I found very educational. Some I found useful, and others were about things I’m not interested in.

…and if some of you disagree with things I’ve written, maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong, but that moment in time, for better or worse, that’s what I thought.

Thank you.

1 Like
2893

I doubt that anyone here has an answer, but of all the software available for capturing RAW images on an iPhone, does DxO Photolab work with any of them?

Backup question - if I change the EXIF data on a raw image from an iPhone, would PhotoLab work with that image just as it does with my Leica M8 (after changing the EXIF data to something acceptable to PhotoLab)?

I don’t expect a useful reply, but who knows - maybe someone has found a way to do this.

2894

This is a question for a new topic, not yet another extension to this monster topic. I think it’s also a question that has been answered but I’ve not done a search.

This is another question for a new topic, not yet another extension to this monster topic. I’m pretty sure this question has also been asked and answered more than once.

Do these searches yourself.

2 Likes
2895

This topic has been raised dozens of times. A quick search should find some of the more recent ones.

Mark

1 Like
2896

As you pointed out, a separate thread for this topic is appropriate.

Mark

2897

I did a search, and found suggestions implying that an iPhone 11 would work, but that newer iPhones don’t. I found lots of people suggesting that DxO ought to add iPhones.

I found lots of posts, including this one:

Which led to:

My iPhone actually is an iPhone 11 Pro, so there is a chance that it might be appropriate, but I haven’t yet found a post suggesting which “raw file” app for my phone might work.

I don’t think there is any good answer, but I do have lots of time to start practicing on my own, and try to find something useful.

Thanks for the advice; if nobody comes up with a useful suggestion, I’ll create yet another new post. Mark is right - yes it has been raised dozens of times, but nobody has yet found a solution for newer iPhones. On the other hand, PhotoLab wasn’t supposed to work on my Leica M8.2, but with a little trickery in the EXIF data, I got it working anyway.

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just ask DxO support when they support your iphone’s “heic/rawfiles”
Tinkering exifdata with heavily optic screwed image’s as mobile phone image’s are isn’t a good idea.
in result’s i mean. often those file’s are stacked multilenses files and proccessed heavily to get a good result.

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The official list of supported cameras is here:

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Thanks - according to that page, there are 14 iPhones listed, and the newest one is the iPhone X, but with a warning: “no support of HEIC at the moment”.

Last night I captured two images with my iPhone 11 Pro, using the raw photography app “Halide”. Images seemed to come out fine. I added them to a test folder, so I could open them in PhotoLab. The “PhotoLibrary” showed them, but when I tried to open them in PL6, I got the familiar error message:

This image cannot be processed since it was taken with a camera that is not supported by this version of DxO PhotoLab

Same error message I had from my Leica M8.2 camera.

I still have an old iPhone X, so my first plan is to take an image with that phone, and see if it opens in PhotoLab. Then, I’ll use my EXIF Editor to change the entry for my iPhone 11 Pro to the entry that PhotoLab accepts. I expect that will work just as well as it did for my old Leica M8.2 camera. If so, I’m all set.

Thanks for reminding me of that list.

I don’t see why I will get a better answer than all the other people already working on this. If the above does work, I expect to get just as good a result as when I tried this technique last time, but you may still be right, and maybe the images will have issues. …and maybe not. :slight_smile:

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@mikemyers I’ve already pointed out that this monster topic is NOT the place to start yet another discussion about lack of iPhone support and possible workarounds.

If you must pursue this discussion, start a new topic or better still find one of the many existing topics and add your comments to that one.

3 Likes
2902

Sure, if this works, I can post it as you suggested in a place where others who care about this will see it.

2903

A question that indirectly relates to PhotoLab. I just photographed a function at the hospital in India where I volunteer, about “Republic Day”, to remember how India gained its independence. I took a couple of hundred images, and narrowed it down to my favorite 50.

I would like to make a “digital slide show”, of reduced size images, that can be sent to others to get a quick view of what happened at one of my hospital’s Republic Day Celebration.

Finished images are stored in my “exported images” folder.

Does anyone here have a good idea of how to make such a video? Images don’t need to be much more than 800 or so pixels - people who want more detail can view them individually on my photo gallery m.smugmug.com and download as they wish.

If anyone else is still watching this thread, any ideas of how to accomplish this?
I would prefer “open source” rather than buying yet another app.

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2904

A quick search. Win10 has the app Photos.

I never used it.

George

2905

Thank you!

I have found that I can import my 50 photos into the Photos App.
Once there, I can save them as a Project.
Once that is done, I can export into several forms of a slide show, one of which even adds music.

Very much appreciated. That is a perfect way to do what I want. Once the images are imported into the Photos app, from then on, it is straight forward. Much, much, better than what I was trying to do!

2906

Mike, I have never used this Photos App, but I do a lot of thing with the free IrfanView. And I’ve also used it to easily make a slide show (even with music). You can take a look at it.

2907

@George @Ralf_Brinkmann, Mike is on macOS, therefore neither of your suggestions would be of any use.

2908

Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice.

2909

@George nailed it for me, and from what he wrote it is simple. It supposedly works in both Mac and Windows.

  • I did an edit of the 50 images.
  • I imported them into Apple Photos (App).
  • From there, it was easy to export them into what Apple called a new Project (a slideshow) - I picked the option that adds a musical soundtrack.
  • From this Project/slide show, there were many ways to export the slide show…
  • I selected the option to send them to a new ".m4v file (Apple MPEG-4 movie)
  • I sent this new file as an attachment, using Apple’s “mail drop” utility.
  • Everyone who clicked on the link downloaded the video slide show as a MPEG-4 movie.

@Ralf_Brinkmann - thanks, but as @Joanna pointed out, IrfanView does not have a version for Mac. I vaguely remember using that program on my old Windows laptop. Thanks for the reminder. :slight_smile: I still have three or four Windows laptops, with no memory of how to use them…

I expect to use this new Photos trick a lot in the future - if I want to attach a lot of images, I can make life easier for others if I do it as a slide show - much of the time, not always. (It wasn’t intuitive - I had to call Apple Tech Support in India when I got stuck.)

2910

Yet another off-topic question, which I suspect none of you have an answer to, as you most likely don’t use an on-camera flash.

Anyway here goes. I haven’t used an on-camera flash since back in the 1980’s, on my Nikon F4. I bought a Nikon SB-800 flash, (in the 1980’s) and used it mostly to photograph machinery, and occasionally, people.

I just got back from India, and people were often asking me to take a group photo, with them in front of an important scenic view. Invariably, the photo came out awful, with a beautiful background and very dark faces. My old Nikon D750 had a pop-up flash, but neither my D780 or my Df has a built-in flash.

I’m assuming that most people here take their precise photographs with only available lighting. That’s what I was expecting to do, shooting only with available light. When people wanted a photo, I would take an ugly photo with black faces in front of a beautiful background, show it to them, then explain I need to re-take the photo with the light behind me. Then a got a good photo of the person or more likely, people, and they were happy - while I felt frustrated.

Do any of you have a suggestion for what kind of electronic flash you recommend - if any. My SB-800 works perfectly on my Df, but seems to be incompatible with my D780, meaning I’ll likely buy something new - but if the color settings are off, that might be a nightmare to correct in PL. Maybe the flash I want/need will be very expensive.

(Speaking of my trip, I was the only person there, in our large group of photographers, who wasn’t using Lightroom. Also, I took my Df, not the better D780, as I wanted to learn what the Df was capable of. The advice I was given here long ago, to only use my D780 proved very true, as having the additional pixels, and larger batteries, and a flip-up-down viewing screen I really missed. Yeah, all of you were right, in retrospect. All the other photographers had a D750, and they all wanted to use my Df.)

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Added later - there is a small switch on the side of the D780 that can select different operating modes. Flash is now working correctly.

My remaining question is how to adjust the “color” of the flash, so it will work in different lighting conditions. I doubt I will use the flash for any “real” photos I take. It is now configured as “fill flash”.