Will PureRAW provide any advantage over ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) for studio shots with perfect exposure and no need for denoise or sharpening?
Thanks
I suggest you download the free trial and test it for yourself.
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That is what I did. I do not see any difference
I probably wouldn’t add another step in your workflow then - especially since you can’t see a difference.
In the scenario that was the basis for your question, probably not. If you take an inexpensive lens and shoot at ISO 25,600, or underexpose your image, then you’ll have a noisier, softer image where I would expect you could see the advantages of PureRAW 4 over Adobe Camera Raw.
Try it, as long as you have a PR4 trial going. Go outside at dusk tonight and fire off a few at ISO 25,600, and compare them. Of course if you never shoot that way, it doesn’t help you, but at least you’ll see where DxO may help. Some camera bodies do better at ISO 25.600 than others anyway, though.
Why an inexpensive lens? That benefits most from the optical corrections applied in DxO. ACR also does lens corrections, though. Most DxO shooters are probably not working in tightly controlled studio settings; more likely in the great outdoors, many times in low light. In that setting, DxO can be well worth it.
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Thank you. What you say makes sense.
Is it possible to use PR4 only for sharpening without the noise reduction?
Also, What if I try to use noise reduction on a clean image, does it add NR artifacts?
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Excellent questions!
DxO PhotoLab Elite 8 allows toggling noise reduction and sharpening features on or off separately with each image, but I’m not aware of an easy way to toggle NR off in Pure RAW 4. Somebody else may know an easy way to do it. In PR4 you can set varying levels of NR.
Both DxO PL8 and PR4 are designed to not introduce artifacts if NR is applied to an image that doesn’t need it, or if NR is applied at a higher level than needed for an image. That doesn’t mean you can’t find a rare image that breaks the design, but it’s not a common problem. For more specific discussion, see this forum thread: https://forum.dxo.com/t/what-level-of-noise-reduction-do-you-use
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Got it.
Thanks for the reply.
Another question,
After using lens correction, Do I have to disable lens correction in ACR? (I don’t want double correction…)
Regarding correction itself; is PR4 doing a superior job than ACR?
Yes … for the reason you noted.
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Interesting… DxO doesn’t write about it 
Yes, agreed with John-M. No DxO doesn’t write about it, but they’re not alone in not going into detail about adjustments to make in editing when using more than one app on an image. Many photo apps including ACR can apply lens corrections these days, and I don’t remember any company saying, if you apply optical corrections with our app, don’t do it again later in another app. Developers will tell you how to get an image over to another app, but what you do with it there is (in their minds) your problem, not theirs. Conversely the receiving app developers don’t generally discuss issues like this either; it’s just something you have to pick up on your own.
As a general rule it’s best to apply lens corrections in the first app used to process the image, while the file is still in its original camera Raw format. Because optical corrections are baked into JPG files by camera manufacturer firmware, you should usually not apply them to JPG images in processing. (Not an issue in PR4, but would be in Adobe.)
In some apps including Adobe, it’s best to apply noise reduction, if needed, very early, before doing any sharpening or detail adjustments, because these can enhance any noise that is present and make it harder to remove.
This does not apply to DxO apps–whether you do NR first or last doesn’t matter–because DxO applies adjustments to the file on export, and there the app sequences NR before sharpening and detail enhancement.
You asked if PR4 is superior to ACR in noise reduction. In a controlled studio setting, good light, low ISO, modern equipment, noise is not likely to be an issue. If it is, with your situation, I doubt PR4 would do a better job than ACR; ACR can remove minor noise quite well, and you’d probably be hard pressed to see a difference comparing it to PR4.
In low light, high ISO, visible noise in the image even without zooming in to view it, DxO is better than ACR/Lightroom in my own tests, though I may have to zoom the view in to see the difference. In these images, removing noise also helps with sharpening.
Understood.
Regarding Sharpening, Is there any advantage in using PR4’s sharpening vs ACR ?
For sharpening, I use Topaz Photo AI
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Agreed, Topaz Photo AI works better than Adobe or DxO for rescuing certain few shots where I barely missed focus. That doesn’t always work either, but it works better than DxO or Adobe for me. For routine sharpening, I’m using DxO, but I believe Adobe may be fine.
You can look for YouTube comparison review videos; just make sure the review was released recently (so you’re seeing the current version of software), and be sure it’s a respected reviewer who discloses any affiliate income by discussing it in the review. (Some reviewers may have an axe to grind and be pushing you to a particular product, but the best ones don’t do this.)
Really the best way to tell what will work for you is to test these apps with your own sample shots. Tha’s what the trial period is for.
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Comparing the two is a bit so-so because of the following reasons
- DPR does lens softness corrections (LSC) while LrC does unsharp masking (USM)
- DPR sets LSC only coarsely, LrC can tune USM finely
I find DPR over-sharpens images in its default setting and there is only one other setting that does some slight LSC.
DPR’s LSC should produce a more even impression if sharpness from center to edge with the appropriate optical module. LrC is unable to USM in dependence of lens properties, but some radial effect can be emulated by using a radial mask and the structure etc. sliders.
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If they appear in your photos, did you check also out-of-focus areas?
I hope you don’t use Fijifilm equipment because X-Trans sensors are not supported in PureRaw 4. There are only excuses like “it’s coming soon” which they been saying for going on 6 months
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I use Nikon Z8&9 and only Nikkor lenses.
I’m doing extensive research. I’m about to come to a conclusion.
This is not correct!
Fujifilm files with X-Trans sensor are well supported by PureRaw 4. What is not supported is only noise processing with DeepPRIME XD2s. DeepPRIME XD is used in this case.
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Sure but that’s not the case with most other non X-Trans sensors for the most part. I’m not paying $79.00 for an upgrade with partial support
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