Fair enoguh. I was however curious if you could provide actual image(s) that you would want to adjust and can’t do it with current tools. What kind of case scenario are we talking about, exactly?
Facelifting is for appearance only…but it looks like @mikerofoto proposes to bring tools/implementations from other DxO products into PhotoLab.
I find three distinct wishes
- positive and negative control points (please elaborate: what’s a negative CP?)
- local use of the contrast tool as enriched by FilmPack
- local use of the HSL tool
What else? We need to know before we can vote. 
As far as I know, most controls have a negative value in CP and we can also use control points as inverted mask, basically a negative value.
"You can apply a protective Control Point, which prevents another Control Point from applying its correction to a portion of the image. In the toolbar below the image, click on the Control Point icon with the “–” (minus) sign, then click to place the protective Control Point where you want it. Make your corrections with the Equalizer: they will not be applied to the protected area. You can also combine one or more protective Control points with a Control line. "
As far as I know this is also included:
The correction settings associated with local adjustments are displayed as vertical sliders in the Equalizer. These sliders are divided into three distinct groups – Light, Color and Detail – arranged vertically on the left hand side of the Equalizer.
Light group (from left to right):
Exposure: adjusts the brightness in the mask. Drag the slider up to lighten, and down to darken.
Contrast: adjusts the contrast in the mask. Drag the slider up to increase the contrast, and down to decrease the contrast.
Microcontrast: Enhances or reduces the local contrast of microdetails (textures and such). Drag the slider up to enhance the presence of elements covered by the mask, and down to diffuse the micro-details.
ClearView Plus: Reduces atmospheric haze and haze by restoring black tones, which also enhances contrast and saturation.
Highlights: restores detail in the highlights by moving the slider down, and amplifies their brightness by moving the slider up.
Midtones: affects the brightness of the midtones, increasing it upwards and reducing it downwards.
Shadows: makes shadows and dark areas lighter by moving the slider up, and makes them denser by moving down.
Blacks: sets the threshold for the darkest tones, lighter towards the top, denser towards the bottom.
This also works.
Color Group (from left to right):
Vibrance: accentuates or reduces the saturation of colors in a non-linear way. Colors are enhanced without affecting the already saturated hues.
Saturation: increases the intensity of a color hue.
Temperature* (RAW files only): adjusts the white balance locally, warmer up, cooler down.
Hue* (RAW files only) – compensate for any color drift in the shadows after adjusting the Temperature. Compensate with magenta up, and green down.
Tint (TSL): changes the tint of the selected color channel.
The Warmth and Hue sliders take into account the image’s overall white balance. This is indicated by the blue buttons; the other buttons are shown in black. You can check the values (displayed in K for warmth and on a scale of –200 to +200 for hue) by hovering over the boxes.
…
Hence I have no clear idea what original poster meant, but I would love to see an image he wants to modify and see where he fails to do so.
To apply Local Adjustments in Nik,
we only have Control Points *)
- and in the case of Nik5 ColorEfexPro 5 positive and negative ones.
( don’t know if it looks the same in Nik6 )
*) correction – see here …
To apply Local Adjustments in PL,
we have several tools (not only CPs).
- to visualize the Control Point in PL6
.
with a “positive” Control Point
.
with an additional “negative” Control Point
→ to protect from the correction
.
in PL6 (shown here in Windows)
hold down ALT + Click to protect an area
(= the equivalent of Nik’s negative Control Point)
.
to handle (select) Chrominance and Luminance values
.
The only thing what’s new in Nik6 is the already mentioned Diffuse function,
which I guess we will get some time in PL as well.
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I would welcome having the Filmpack fine contrast sliders added to local adjustments. In most cases, to my eyes, they give superior results compared to the more aggressive Microcontrast and ClearView Plus tools.
For example, cloudy skies can be enhanced with the use of the fine contrast highlights slider - with less artefacts than the existing local correction tools.
However, it can produce blown areas which require negative exposure correction. Which can be provided by using a control line (or lines). It can take a bit of juggling between the two tools to get exactly the desired result. Having the fine contrast controls right there next to the exposure sliders would obviously make this easier.
Meanwhile, other highlights in the image may have been undesirably affected which might require correction or using a different but less desirable approach to enhance contrast.
That’s just one example. I frequently use any or all of the fine contrast tools and being able to control where they are applied seems to be a very reasonable feature request.
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yes, that one 
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Hi Wolfgang. The latest version of Nik Collection now has Control line and Graduation filters. So, to me it looks like DxO is heading in the direction you want.
correct, i couldn’t the right word.
yes for fine contrast, which has a different impact than micro contrast and the regular contrast. but it’s part of filmpack and doesn’t shows as option in control point of PL.
colour wheel, just this on it’s own should have option for control point, that little slider in the PL control point don’t have option for selective colour.
nik 6 as all PL cp option, within each and every adjustment you can add. that simple. so why would PL couldn’t be similar, simplicity.
disagree…
‘facelifting’ provides an opportunity to smooth out the ui/ux interface challenges that everyone here has commented on over the years. Differences between windows and mac implementations. Differences in integration with viewpoint and filmpack. There is currently no possibility for the meaningful use of alternative or assistive keyboard and tablet devices. Rationalizing and simplifying license conditions for basic and ‘elite’ software entitlements. And so on.
The ideal product would be the one providing all tools of all apps, in a easily usable way and at low cost. We’ll never see such a product though, and I was trying to point out the essence of this request.
DxO checks our input and puts our proposals in the backlog along their own priorities. Sadly, our priorities often don’t match theirs.
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Ah ok – didn’t know. My last version is Nik5, otherwise Nik3.3.
- check this video at 6:50 → about Control Lines
FP’s Fine contrast slider with Highlight, Midtone and Shadow aren’t still part of PL’s LAs.
on the other hand, DxO was Optic Pro few years ago, maybe now it’s time to adjust PL with different functionality.
I’m quite sure that DxO will come up with a few additions this autumn and hope they’ll address some of the requests that have been posted here. I also expect some discussions about pricing 
@platypus
Hope you are right and I will be very surprised if DXO won´t walk the same way as Adobe and Capture One that also has a main track of subscription now. On mature markets many software companies now turn to subscriptions since it is more and more difficult to convince people to upgrade because of a few new features they might not even be interested in. With the subscriptions the money will just continue pouring in despite what you will do as a developer in the short run.
Where do you go then Milan? @MSmithy
There will always be a market for non subscription because its a value proposition by default. You buy instead of rent software. And with the anti-subscription sentiments on the rise… don’t underestimate people who do it on principle. Going head to head with giant companies that work by different rules, legally and financially is suicidal, but filling in the demand for what large companies leave behind it a niche that can be won.
Wherever forced subscription is our there or not. Maybe you want to not own anything and be happy eating zee bugs, and there will be pod people around, but there will also be anti pod people around as well. Because its far bigger than mere subscription model of one company or another company in this one area. its a global movement one way and the other. If you dig a little big you will find that there is a growing and throwing and subscription movement in all areas of life, because its the pressure to mandate it. Its too big of a topic and too much outside of just this area to cover it all, but trust me, there will always be non subscription market, because people, believe it or not want to actually own the things they paid for. And they want to have control over pricing and they don’t want to pay for the privilege of being involuntary beta testers. Hell, if large companies were not greedy and criminal as they are, pirate market would not exist or it would be tiny. And yet it is growing. Its not that people want to pirate software, its that its a better alternative and more and more they are morally justified to do so. Since companies like Adobe have no problem threatening to sue people who legally paid for their software such as they case in the pushing people from Lightroom 6 to subscription model or with pantone color swatches… if you are familiar with those… well people started pirating after that more and more and there was a whole movement “life after Adobe”. With rise of Davinici resolve, Affinity and other software, even clones of entire Adobe suite by a kickstarter who is not being sued by Adobe itself… I’m pretty sure this story about subscription or not, its far from over.
P.S.
There was a similar situation with so called “content creators” on major social media platforms. As long as there was less politics and occupation involved and less purge campaigns, shenanigans like shadow banning people, copyright strikes that have nothing to do with copyrights etc. trust was high and everyone was happy. And than when all that shenanigans started, people were either force to find or start alternative solutions and now any smart content creator is a multi platform poster. A necessary persecution against being shut down and too dependent on one platform. Similar things exists in freelance world or studio world where creatives have to relay on more than one software and reduce vulnerabilities and points of failure. Subscription companies like Adobe can restrict features, raise prices etc at any point and if you are only on that platform , you are screwed. So there is that angle as well. People might be forced to use Adobe software because of some job requirement or compatibility etc, but many are uneasy with one sided power relations so they might look for alternatives. Personally that is how I ended up using DXO more and more. I don’t even have Lightroom installed anymore, but I still use Photoshop. I don’t use Premier pro anymore, I use Davinci Resolve. Maybe one day I won’t have to use any Adobe software, but I’m sure I won’t be using it exclusively anytime soon. And I’m also pretty sure I’m not the only one.
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I think your view is just a little skewed on a few points. Pirated software as well as music and movies has been around way before Adobe made any changes. It doesn’t affect just subscription software. Every time DXO makes any updates to their software, the pirated version is posted within hours which implies it is very easily reversed engineered. The current cost of PS plus Lightroom is $9.99 a month and has been that for quite some time. This may be something you refuse to pay for whatever reasons, but for many professionals it is a minor cost that gets figured into the business model. Time spent processing and final output are just two considerations for application choice, and for many, Adobe as well as Capture One are much more streamlined for production.
What you say is true, but there was upswing in pirated software across the board in recent years because of built in limitations of the software as well. You can read some of this stuff on YouTube, where people were making videos about it, you can read it in comments section even on Adobe forums. For example the constant internet connection for authentication that some companies demand. With sketch internet connection or working offline because you are on location and you have a problem where you could not authenticate software you pay for because of internet connection. Topaz Video AI version 3. something had this issue and people commented on that they have to pirate the software they bought simply because it didn’t work. Same happened to Adobe service, and in fact one of the ways this was somewhat corrected in Adobe was when they released their AI text to speech for premier pro and recent remove tool in Photoshop, where they specifically made it work offline even if its AI based. This is results of many people both complaining and giving feedback on Adobe forums that if you have to use internet for these types of features it will sabotage the very features they are promoting. And in any serious production this is a big deal. If you have to work with clients on location, last thing you need is sketch internet connection. So people started creating offline authentication even using paid software they had to use pirated version of the software just to be able to use it for work.
Also someone was making a comparison of all the junk services Adobe put in the background to communicate with servers in the cloud, do authentication and collect telemetry. Its absurd how many of these processes run in the background and sometimes eat up resources both ram and CPU, but provide no benefit to the user. So people started using pirated version to avoid this.
Recent incident was where Pantone color swatches would stop working , even if you open old projects in Adobe applications, soon as you open old project, because Adobe had some issues with Pantone they would modify your projects, because they work online. Absurd.
I posted about this in another threat.
I Have to Pirate COLOURS Now?? - Pantone Connect + Adobe split
Louis Rossmann who runs a repair shop for laptops, smartphones, etc. and is an advocate for right to repair talks about these problems across a wide range of services. He lobbies for the right to repair legislation, he advocates legit usage, but sometimes the system is so abusive and broken, pirating is morally justified and sometimes the only solution. Because greedy corporations produce inferior products and services.
https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup
There was also a story of kickstarter guy making alternative to Adobe, and getting suid for copyright.
I Was Sued For 55 Million Dollars Adobe Alternative Abode Advise
There are countless examples where greedy corporations are promoting alternatives by being so greedy and anti consumer. And some of the alterntives are not just alt tech, but also pirating. With the advent of subcription service sand “you will own nothing and be happy” agendas, its not just a matter of features, but also principles.
And this attitude and policies are far bigger than mere photo editing software niche. Its in everything from cars, to tractors to housing and smartphones, digital ID, CBDC, carbon credits etc. My point is that yes its true pirating has been around for a while, but there is far bigger clash of values and profit that is taking place on a scale that dwarfs previous ones.
For example after counter productive and idiotic policy of sanctions against Russia, now half the world is pirating everything from Netflix to cinema releases. And when I say pirating I mean showing freely in movie theaters, because even if they wanted to they can’t pay for the service. They are put under ideological and illegal sanctions. So Russians and other countries finally said, screw it. We will stream it openly as if its out own .
My point is that its bigger phenomenon than juts editing software, and editing software is just pat of that bigger phenomena and that war will continue for the foreseeable future. The best way to reduce pirating is to provide better more valuable service than pirates do. Simple as that. And its not really a matter of cost as much as one thinks, sometimes its just about functionality and values.
If you for example buy big screen TV from some companies they will actually shot ads on your home menu of the so called “smart TV”. Even if you bought the TV and don’t want the ads, there is no way to opt out of this greedy practice that does not benefit you at all and its insulting as it is annoying. Hence you will hack the darn thing and use pirated version of software, probably.
Or when you pay for YouTube premium and you get no benefit over using adblocker, but you get tone of limited functionality because Google wants it that way. . People started using API to create better YouTube app for phones, and they use adblocker on desktop. Instead of fixing this, Google tried to play dirty as they always do and threaten with lawsuit the creator of this app, even if he created the app with open source software.
Or when Google would run ads on youtube channels that are no monetized by creators. but have lot of views. And google will run ads on it just to get ad money for eyeballs. These kind of scummy tactics make people go for pirated software more than normal and they feel morally justified to do so.
Furthermore subscription software takes all the power away from users, producing inferior service, not to mention you pay for perpetual beta software and are forced to be a beta tester. With no subscription there is more balanced and healthy relations between customer and company, resulting in better service overall.
The best gift to pirates is greedy corporations, screwing over their customers.
You are absolutely right. In fact the prices now for Photoshop is a fraction of what it was when it was bought as a perpetual license and now even Lightroom is included. By the way we never by any software to own. We just buy a license. The reason to use cracked software have never been harder to motivate than today. I say this as a person that really dislikes Adobe but there are few offers thart can match Adobes today.
I have a completely different reason to stay away from Adobe and I do it because I will never trust my businesscard data with them. When they got their servers hacked earlier I left them for good.
Subscriptions is where the whole industry seem to be heading and I don’t think it will be a fruitful stance for Milan to be forced to use inferior software just because a principle. Then both he and nany others have to say goodbye to their beloved Photoshop at a time when it seems to have gotten really interesting. A few years ago I did’t think Adobes R&D would have what it took to take them where they are today - but I was wrong. There is for sure a great risk to minimize costs and maximize the profits in the short run from a lot of subscription money but Adobe seems to have avoided that trap. Instead they seems to stay stronger than ever - how about DXO??
Who talks about the once popular Pirate Bay today? It was a Swedish group behind it and I haven’t heard or read about them for many years now. Of course there will be others popping up in countries with a weak official control but it’s not like it was before. The best gift to pirates are a sloppy control of their behavior. I don’t think it is so easy these days, at least not in the common market of EU.
Some of the most problematic limitations in DXO is the ones their camera profiles impose as they are implemented in Photolab. In my case I was unable to open my Sony A7IV files for 6 months without replacing the model codes in them with the codes for A7III. Six months. That is one example of a really hard limitation.
If we change these codes and get in there is nothing preventing me from using both Nikon and Canon profiles with my A7IV files. So why is there a file opening stop logic there at all?
Whether we like it or not companies own some tech exclusively that they have patented. Even a color system can be proprietary as can camera communication protocols e.t.c. We might dislike it and even hate it but doing so won’t take us all that long. The digital camera world is stiil very young and immature and haven’t even been able to standardize on a common RAW-file format yet. Adobe have tried with DNG with limited success since all the major manufacturers obstructs a standardization an as long as the consumers just adapt nothing is likely to happen.
I agree. Quite frustrating.
For better or worse, DXO decided to invest in lens correction process by complex manual measurement. I don’t know if this is related to the fact that there was one a link between DXO and DXO Mark , a website that specializes in this sort of measurement Originally created by DXO labs. So it seems that lens measurements was core to their business and direction for many years and it made sense to include .those measurements into software such as PhotoLab. It also made sense to use it on a website like DXO Mark and they probably try to sell the analyzer type tool as well.
So these types of corrections are part of the DXO since its beginning, its their unique proposition. Obviously focusing on quality means they are slow to release support for all camera lenses and brands. I agree this was a particular problem at one point. If I’m not mistaken there was internal problems in the company and split of DXO Labs and DXO Mark seems to correspond to about that era. To their credit they have rebranded, refocused and are more consistent with support for many optical modules now.
Here is some more info from Wikipedia:
DXOMARK is a commercial website described as “an independent benchmark that scientifically assesses smartphones, lenses and cameras”.[2][3] Founded in 2008, DxOMark was originally owned by DxO Labs,[4] a French engineering and consulting company, which is headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France.[1][4][2][5] DXOMARK Image Labs was separated from DxO Labs in September 2017, and was later re-branded to DXOMARK in 2019.[6][7] DXOMARK is now a wholly independent privately-owned company.[6]
DxO Labs (formerly DO Labs) is a privately owned photography software company. It was founded in 2003 by Jérôme Ménière,[1] former CEO of Vision-IQ.[2] The company’s headquarters are in Paris, France.
It sells DxO PhotoLab, DxO PureRaw,[3] DxO ViewPoint, DxO FilmPack,[4] and Nik Collection[5] image processing software packages.
DxO Labs created DxOMark.com, which provides image quality ratings for standalone cameras, lenses, and mobile devices that include cameras.[6] However it has spun off from them, DxOMark Image Labs.[7][8] On October 25, 2017, DxO announced the acquisition of the Nik Collection assets from Google.[9]
DxO PhotoLab
First released as DxO Optics Pro in 2004,[10] DxO PhotoLab is digital image editing software package designed for professional photographers.[11] It offers automatic corrections for optical aberrations and image distortions for popular camera-lens combinations, as well as a range of other tools. It can be used in conjunction with other software such as Adobe Lightroom.
Discontinued Products
DxO Analyzer was a suite of software tools[16] and equipment to test sensors, lenses, and standalone cameras, as well as mobile devices with cameras.[17][18] Originally introduced by DxO Labs, DxO Analyzer is now a product of DxOMark Image Labs.[19]
The DxO ONE was a phone-connected-camera.[20] It was a small 20-megapixel, 1-inch-sensor, f/1.8 camera which plugs into a Lightning connector of an iPhone or iPad and uses the display to frame and shoot an image. The camera was discontinued in 2018.[21]
DxOMark splits from DxO Labs, is now an independent privately-owned company
Published Jan 8, 2018 | Brittany Hillen
Are you reading raw data and properly correcting optical flaws, or only reading raw data when you do that?
Because you can read raw data in terms of color and tone in many programs. You can demosic them in many programs but results will vary. However the kind of lens corrections offered in DXO only is available because they do that test in the way they do. Downside is limited support and long waiting periods on some cases. It would be great if they could keep the quality, but speed up the process.
I think Adobe had hope DNG would replace prosperity RAW formats in its own way, but that was more a hope than stated goal. My understanding is that DNG was originally intended as archival format, which still is. Ability to be able to open raw files at some point in the future when there is no more support for propitiatory technology. Lets say Olympus goes out of camera business and raw files shot with it are 50 years old. Without access to data we might not be able to read them easily. But with DNG would could archive the original and open it with open source DNG much later. Providing they are archived properly.
I remember when David Fincher the movie director was talking about the problems od digital technology and format. And how commercials he shot in the late 80’s and 90’s he cannot even read them from the kind of cossets and disks they used back than. So some stuff he had to not only archive it with a cassets or disk of that era, but also a device to read it with.
They talked baout how many digital formats came and went in just few decades. Unlike with analog film, this can be real tricky to preserve digital stuff. So its good someone tried to create archival format like DNG.
But I think other than few less known brands , most camera brands had their own raw formats and don’t produce dng out of the camera. But as I’ve mentioned before, DNG format is not always RAW and Raw is not always linear and even when it is, in the case of some smartphones and cameras, there needs to be DXO interest in obtaining the camera and lens, measuring it, and developing optical module for it. Otherwise even if they support reading reading of just tone and color information , lot of the unique value propositions of DXO would be missing. Also there was talk of access to code. While DNG is open source, and all cameras shoot raw, not all cameras (smartphone) allow for recording of RAW. And some do, and open the access to third party developers of camera apps. How well is smartphone optimized for raw photography I don’t know, since I’ve seen various results. From good to really bad. I don’t know enough about every smartphone and how raw data is stored to comment for every brand, though.