PL8 Elite Complete Loupe

I have compared what I see on the screen with the loupe during the correction process in PL8 Elite Complete and the final exported JPEG using DeepPRIME XD2s. The loupe shows a much “lower resolution” image than when I view the exported JPEG at the same zoom (magnification) in a non-DxO external viewer application (similar to what a client might use). Using just the loupe, I might have rejected an image that otherwise would have been submitted to a client. In fact, this “just” happened with an image of a local Phainopepla; in the PL8 loupe, the eye ring had very poor resolution, whereas it is fine in the exported JPEG. (The image provisionally been accepted by a client, quoting “Nice contrast between the red eyes and the yellow leaves”; but based strictly upon the loupe, I would not have continued to process it and not have submitted it.) Also, how does one adjust the loupe magnification to be less than 100 percent but larger than what is shown in the preview window during Customize?
An edit: I just tried the above images again in PL8, on both the raw originals and the JPEG that PL8 previously had exported. There is no “down arrow” that opens up the magnification of the loupe and then the “down arrow” appears with the choices of 100 percent or larger. Also, the image in the sometimes shows “processing” and sometimes does not, often showing what appears to be a poor quality image that might cause me to reject the raw image. The new loupe seems much less consistent than the old loupe; the PL8 one is on the top bar at “all” times, the PL7 loupe was only in one of the side bar choices. What am I doing wrong?

There is always a small delay before the content in the loupe is fully rendered. If that delay exceeds a certain amount of time, I think, the “Processing…” label appears.

I know in early betas there were times when part of the loupe area would not render correctly, but by the time of release I was not seeing that any more.

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As you’re noticing, the Loupe only shows 100% magnification or greater by factors of 2. However, you can freely adjust the magnification of the image preview while the loupe is in use. In PL8, it’s a whole new loupe tool, so you can’t find it among the palettes: it’s enabled and disabled using the top bar only. For what it’s worth, you can drag the loupe around the image preview window and make it one of two sizes.

As for the differences in resolution compared with the exported image, I’m not seeing this problem in Windows 11 with my hardware (GeForce RTX 3080). Keeping the Loupe to 100% magnification should give you an accurate rendering. As was already mentioned, you do need to allow the Loupe enough time (at least several seconds) to render its slice of the image with all corrections.

My portable workstation (“laptop”) uses a NVIDIA RTX A3000 12GB Laptop GPU. How does this compare? I understand that I should lookup the performance characteristics; however, I have found that the real performance of a GPU depends upon more than the specifications but also how the application uses the full performance of the GPU and through which software interfaces / library functions.

Own experience with the Loupe:
Takes some getting used to, but after a while you can handle it well. I have PL 8.1.0 installed on Windows 10. With an RTX 3060 12GB

What’s not always immediately apparent, some adjustments are only visible in the Loupe. Just like in the denoising.

Most noticeable is the DeepPrime and DeepPrime XD/XD2 denoising technology. I haven’t tried all the other settings yet.

Sometimes the Loupe fails, too. Then it usually helps to turn Loupe off and on again.

Often the Loupe hangs when using distortion corrections and perspective.

As it stands, the Loupe uses about three times the area for computation as shown in it. It also appears to work with its own complete image copy, which is not always identical to the representation in the normal preview. Or some calculations take a little longer to be visible in the Loupe. This is noticeable when you move the Loupe, there are then significant delays from a certain area until the image is clear.

Never seen this behaviour. Maybe it’s a hardware or driver problem? Is GPU getting hot? No memory problems?

RTX 3000 12G (mobile) does about 10TFLOPS fp32, while desktop RTX 4060 does 15. Not bad.
For 24mpx it should be ok.

See e.g. NVIDIA RTX A3000 Mobile 12 GB Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database

BTW, what is your loupe size? The PL8 help in the ‘Interface’ section says that larger loupe is 752x448 pixels, while the loupe on my PC is about 1320x780 (PL8.1/Win11). I have desktop RTX 4070 and 3840x2160 27" monitor, if it matters.

No problem with the loupe here (except I would like to enter custom sizes - up to full screen - depending on what I work on).

Test use with all denoising algorythms (video resolution about 1920x1200) on a 25800 iso image :

Denoising OFF


Denoising HQ


Denoising Prime


Denoising Deepprime


Denoising DeepprimeXD2s