New entry in the Raw Editing Market.

[table1349]

My photoshop goes unused pretty much these days. Mac user so my two goto programs are as stated Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo.

Blasphemer

Hey, I can't help it if the folks at Affinity Photo know how to write rendering engine code that blows Adobe out of the water for speed. I picked up Affinity to give it a try as there were several articles that reviewed it in an extremely positive light and found that the reviewers were right. It is a true competitor for Photoshop with a small learning curve if you have used Photoshop. Plus no monthly subscription for me. On the down side is it a Mac only program. Well not a down side for me but for Windblown users.

I don't have anything against Lightroom, but I have found that the quality of my output and the ease with which it is done is better with Capture One Pro, and again no subscription.

I am curious about DXO Optic Pro 10. What are the good and the bad points, what is it best for etc? Never used it or even looked at it. Sounds interesting.

 

[Ysarex]

I am curious about DXO Optic Pro 10. What are the good and the bad points, what is it best for etc? Never used it or even looked at it. Sounds interesting.

Let's start with DXO's major liability because it's a big one: DXO has no ability to effect local adjustments. Movement in the industry in recent years has been toward raw converters that support more and more extensive local adjustment with the goal that no other software is required. C1 which you use, can set up layers in the photo and do things like darken a sky, or change the color in a local region of the photo, or lighten the shadows in a portrait, etc.. LR has similar capabilities.

DXO adheres to the classic model of a global raw conversion for the entire image, which it does better than any other raw converter. Comparing for example lens distortion corrections and perspective adjustments between Adobe and DXO, well, you can't really -- no comparison -- up against DXO Adobe is just pitiful.

DXO's Prime noise reduction set's the industry standard for best.

A DXO raw conversion is a thing of beauty -- clean, gorgeous detail, so free of artifacts you'd think they're using magic.

But back to the first point, like you I use C1 for most of my work because I can usually bring the photo to completion in C1 whereas DXO will force me into Photoshop to get the local changes done.

Joe

 

[JacaRanda]

Hard to tell. I use Capture One Pro. Bit more expensive than LR but better tools, more control and no subscription.

I don't use lightroom, never could get the hang of it.. I like putting my files where I like putting them, hate this idea that they are buried deep in some subdirectory somewhere forcing me to open LR first to send it to any other program, etc, etc...

I put my photos where I want them to - just copy from the card and dump them in a folder. I then select one and open it in lightroom - it imports them on the import window (I pick or just select all) and then it builds a catalogue which is just a data store for the files that tell it what to apply to each RAW and also an internal archive of where the photo is and what categories its in etc...


I don't use lightroom to import from my memorycards - I'm sure it can do it but I keep control over that aspect.

Can you let me know if I am missing something or is it simply a different way of doing things?

Here is what I do - Place the card in the reader, it launches Lightroom, shows thumbnails of all files, I select or deselect the files I want imported or not, I select what folder to import to, I select a subfolder if I want, I create a new subfolder if not created already, I select preset(s) adjustments or not, I tell it to rename file name by all sorts of formats, click import and it all happens exactly the way I wanted it. If shoot was in different locations, I only select the group of one location initially, and when I tell LR to import again from the same card, the second time LR ignores all the ones previously imported.

I just want to make sure it's just a method preference as opposed to something LR can't do that others are doing. So far I haven't found anything that it can't do for the most part.

 

[JacaRanda]

Hard to tell. I use Capture One Pro. Bit more expensive than LR but better tools, more control and no subscription.

I don't use lightroom, never could get the hang of it.. I like putting my files where I like putting them, hate this idea that they are buried deep in some subdirectory somewhere forcing me to open LR first to send it to any other program, etc, etc...

So I do use photoshop a lot, didn't even install lightroom.

I understand not getting used to or simply disliking the interface, but LR does not do anything I don't tell it to do. I tell it everything (so bossy). What drive, what folder, what subfolder, how to name, etc. It's been extremely useful since I've learned to be bossy.

This may not change your mind, but it could be worth a watch and given a chance.

 

[robbins.photo]

I understand not getting used to or simply disliking the interface, but LR does not do anything I don't tell it to do. I tell it everything (so bossy). What drive, what folder, what subfolder, how to name, etc. It's been extremely useful since I've learned to be bossy.

This may not change your mind, but it could be worth a watch and given a chance.

I'll give it a look. I just never got the hang of lightroom - I've been a photoshop user for a long time so I'm used to just pulling photos into photoshop and doing what I need to do there, the whole lightroom thing honestly just doesn't really seem like something I need.

 

[JacaRanda]

I understand not getting used to or simply disliking the interface, but LR does not do anything I don't tell it to do. I tell it everything (so bossy). What drive, what folder, what subfolder, how to name, etc. It's been extremely useful since I've learned to be bossy.

This may not change your mind, but it could be worth a watch and given a chance.

I'll give it a look. I just never got the hang of lightroom - I've been a photoshop user for a long time so I'm used to just pulling photos into photoshop and doing what I need to do there, the whole lightroom thing honestly just doesn't really seem like something I need.

Yup, creature of habit type of thing and I was there with you. I was lucky that I started with LR and not PS especially since the overwhelming majority of any processing I do is done with LR and hardly do anything with layers. I also take advantage of the pretty good masking features (auto mask is always turned on) that don't require me to make precise selections. However, the importing stuff is all about how it helps management the database of files.

 

[robbins.photo]

Yup, creature of habit type of thing and I was there with you. I was lucky that I started with LR and not PS especially since the overwhelming majority of any processing I do is done with LR and hardly do anything with layers. I also take advantage of the pretty good masking features (auto mask is always turned on) that don't require me to make precise selections. However, the importing stuff is all about how it helps management the database of files.

I just find it really easy to pull the photo into photoshop, resize and crop it to my liking, then make any further adjustments I need to make. I use my laptop most for actually processing images but I don't store them there - they are transferred to the desktop for long term storage. So as a result having lightroom wanting to save everything in it's own library is a huge PIA for me. I'll take a look through the video though and take another look at lightroom, who knows might be something in there I can really use.

 

[JacaRanda]

Yup, creature of habit type of thing and I was there with you. I was lucky that I started with LR and not PS especially since the overwhelming majority of any processing I do is done with LR and hardly do anything with layers. I also take advantage of the pretty good masking features (auto mask is always turned on) that don't require me to make precise selections. However, the importing stuff is all about how it helps management the database of files.

I just find it really easy to pull the photo into photoshop, resize and crop it to my liking, then make any further adjustments I need to make. I use my laptop most for actually processing images but I don't store them there - they are transferred to the desktop for long term storage. So as a result having lightroom wanting to save everything in it's own library is a huge PIA for me. I'll take a look through the video though and take another look at lightroom, who knows might be something in there I can really use.

Got it. Lightroom can be used for only database management. No need to do any editing if you don't want to. So you could do the import, name files, tell it where to put them etc. and then still go to your folders like usual and open in PS. LR can be used as a standalone for just managing files and folders. Even that part of it alone is worth it to me.

But, I am still wondering what it does not do that I may be missing.

 

[robbins.photo]

Got it. Lightroom can be used for only database management. No need to do any editing if you don't want to. So you could do the import, name files, tell it where to put them etc. and then still go to your folders like usual and open in PS. LR can be used as a standalone for just managing files and folders. Even that part of it alone is worth it to me.

But, I am still wondering what it does not do that I may be missing.

Whereas I don't really use the database management feature, in fact I don't want it on the laptop. It has a small 250 GB SSD drive, so it's for processing, not storage.

I guess I could put it on the desktop and use it there strictly for file management, but honestly I've got stuff setup now to where it's organized well enough that I can find what I'm looking for pretty easily.

 

[JacaRanda]

Got it. Lightroom can be used for only database management. No need to do any editing if you don't want to. So you could do the import, name files, tell it where to put them etc. and then still go to your folders like usual and open in PS. LR can be used as a standalone for just managing files and folders. Even that part of it alone is worth it to me.

But, I am still wondering what it does not do that I may be missing.

Whereas I don't really use the database management feature, in fact I don't want it on the laptop. It has a small 250 GB SSD drive, so it's for processing, not storage.

I guess I could put it on the desktop and use it there strictly for file management, but honestly I've got stuff setup now to where it's organized well enough that I can find what I'm looking for pretty easily.

Got it. I guess my responses are in response to this.

I like putting my files where I like putting them, hate this idea that they are buried deep in some subdirectory somewhere forcing me to open LR first to send it to any other program, etc, etc...

But yup, things could get tricky if you are on a two computer system etc. LR definitely not for everyone and for all situations. I just like to know that I am not missing out on a feature it has, or a feature it does not have that I could be using.