Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: DXO Optics Pro 3.5
Iain Laskey examines a serious tool for serious photographers
| Product | DXO Optics Pro 3.5 |
|---|---|
| Company | DXO Labs |
| Web | www.dxo.com |
| Price | $79-$299 |
| We like | Superb Results, automation works very well |
| We don't like | Slightly overwhelming to begin with, UI needs some work. |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements |
DXO Optics Pro 3.5 is an image enhancing tool aimed squarely at digital photographers who want the very best from their images.
It consists of a number of modules which can be used in either fully automatic or manual modes. The exact combination of facilities provided depends on the version used with Starter, Standard and Elite versions being available priced between $79 and $299. Formally, there was a slightly more convoluted pricing structure and we're glad to see this has been rationalised somewhat.
DXO Optics Pro 3.5 works best when used as the first piece of software in your workflow as it relies heavily on the EXIF data embedded in each image to work its magic accurately. It is worth noting that it doesn't work with just any camera or lens. You'll can check whether your particular camera and lenses are covered by clicking here. In most cases both RAW and JPG are supported.
What Does it Do?
Optics Pro 3.5 consists of 4 main tools. These are the Optics Engine, Lighting Engine, Noise Engine and Raw Engine. The exact range of facilities available depends on the version purchased but include the ability to correct lens distortion, vignetting, lens softness and chromatic aberration in the Optics Engine. The Lighting Engine handles dynamic range and exposure optimising and the noise engine, well, reduces noise. Finally, the Raw Engine provides state of the art Raw processing with ability to save out in various formats including DNG.
How Does it do it?
DXO Labs have built up quite a reputation for their optical tools and use a different approach to most. They take each combination of supported camera and lens and then take thousands of photos to allow them to analyse how each lens and camera performs. This allows very precise mapping of lens characteristics and camera performance under a variety of conditions. This data is then used by the various engines to process each image. As noted, it also relies on the EXIF data to provide exact details of how the image was taken to allow accurate processing of each image. One size does not fit all.
In Use
No doubt in an attempt to minimise piracy the program had probably the most convoluted download process we've ever come across. It seemed an endless series of emails, codes, downloads and new codes. It was however pretty quick and straightforward.
To use the program, you need to select one or more images to work with and these are loaded in to the workspace. From here you can either just have them all tweaked in auto pilot mode or you can manually adjust the various settings as well as toggle on or off what features you want to use. Because of the amount of work done, the program isn't quick with each image typically taking a couple of minutes to process although you do get a quick preview of what to expect before triggering the processing proper.
The results themselves are truly stunning. We found the vignetting correction and chromatic aberration particular useful and these problems are difficult to fix in Photoshop. What really impressed us though was the lens distortion and exposure correction. We had a number of images which looked fine but after being processed looked so much better. Comparing the before and after images made the before ones look very poor indeed with perspectives suddenly looking wrong and the images flat compared to the after images. Time after time we found DXO Optics Pro 3.5 brought photos to life in a way that was not always easy to pinpoint but just looked so much closer to reality.
One thing we noticed during use was that the processing seems to be very intelligent. It doesn't just treat the whole image the same way. Different parts are enhanced in different ways to maximise the quality of the results. Clearly DXO Lab's diligent research has paid off with each module performing extremely well.
Some of our images had damaged EXIF data, typically where another program has already been at them and overwritten fields. In such cases, Optics Pro prompts for information such as the focussing distance before continuing.
A pleasant side effect of Optics Pro 3.5 is that it makes even mediocre lenses appear to perform better than you'd expect. We did some of our testing with a Canon 300D and the bundled 18-55mm lens. This lens isn't a total disaster but certainly isn't particularly highly rated either. However, when partnered with DXO Optics Pro 3.5, we found the resulting images were much more punchy and the apparent level of detail and sharpness across the range was much improved. Check out the DXO web site for some impressive before and after examples to see exactly what this software is capable of.
On the downside, the user interface (UI) needs some work. Some elements just didn't work the way we expected and we had to resort to the manual on numerous occasions to see why something was or wasn't happening. It can also be somewhat overwhelming when in manual mode so we'd recommend sticking to automatic as much as possible until you get used to it. We also felt the noise reduction was merely good and better results might be got from a program such as Noise Ninja.
Conclusion
Overall we were very impressed by DXO Optics Pro 3.5. The results across the board were fantastic with no unwanted side effects that we could detect in any of our test images. DXO Optics Pro 3.5 is an interesting product which whilst not cheap, deserves scrutiny from anyone serious about their photography. The price may seem high for a piece of software that 'simply' tweaks your photos but if you consider it costs around the same as a cheapish lens, the improvement to your images will almost certainly be far more dramatic and reinvigorate what lenses you already have.
