Problem
The crop mode in DxO PL2 is only adjustable via resizing. The problem is, it is very difficult to adjust the crop rectangle precisely via resizing tool. Say you want to crop a 6,000 x 4,000 24 MP image to 4,800 x 3,200 15,4 MP image precisely in the centre, by dragging and watching the dynamically updated height and weight label. It takes several minutes to achieve that. The precision of the trackpad on a laptop does not have high precision at 1 pixel level, every bit of scroll on your finger tip corresponds to a random 5+ pixels to move so you have to drag up and down in tiny bits and wish to hit your numbers 4,800 x 3,200 precisely in the end. This is incredibly painful user experience and practically a useless option.
Business case
I shoot photographs with Leica Q which has a 28mm lens. Occasionally I use 35mm digital crop in the camera. In crop mode the camera draws a rectangle defining the 35mm area which is visible on the EVF and LCD. This helps you to frame your picture. In addition, the crop mode parameters, i.e width and height are saved in Exif data. The raw image itself is saved in full size (28 mm) without crop.
DxO PL2 loads the full size image, and when you click the crop tool, you see a full size crop rectangle, which is 6,000 x 4,000 pixels covering the entire image, in stead of a smaller cropped one with 4,800 x 3,200 pixels. So DxO PL2 does not seem to recognise or process crop properties.
In ACR or Lightroom (don’t know about other editors) you will get the entire 28mm file but with the crop indicated. So you can keep the crop, move it around, adjust it or discard it altogether. This is very versatile.
The underlying reason why precise 35mm and 50mm crop is useful is because, when your photographs are printed for a catalog or exhibition you need to have a consistent image quality achieved by identical print dimensions. A viewer should be able to view images from a fixed distance without a need to get closer or farther.
Feature request
Recognise Leica Q crop properties
Ideally like ACR and Lightroom, DxO PL2 should recognise crop properties from the Exif data and draw the crop rectangle in the middle of the image.
Workaround
As a workaround I am writing a script to override sidecars (dop files) en masse. I can load images in DxO, then export sidecars first. This will create dop files. Then by running the script I will fill the crop rectangle parameters under overrides section. This will create 35 mm crop rectangle once I load the sidecars.
I must also say I already created a feature request ticket for this. It is not as detailed as I describe here. Hopefully DxO team listens and fixes this important deficiency against competitor products. I love DxO PL2. Its JPEG output is second to none, much better than Leica’s in-camera JPEG rendering. So it would be great if this issue is addressed.
I am interested to know if others had similar thoughts about the crop tool.