Desired functionality in DxO

cernoch.r · January 20, 2023, 6:55am

Dear DxO,

I am deciding whether to buy PhotoLab 6 Elite since I like the functions, interface as well as the performance and results.
However, I do miss something that is important for me and maybe for some other users.
Below a list of functionalities that I miss in PhotoLab 6 that I would be grateful to see:

no side by side comparison of 2 different photos: X-Y view
no multiple photos view
unlimited photos views (currently limited to 1000 photos only)
possibility to choose whether to delete photo from disk or from project only from the project area
high quality preview in Customize section (incl. DeepPrimeXD)
GPS support
some automatic smart catalogues/projects collecting pictures based on the parameters defined
more plugin support would be a benefit

Please let me know, would you also appreciate the above functionality in PhotoLab?

Thank you
Radim

Guenterm · January 20, 2023, 7:04am

Dear @cernoch.r /Radim,

happy welcome here.
This is a user forum, where from time to time also official DXO employees post something. But most of the answers you will get will be from users who have been working with DXO for a long time and are happy to share their knowledge.
As in any forum, there are also search functions where you will find many of your queries.
The section Latest DxO PhotoLab/Which feature do you need? topics - DxO Forums is used to address requests, or to vote in already posted FR’s via the vote button.
Just browse around the forum and you will find many answers.

have fun

Guenter

BHAYT · January 20, 2023, 11:11am

That has been the subject of user votes for some time and is a feature wanted by many. Currently only possible for Virtual Copies and the [M]aster for the same image (not different images as you requested).

See the next item for a “crude” “workaround”!

Another feature asked for by users. The only way this can be achieved is to export (turn off all or just leave HQ) and export to JPG and use FastStone, or FastRawViewer or XnView(MP) which offer free or cheap multiple image viewing capabilities

Please explain what you mean by this! I have a bulk test with nearly 12,000 images and DxPL copes (I haven’t added well but is copes but its rendering slows things down)!

Also something others have raised. In my case, because I take a lot of photos of gardens then the issue of chromatic aberration is a real problem because it doesn’t get removed until 75% zoom by which time the image is too zoomed to be useful overall!! So I have to resort to the export “trick”!

A comparison with a full screen preview from PL6 and an export from PL6. The comparison was produced in FastStone Image Viewer (only available on Windows).

I have done tests with GPS and it interworked reasonably well with other packages but have seen requests like that before so why do you not believe that there is no GPS support?

The last two are beyond my scope, albeit better searching would help users to cluster images based on more than one criteria which could at least be collected into projects, e.g. search on A and B or A or B!

Regards

Bryan

PS. @cernoch.r Please add your platform (Win 10, Win 11, Mac etc) to you name so we can judge the pertinence or otherwise of our response, there are some differences between DxPL(Win) and DxPL(Mac) unfortunately!

JoJu · January 20, 2023, 11:43am

Do a search in PL library module for pictures made with your favourite camera i.e. which will be more than 1.000 and you’ll see that PL doens’t want to dispaly all of them but “only” 1.000.

Would you mind to not call a trick what’s basically one more of the famous, legendary, supernecessary (sorry, something put me in marketing mode and I can’t find the off-switch ) workarounds of PL users? Thank you sooo much.

Wolfgang · January 20, 2023, 2:17pm

Purposely added another more than 1000 images to a folder already containing more than 1000
– and the PhotoLibrary showed them all. All was done on a common HD, not defragmented after the copy action.

It is a different question, how fast the overview in PhotoLibrary appears ‘corrected’, then presenting the ‘developed’ state. Suppose, that depends very much on where the files are stored, on the file size, what was done when developing, on the location of database and cache, the cache size etc. – (also) taking into account the present hardware and configuration.

note – I don’t use keywords, don’t rely on PL’s search mechanism …

BHAYT · January 20, 2023, 2:54pm

@JoJu thank you for your update! @Wolfgang I had stated in my response that discovering 12,000 images on DxPL(Win) was possible so I took my 12,000 and selected 2001 and copied them to a new Bulk directory alongside a Bulk-1000 directory (not enough for this test).

The images were on an NVME and took 1:26.27 to newly discover in PL6.2.0, complete with basic DOPs.

I then searched on “bulk” and this is what happened on DxPL(Win)

Clicking on the option for the “+2001” provided this

So the limitation on Windows is more about not deluging the user with more information than they might want, is this a difference between DxPL(Win) and DxPL(Mac)!

Sorry I have been using the revered technique since my early attempts with a free copy of DxO 8! The problem I highlighted is one that could be addressed, i.e. providing the 75% features on request but including ‘DeepPrime’ or ‘DeepPrime XD’ would slow down editing, particularly for owners of slow graphics cards, i.e. we need ‘normal’ rendering, ‘detailed’ rendering and ‘detailed with DP’ rendering!

Plus if this is then part of an image compare facility those rendered images need to be retained in order to facilitate image comparison!?

The current “kludge”, sorry revered technique, is a little cumbersome but most of the actual time taken is in the application of the edits, DxPL writes the actual image quickly, and that time would become part of the internal ‘detailed’ rendering process anyway.

At least with the “trick” I have an image to go back and review whenever I want too until I export with my chosen ‘DxO Denoising Technology’, while I am off having a meal etc. after which the “temporary” renders can deleted from disk (my temporary renders are devoid of any noise reduction although HQ only seems to add about 1 second to the export time!)

JoJu · January 20, 2023, 3:41pm

Then it was not an update. Apparently PL6 or PL on Windows can display more than 1.000 images, congratulations. PL5 on Mac can’t. although I haven’t tried the very latest 5.?.? version after updating a couple of days ago, but I was always bewildered by this limit.

another Edit:

Maybe he wanted to add (an dnot only read) GPS data to pictures?

The other point is: Your screenshot of FastImage Viewer shows two JPGs with different sizes.

I’m confused. A preview is related to the RAW image and rendered by PL. JPGs are exports, no previews. So, what do you actually compare?

BHAYT · January 20, 2023, 6:35pm

I am not trying to compare like with like so the large preview from DxPL is just that, a snapshot of a preview! The other image, with less CA, is an export of the same image with the same edits but the only way to see the image as it will, be in DxPL, is to increase the magnification to at least 75% by which time all the context of the image has gone!!

So I took the snapshot of the full screen preview and compared it to the exported image using FastStone which has technology to increase the size of one item, the snapshot in this case, to show why I am “upset” whenever I am working with some of my images, particularly at this time of year, because of the huge amount of “purple” that suffuses the branches and the only way to see what it is actually going to look like is to export!

So this is what the comparison of a snapshot of an image taken at Highdown Gardens actually looks like when compared to the actual export from DxPL(Win) and the comparison was only to show how different they are and how hard it is to know what the image might look like when you need to zoom in to at least 75% before the CA settings, in this case, are applied!

DxPL plays reasonably well with most other software and I did a lot of tests which I abandoned and did not post because I am no expert on GPS so I couldn’t account for which package was getting things exactly correct and which were …!?

But the only package which was an absolute nightmare was Adobe Bridge which uses a completely different way of requiring the GPS data to be entered!?

So this is me entering GPS data from the web for Highdown Gardens, the GPS location for the picture I used in the previous post.

It was entered as 50.8255 and -0.4428

From this data located on the web

Pressing on the show map icon in DxPL produced this in the Opera browser

and having written the data back to the image (to the xmp sidecar) Zoner showed this

Which I feel is not a complete failure, hence my query!?

JoJu · January 20, 2023, 7:52pm

Here he comes again. The old workarounder. “GPS support” as asked by @cernoch.r means “ability to add a geo-location to a picture”, I’m assuming. Directly, without using two or three additional apps. Yeah, hard to imagine, I can imagine the pain. Btw. a map starting at 0° S and 0° W… but this was also already on the feature wishlist menu.

And now I got into the mood of yelling a bit:

WHY DON’T YOU WORKAROUNDERS GET IT IN YOUR BRAINS: WORKAROUNDS ARE NOT THE ONLY WAY TO USE A RAW CONVERTER!!!

Except, one happens to be a die-hard DxO customer with a long history of hoarding “essential apps” around “it’s only a RAW converter”, who defends “his” (as in “once bought, always remaining a dedicated slave to it”) RAW-converter to the very last drop of blood.

Let’s stop here, I know that you like to help finding other ways for @cernoch.r of dealing with a way to get GPS data into pictures, it’s just the other side of the usability-galaxy.

BHAYT · January 21, 2023, 8:22am

@JoJu Please don’t SHOUT and if you consider that is appropriate behaviour in a topic from someone new to DxPL then …

I was glad that you confirmed the 1,000 limit and it prompted me to test on DxPL(Win) and determine the behaviour on the Windows platform with PL6.2.0 but your “workaround” rants are just predictable and tedious, achieve nothing, other to let you have “fun”, and I have witnessed way to much of the “mischief” you attempt to wreak from time to time in the forum, alongside positive, helpful posts I have to admit!

For the record I originally bought DxO 11 to process JPGs (the only thing that I took at that time) and liked the feature set, which allowed me to make quick adjustments more easily than anything else at the time (just in my price bracket, at that time). I could create and save my own presets for future use and output the images with a useful export feature that wasn’t going to overwrite the original file (unless I wanted it to)!

FastStone Image Viewer has been my main photo manager (albeit one without any real metadata handling) from way back before I found DxO Optics Pro and if I can’t have all the features I want in a single package then I will use a number of cheap adjuncts to fill the gaps, wherever possible.

So like others I want as many features in PhotoLab as possible and as soon as possible but … if there are ways to achieve more with a little “fiddling” in the meantime so be it!

I am “wedded” to DxPL because it does much of what I want and I cannot afford to start buying new and even more expensive products, particularly when I have tested some of them and found that they don’t offer me substantially more that I personally want and would cost me hundreds of pounds to purchase!

I admit that I have just purchased Affinity 2 (to replace Affinity) while it is on offer but that can replace my Zoner subscription which I did not renew when it expired!

I did not use other applications in this case, my exact process was

Look up the co-ordinates of Highdown Gardens on the web
Enter manually into DxPL and ‘Write to image’
Check the image with Zoner (now running in an “report” only mode, but still useful as a test monitor program) to prove that the data was in place and usable by at least one other piece of software.

Certainly the likes of IMatch, a dedicated DAM I bought while on offer last Christmas, provides a Map panel to undertake a location search and then transfer the co-ordinates to the main application without cutting and pasting the co-ordinates and that would be a good feature to have in DxPL, so would side by side comparison and … and …

But we are both jumping to conclusions about @cernoch.r’s actual GPS requirements and why DxPL doesn’t meet them!

obetz · January 21, 2023, 8:43am

great how you present your contradiction by yourself: A “RAW converter” is not a metadata tool.

I understand that you want Photolab to be not only a RAW converter but also a DAM / metadata (including geodata) management tool, but that’s not the original task of a “RAW converter”. It would be an swiss army knife then. Have you ever seen a cook who uses a Swiss army knife?

If you look just at the GPS capability of IMatch and know the past discussions leading to this feature-richness and maturity, you might maybe understand what a huge undertaking this is. BTW: There are specialized apps doing just this (Geosetter). Don’t underestimate the complexity of the geodata topic. It also requires completely different skills than image processing.

A powerful image comparison (Faststone is IMO the gold standard in this field) would be a benefit in a RAW processor, though.

Adding metadata (GPS) is not part of RAW processing,

BHAYT · January 21, 2023, 9:44am

@obetz I don’t agree with @JoJu’s rant but neither do I consider it appropriate to consider DxPL as “just” a RAW converter, I want the “best bang for my buck”.

As I stated I bought DxO OpticsPro for JPG processing and I consider it important that the product maintains some sort of balance, i.e. other products are getting way better than DxPL when it comes to de-noising JPG images!

While I understand the concerns of many that DxO will spread themselves “too thin” and fail to keep the edge with the RAW processing aspects of the product some of the features that have been added only require a minor tweak to complete the work started.

So in the case of GPS data the DxPL map icon is not active until co-ordinates have been entered (or so it seems) so I visited the web to get the co-ordinates and Google Maps allowed them to be copied but as a comma delimited string which DxPL was not prepared to accept, i.e. I had to break it apart, how hard would it be to do that in the software @Musashi!

So as yet another “workaround” I entered 0 and 0 in DxPL and the map icon becomes active so I pressed the icon

and it takes you to the map somewhere off Africa! I entered the search name, “Highdown Gardens” in my case

Copied the co-ordinates

2023-01-21_090114_

BUT

DxPL “gagged” on the data

If the map icon was always active and the target field programming was smart enough to split the two co-ordinates the product would be as useful as IMatch and the other products that have map access from within the product!

@obetz it was me that brought up IMatch, @JoJu is a Mac user and IMatch is a Windows only product! I don’t expect DxPL to match IMatch and in truth I prefer the simplicity of DxPL for keywords etc. but its search functions need some work!

Yes it would but the “snapshot” capability needs to be of a rendered image, i.e. having to re-render every time you select an image to compare is just too slow and how much rendering should be applied to the images, @cernoch.r and others want to see more than the tiny preview of the de-noised window but rendering on my slow graphics card would slow the editing process to a crawl!

But it is part of image processing, as is adding IPTC data, keywords etc! To have to add those externally is possible but requires additional expenditure for yet another program (which I did last year with IMatch) and disrupts the edit process yet again.

I only use additional programs where I can do so cheaply and without too much disruption to the image processing workflow!

JoJu · January 21, 2023, 10:30am

Even greater how willingly you present your own misunderstanding and your own conception about what a RAW converter has to be. Now, I’ve seen a couple of cooks using a Swiss Army knife, sometimes even for cooking. I’m not contradicting: Have a look for once on what DxO claims Photolab to be:

Innovative creative tools
Master colour and tone with powerful creative editing tools you won’t find anywhere else.

Powerful photo management
Search and sort your photos with simple, effective tagging, keywords and project hierarchies.

Apparently DxO has a different idea than you what their RAW converter should be. Maybe you need to have a word with them?

“you only bought a vehicle. Seats and wheels and lights you need to buy elsewhere.”

Yes, it all comes down to what a user/customer expects from an app. And even the buzzword “DAM” has a very wide range what two different users would expect from it. For one person it’s the only way to use for every teenywheeny step the best of all possible apps. Use keywording from one (and ignore the rest of it’s functions), get GPS from another (and ignore the rest of it’s functions) and organize it in files and folders, 'cause this has been the right way since stone age. Don’t worry, DxO will never get it there, rest assured, your RAW converter will remain to be a simple RAW converter which leaves the interface problems with various apps to it’s customers.

cohen5538 · January 21, 2023, 8:48pm

Well @JoJu the easiest answer is “don’t expect too much for any feature request”
Partly answer to your request is Fastrawviewer which I started to use not long ago and I love it. I have to say it’s more for photo culling, it will not represent your editing on the photo (unless it was exported) but for what it does, you will never get it from Dxo, not in a hundred years…
Ohh and it costs less than 25$

JoJu · January 21, 2023, 10:46pm

Sorry @cohen5538 I strictly don’t use external viewers on a regular basis or as a replacement for a badly implemented "image management ", no matter how cheap they are. And I’m very satisfied with the rather fast Lyn. I just transferred 8.000 images from an old Aperture catalog to a less old Capture One catalog and I don’t need external apps for that, but thanks anyway.

uncoy · January 23, 2023, 9:11pm

Some people are never happy and mostly shout and deliberately say stupid things to get attention. A pity, there are so many productive and well-mannered forum members here, hopefully the bad manners won’t spread.

I’m no fan of DxO’s attempt to add DAM features particularly when the image browser barely works, but since those metadata features exist, PhotoLab should read and write GPS info reliably.

The workarounds for viewing images against one another is the right way to proof previews as DxO’s previews of DeepPrime and DeepPrime XD are only rough approximations of what the final image will look like. Quick export and then compare in a file viewer is quite efficient once a photographer relaxes and focuses on resolving the issue instead of complaining.

BHAYT · January 23, 2023, 11:54pm

@uncoy I have no evidence to suggest that DxPL’s handling of GPS is flawed, except that I am no expert on the way that GPS is supposed to work or whether the “issue” is the amount of data on offer or …?

Yes although with my weak graphics card I would only do exports with DeepPrime and DP XD while trying to evaluate what was good, bad or indifferent. For most of the rest of the time I either set the option to HQ or turn the option off altogether! Then I can view the editing options versus an image versus other images from the same or similar shoot versus alternative editing combinations, to see which I prefer.

In addition it can provide “persistent” renders (snapshots) that last as long or as short a time as I choose before returning to the image to make the “best” choice and and then export with DP or DP XD while having a meal or “watching paint dry” or … etc.