Which version do I need

[Wlodek]

@Ray56

What I really wanted to know was whether the Pure raw product was in some way superior to Photo Lab Elite which so far for me has been excelent.

PureRaw (PR) is mostly a subset of PhotoLab (PL). PR does only demosaicking, denoising, and optical corrections – no RGB editing. The “extra” feature of PR is the ability to be run automatically as a plugin to some software, like LightRoom or PhotoShop. Also, for few months PR had XD2 denoising which PL was lacking (not to be confused with the current XD2s), but that was incidental and strange (marketing “invention”?). You may still use PL as a “manual plugin”, using RGB TIFFs or LinearRaw DNGs as intermediate files, with better control on denoising and optical corrections than in PR.

@Ray56

I have found that left to itself the program sometimes overdoes distortion / perspective correction

I wonder what exactly do you mean. Distortion correction in PL works for me perfectly (including “moustache”), except perhaps for fish-eye and Nikkor 14-24/2.8G zoom at wide angle. In the first case, I don’t understand the logic behind DxO’s Nikkor 16/2.8D corrections, but I’m happy with the results after manual intervention. Fish-eye lenses require manual corrections anyway, subject specific. With 14-24 lens the story is more complex and I don’t remember all the details now, but at 14mm you have various geometric correction choices, like Volume Corrections in ViewPoint, depending on what the final output you want. I had no problems for other lenses – maybe I’ve missed something? Could you please elaborate on that?

Automatic Perspective correction depends on lines detections, like with the Horizon tool, which you can’t expect to be perfect. Sometimes the choice of lines in PL is funny indeed, but even with heavily trained AI it wouldn’t be perfect, I think. We have to adapt. Definitely it requires manual intervention most of the time, but you have additional tools there. It’s a bit like with face detection, where someone in this forum mentioned the case of an electric socket with grounding detected as a human nose

@Ray56

DXO Clearview Plus often adds too much colour cast

CVP, like SmartLighting, seems to be DxO’s ‘specialite de cuisine’, which some love and some hate. But it’s just another tool you have to master…

@Ray56

Metalic surfaces in particular seem to suffer

Could you provide a sample?

@Ray56

As I tend to shoot an event with varying light and other variables I do not batch process my images

I’m also often shooting at varying lighting conditions, additionally with crazy color-casts, spectral peaks, extreme ISO. Still, I find batching useful, with at least optical corrections being applied initially. Usually I apply some of my presets, choose a typical image and select all similar images, then apply some corrections on the group specific to the case, and fine-tune only few sliders individually. The key point is to develop a habit to cancel the selection, like with batch exports

@Ray56

As the program can export to 16 bit tiff, that is more information than stored on my 14 bit non compressed raw files

Well, more or less you’ll still have the two lowest bits set to zero, I think.

@Ray56

Also considering I also do video editing, the requirements for the photo side of things is quite light.

Good point. Just look at DaVinci Resolve/Fusion requirements – I thought I had a strong PC Anyway, PL users with high-mpx cameras should be warned that 8GB RAM might not be enough, and probably 16-32GB is the lowest size they should consider for safe use.

[Ray56]

Hi.
Sorry for the late reply but I’ve been busy with a couple of assignments and editing.
Yes the problem with the automatic perspective distortion and to a lesser degree horizon section is worse the wide the lens tends to be. It depends a lot on the angle I have to shoot at as well. So the 10-20mm tends to suffer the most, then my 24-70mm and after that it’s not normally as bad but longer telephoto images tend on average to be used less awkward angles. The tools within the separate parts themselves are or help most of the time but not nearly as easy to use as within Nikon’s own current NX Studio which is a cut down version of it’s former Capture NX but still in my opinion superior in dealing with distortions between Nikon bodies and their their Nikkor lens range. Where DXO PhotoLab shines for me is in noise reduction in general and final file sizes which is impressive. I also like the batch IPTC ability which is simple to use and fast to apply. No more fiddling at the back of the camera to input the information. I also like that it’s non invasive, not trying constantly looking in the background trying to build a library of my images as my copy of Lr tried to do. That is just ridiculous as I can do two assignments a week taking over 500 images at a time. Sometimes it’s a lot less but often I’m out for six to eight hours. I’ve put more detail in my biog.
As for my comment on the DxO Clearview Plus slider colouring metallic object more I mean something like this.

That’s an unprocessed jpg.

Testing before you buy.

I didn’t with DXO PhotoLab. I work alongside a another photographer for one charity who owns Pure Raw and was impressed with his results but want to get away from using PS or Lr so went for the Elite version as all my images don’t require cloning or 98% of what PS can do.
I did buy it in the hope that the NIK collection would give me back the type of editing I enjoyed with the original Capture program Nikon used to supply when it had a more comprehensive set of U-Point tools. The tools are OK but really I would mainly be using Viveza.
When I got PL I did see bundled packages on offer but none included the NIK collection. I will keep an eye out for special offers.

[Wlodek]

On CVP:
Never shot planes and thought CVP was bad only for headshots, where even small values can amplify skin blemishes Looks like CVP=10 is max I would accept in this particular case. You may try to set slightly negative saturation, but that rarely helps. Using Microcontrast slider may make this photo look dirty, a bit like CVP but without saturation tweaks. In this case I would use Fine-contrast instead, at about 20-30, SmartLighting at 25-50, perhaps Highlights=-20, Midtones=+25, and maybe Exposure=+0.30, but that’s personal thing.

I use CVP mostly for cities and landscapes, starting at CVP=25, but some may not like going over 15. Some landscapes with a lot of detail, can look more interesting and still not too artificial at CVP=50, but then you may want sometimes to lower slightly Luminance and perhaps saturation in the “grass range”. Large CVP values can cause WB corrections to work quite unexpectedly in few cases. For group photos, with 30 or more people, CVP at 5-10 can make the faces more “readable” without spoiling too much. Some headshots may look better with a small value of CVP, but that’s quite specific – e.g. old shepards, jazz, or disliked politicians

On distortion:

@Ray56

automatic perspective distortion and to a lesser degree horizon

OK, I thought you had also standard geometrical distortions in mind, like barrel, pincushion, moustache, which puzzled me.

[Ray56]

The aircraft were not typical of the bulk of the assignments I get but I never know from one week to the next what the subject matter may be. In the last month I have had to record guided tours, Attend a river barge race, photograph some huge loft spaces, cover dragon boat racing, a Lego exhibition, underground 1700s fortifications, and last night an outdoor arts festival aerial ballet aboard an old floating lightship moored alongside a quayside called ‘Anchored’, where a seated audience watched the show that started at 10:30pm. I wasn’t told my shooting position would be in the front row of the audience and could not move around. Had I been told, I would have taken a longer lens. Subsequently a lot of images ended up being cropped and the angles less than ideal but that sometimes happens if I am not dealing with the organisers but the sponsors. Either way, opening some of the images in PL made for some interesting initial adjustments applied to some of the images.
As this opened in PL

With all distortion / perspective controls turned off.

It doesn’t take long sorting these things out and I enjoy editing.

[Wlodek]

I’ve used Perspective tool for buildings only, but still had to take wider photos, so that some usable crop could be made after applying the correction (the hard part). Even with buildings, Prespective Auto can give strange results, missing the proportions completely. Unfortunately it’s mostly manual work. Hence I don’t put any Perspective/Horizon corrections into my presets and just manually select a set of photos for which they are needed. Maybe there are some perspective tools based on machine-learning already, which are able to decide when NOT to use it, like in your example?

I know the 24-70/2.8G, non-VR lens quite well. It has small pincushion at 70mm, which I often ignore, but found no problems using PL Distortion correction at any angle.

For wide angles I often use Volume Deformation, which requires VirtualPoint license. It bends some lines, but people near the edges don’t get crazy fat. It may also require manual intervention, but less often.

BTW, these are extreme lighting conditions indeed! With D4 or D780 I used spot metering and -0.7EV to be somewhat safer for concerts, but then I had a luxury of burying the shadows into blacks. Z8 is a bit safer, I think. Don’t know D500 metering reliability. Never had to use -3 EV, except for sunsets.

[Ray56]

I think what I will do is make presets based on my lenses but in most I will disable both the perspective / distortion controls and the Clearview Plus auto modes.

I also made a mistake trying out the NIK collection as it disabled my old but up till then working perpetual version of Ps. Upon closer inspection I should have guessed as the NIK Collection specifically stated it would only work with newer version of either Lr or Ps. What I didn’t expect is that downloading the package would disable it. I’ve now uninstalled all of the NIK Collection and Ps is now running again. I found that curious as PL hasn’t disabled Ps and can use it.
Also the NIK Collection didn’t have some of the useful U-Point tools that were available when it was a part of the free Nikon program.

PL in itself once I got used to the tools is all I think I need personally. There is a good amount of tonal adjustment to be had alongside of the superior (in my view) noise reduction. The colour correction tools are also straight forward to use. Most of what I do ends up on web sites rather than on printed material so depending on the screen at the other end I have no control over how anyone sees my images.

The D500 has similar auto focusing / metering capabilities as the D5. The 24-70mm on an APS-C sensor only uses the central portion of the lens so the edges of the frame are still relatively sharp and it’s really a 36-105, 35mm equivalent. Same goes for the 10-20mm given the difference in sensor size.

I either use matrix metering or spot set to average. The EV adjustment is ±5EV but can be changed in camera post in body if required. Personally I find no difference between using that if I made a mistake and change after to setting it with the dial. Doing it that way doesn’t seem to affect quality. Strong theatrical spotlights often lead to bleached faces, hands etc. I think the most challenging type of shooting for me personally is shooting swimming competitions at indoor pools with little to no daylight but often have mixed lighting. Water splashed near the face can make focusing on the eye difficult as do the arm movements. Setting up the focusing interrupt settings can be challenging. I hate spray and pray shooting and I find the focus tracks more poorly if you have a subject coming towards you once you start a burst. I will do burst shooting for subjects where I’m not sure of the precise moment of action like the firing of a canon.
One reason I still use the Nikon software is to check whether the camera focused or not and where the focus spot landed. It helps to keep me on my toes as to accuracy of my aim and to let me know early if a lens is beginning to need to go in for a service.

If your D4 has the option to shoot tiff you should try it. The improvement in colour detail is worth it although it may need more work on it than a NEF file. I haven’t tried a tiff in DXO yet. I must go out and do some test shots.

[Wlodek]

@Ray56

If your D4 has the option to shoot tiff you should try it. The improvement in colour detail is worth it although it may need more work on it than a NEF file.

The improvement is over jpegs only, 16-bit lossless vs 8-bit lossy. The out-of-camera tiff should be readable by PL, since it’s a standard “RGB TIFF” (demosaicked raw data), but you loose DeepPRIME denoising and Lens Sharpness Optimization tools, which are available only for RAWs (+WB tool is less complete and no lateral CA corrections). If you shoot over ISO 5,000 with D500 (APS-C), DP is a must, I guess, especially if you have to recover the shadows, probably like in your last examples.

[Ray56]

Please don’t go by the one higher ISO example I put up. I wouldn’t shoot tiff at high ISO levels but bright sunshine. I wasn’t aware of the de-noise limitations for tiff but did notice the program only gave the choice of Standard Luminance / Chrominance adjustment for jpgs but still get Lens Sharpness Optimisation which I think should be adequate. I have never really noticed any CA problems with my constant aperture zooms or prime lenses. VA and kit lenses yes, awful CA in the cheaper zoom lenses of old. Haven’t used a VA zoom lens in years with the exception of the 10-20mm and not noticed CA in a long time. I only process jpegs if I have forgotten to switch back to jpg+ raw when shooting in burst mode to increase the frame count during a long continuous burst which is rare as I said earlier. I tend to shoot 14 bit uncompressed + Fine jpg the most. The jpgs are for those people who just want a quick few images to put onto their website or social media to promote an event in progress if attendance is less than expected or just to give a current update which with sports they do. If I put RAW on one card and jpgs onto the other they or a runner can take a card away and I can carry on shooting just replacing the memory card. I can collect my memory cards at the end of the day’s activities.
Thanks for the heads up on the de-noise front though. I wasn’t aware.
One Reason for liking the original U-Point technology was it was possible with the original version to only easily lighten the portions and colours you needed in a portion of an area of say just a section of a face and erase possible sections not needing those adjustments accurately with a U-Point eraser tool. In the past that was great for removing cast shadows caused by things like chain fencing or bars from cages or from glass partitions if shooting through glass. While opening the aperture reduces the effects a lot with chain fencing it never completely removes such problems.