I think it’s time for a feature request, without which PL can’t be a professional program. Of course, among other features we’ve been requesting for a long time and still missing, tethering support is needed. Request = TETHERING.
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Would you please elaborate a little: what would tethering support enable you to do ?
I see the process of making images in different phases: taking the image with the camera, the conversion from raw to rgb and the editing of the picture. Maybe one can add printing the image as a 4th phase.
Tethering is about taking the image, using the camera and doesn’t belong in a raw converter. The other 2 or 3 phases do overlap each other.
In general tethering software on my home pc is useless. It has to be on a mobile device: on a laptop or cell phone. Well, mostly. I wouldn’t pay for it as part of a raw converter.
There are enough tethering software, free and paid.
George
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I have a Nikon D850 and Nikon provide their free Camera Control Pro 2 tethering software.
I hook up the camera to my MacBook Pro and set the destination for the captured images to a designated folder, which I have called Capture.
Then I open PhotoLab and point it to that same folder and start taking pictures.
PhotoLab detects the arrival of the newly taken images and I can work on them straightaway.
What more do you think you need?
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I can’t believe what you wrote on this…
Did I really get that right? Other programs support tethering, so… DxO doesn’t need to? That’s logic from an alternate dimension.
By that same standard: why use DxO at all if other tools exist? Why own a camera when phones exist?
If DxO wants to matter as a professional tool, it can’t pretend tethering is some niche craving. It’s a basic feature for professional work. A non-negotiable. And honestly… do I really need to explain basics like this in 2025 on the forum of such advanced program as PhotoLab? It’s like asking why photographers use tripods — at some point, it should go without saying.
That’s a temporary and homemade solution while waiting for native support. Working, but not in tha way as should.
What’s tethering for? Tethering lets you transfer photos directly from your camera to your computer in (near) real time.
Makes it easy to preview shots on a big screen, select the best images with model or team, and even control your camera via software.
This is essential for studio work, commercial shoots, product photography or working with clients. It also helps spot issues on the spot — bad focus, lighting problems, awkward poses — before it’s too late.
Without it? Say hello to wasted time, overheated SD cards, and a workflow stuck in early 90’.
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Just one word. Quality.
What other programs do you mean?
George
That sounds about right to me.
Tethering software has to include everything to remotely control the camera. I take it you haven’t thought through the fact that, for DxO to include that functionality, it would have to write the logic and UI for every single make and model that wanted to support.
But not just that. Good tethering software has to know how to control the aperture, speed, ISO, focus, etc. And that is going to vary from camera to camera.
No, tethering is not part of photo processing. It belongs firmly in the shooting domain, not in the post-processing domain. It comes under the category of remote control.
macOS also provides, as a free part of the operating system, an image transfer utility that allows you to drag and drop images directly from the camera to the computer.
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For OP use case (studio) you may use the standard way described by @Joanna (seen it used e.g. with old LightRoom).
In most cases I’ve seen, Capture One (once “native” to Phase One) was used for tethering and initial editing. Some prefer Adobe. You should have an assistant to check online. In studio, shooting at base ISO, you typically don’t care about noise, so C1 NR is good enough and you may prefer its skin tones treatment. Critical sharpness is also commonly less of a topic for studio. C1 and PL in a way complement each other. Neither seems to want to overtake the others market too aggresively – costs would be big and outcome uncertain.
That’s only a small part of tethering functionality.
- file transfer
- remote camera control – shutter, AF, camera settings plus their presets kept on PC, easy IPTC editing, and so on.
- remote liveview
- remote flash control
You may use it e.g. for studio, wildlife, track and field events, shooting with multiple cameras, etc. Transfer can be a bottleneck. Each maker uses a proprietary, undocumented way to control camera remotely, so you have to get compiled binaries, docs, and abide to some agreement. For example, if you have corporate e-mail, you may get Nikon SDK, which includes libraries for remote control. They also provide a commercial software and free version for tethering.
I think any camera used for studio work would let you double-click the preview button to get the view around the focus point at about 100%. In studio you typically use aperture closed down, so focus precission is less of a problem anyway. But yes, obviously it’s always better to check on a larger screen.
Don’t know anyone currently using SD cards for studio work 
That said, CFexpress can also get hot. Still, it’s always safer to keep a copy…
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Some recent comments on the forum make me dizzy. Honestly: Tethering requires full remote control of exposure and focus for every individual camera model.
Sounds intense. But Capture One, Lightroom and others have been doing it for years. They don’t release separate versions for every camera.
It’s not magic—it’s implementing a documented API. It’s not rocket science—it’s plugging in the camera and receiving RAWs without drama.
Tethering is a standard (for over 20 years!), not a moonshot.
Yet some folks seem more interested in defending the lack of features than demanding progress. I understand some of you don’t need professional workflow, and that’s ok. But please note, DxO (like any other commercial digital darkroom) is not for amateurs.
This isn’t about DxO doing less than others—it’s about keeping up if it wants to be part of a serious workflow. A photographer needs tools, not excuses.
DxO: tethering isn’t “nice to have”—it’s the backbone of studio work.
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But DxO is a “laboratory” tool, not a studio tool. Is it really too much effort to start two best of class apps rather than one “jack of all trades” app that gets too complicated to use?
What about those studios where the photographer does the shooting whilst the technician does the post processing on a second computer? Even more efficient.
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??? Useless in a converter??
Say that to the users of Capture One, a software once built mainly to cater for studio photographers.
Many of us Sony-photographers using CO do it because either Lightroom or Photolab/Optics Pro has not been able to cater for all people using it to digitize old analog pictures.
Sometimes we have to lift our eye sight from our own needs and try to see others.
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That’s one reason to why Photolab isn’t really considered to be a professional tool today Joanna.
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Ha ha ha ha ha. Maybe not in your world.
And if CO is so good, why are you trying to use and complain about a tool that you consider to be less than perfect for your wants.
Please provide some links, I would be interested. AFAIK, LR does not support remote LiveView for Sony cameras, although it works with Sony software. It seems to contradict your statement. What’s the reason for that? (OK, It’s not important for studio work but for “remote shooting” it is.)
In initial LR versions support for tethering was about the same as current PhotoLab support – via watching for directory changes. But automatic renaming and file management is still missing in PL, which is sort of more important issue, I think.
C1 is a separate story, as it started as “native” software for Phase One cameras (same company at that time) and initially it was used for studio work only. Until recently it was a bit slow for that purpose…
Well, some pros know only one type of pros, namely themselves.
I don’t consider that to be a fault per se, to be clear.
BTW, a quote from Bogoljubov:
“I know only two great chess players. The second one is Alekhine”.
AFAIK, he lost all his matches to “the second one” 
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Quote correct please. It’s useless on my home/office pc. It should be on a mobile apparat like a laptop or cellphone.
Even in studio environment there is a main pc where the editing is done. And a laptop where the tethering is done, close to the camera. That means 2 installations of the max 3 in case of PL. I don’t know of other software.
A normal tethering program also includes a viewer.
Not so long ago I made a timelaps with tethering software and shot about 7000 images, every 5 sec one, transferred to the laptop. Just open the editing program or converter and go to the directory.
George
In my opinion, tethering is a feature that camera manufacturers are reluctant to support, if at all, because it opens an unwanted window into the camera software. I still remember the Magic Lantern firmware for certain Canon cameras, which, based on a documented API, allows for some reengineering of the original camera software and includes additional features that have only found their way into higher-end cameras or successor models. For this reason, no further usable API is documented. But it is precisely this API that is necessary for DXO to make meaningful use of the camera firmware.
There are a lot of features I’d vote for before tethering but I’m not a studio photographer. I’d rather have an improved/real DAM built in myself. And to be clear, the fact that it doesn’t include tethering doesn’t mean it isn’t a professional program, just that it doesn’t support a certain type of pro.
Well in that case you are home at least if you use Windows and Android because in Windows there is a Phonelink-applet that instantly gives you access to your phone-pictures BUT that is a toy for phone-photographers and not for serious use.
If you have done the slightest of repro photo you would not have written what you wrote about tethering. It is no coincidence that most serious wedding and product photographers are using Capture One today. The reason is that no other tethering enabled software gives the photographers better control over their workflows and no other software today can match the productivity Capture One can offer when it comes to product photography.
There is a reason Capture One is named just Capture One if you might have wondered once over that a little bit strange name on a RAW-converter. It all started with capturing pictures for computers. That is also why CO also has kept it’s pretty unique “Session-mode” as an offer just for these photographers.
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