Differences Win / Mac

DxO PhotoLab
102

Hi,

What if we helped DxO identify the differences between Win and Mac ?

Not present in Win

  • Add items on palets with icon at the extreme right in the title bar
  • Rename virtual copie
  • The Advanced History is not saved after relaunch
  • The option grid color
  • Be able to move pallets between other pallets and not just after
  • Adjustments with up / down arrows for local adjustements
  • A floating palette visible in the PhotoLibrary tab (camera settings, arrows to navigate and trash)
  • The brush floating panel for repair tool
  • The brush floating panel for local settings
  • The check box for ā€œdisable automatic update checkingā€
  • A compare tool, before and after images together with slider in customize tab
  • There is no distance reading on Sony E lenses
  • Not status of optics module
  • Focal Distance and Focus Distance sliders are automatically displayed

Not present in Mac

  • In source browser, no right click for create, rename and open a folder in finder.
  • A compare tool, images side by side
  • Delete icon on thumbnail
  • Image status information on thumbnail - Image correction has been modified after export
  • Canā€™t set database location in preferences
  • Focal Distance and Focus Distance sliders are permanently displayed
  • Zoom value change while cropping ( add in PL v6.2 )

Different between Win and Mac

  • The switch to display only active tools (blue on Mac, gray on PC)
  • Organisation the preferences menu

Please tell me what you found as a difference, I will update the list, thanks

103

@Franky

Here is the difference between the Mac and Windows versions of Photolab 5 regarding how edits can be undone. The way Windows works is preferable (for myself at least) - the Mac implementation of Undo (when undoing an accidental edit to a selection of images, then unselecting them, then reselecting them to try and bulk Undo) has cost me a lot of time in the past.

Watch the Mac video first, then the Windows one.

Mac

Win

104

Not only the preferences menu, but menus and shortcuts in general. For example, right-click on an image in PhotoLibrary and you get quite a different menu on Mac and Win, with things in different orders and nested differently. Do the same in Customize and you donā€™t get a menu at all on Mac while you do on Windows. Export to disk on Mac is Command-K, on Win itā€™s Ctrl-Alt-P; Grid view is G on Mac, Ctrl-G on Win; etc, etc.

105

For these kind of things, it is more important to keep the same menu/command than the OS standard than the same between Mac and Windows.

1 Like
106

I agree, when there are conventions, but thatā€™s not really the case with these menus, with the order of items for example.

107

Export to disk on Mac is Command-K, on Win itā€™s Ctrl-Alt-P or Ctrl-K

108

Hi,

What if we helped DxO identify the differences between Win and Mac ?

After a long time without activity on this post, I will continue, please help me update if there have been changes with the last versions.

Not present in Win

  • Add items on palets with icon at the extreme right in the title bar
  • Rename virtual copie
  • The Advanced History is not saved after relaunch
  • The option grid color
  • Be able to move pallets between other pallets and not just after
  • Adjustments with up / down arrows for local adjustements
  • A floating palette visible in the PhotoLibrary tab (camera settings, arrows to navigate and trash)
  • The brush floating panel for repair tool
  • The brush floating panel for local settings
  • The check box for ā€œdisable automatic update checkingā€
  • A compare tool, before and after images together with slider in customize tab
  • There is no distance reading on Sony E lenses
  • Not status of optics module
  • Focal Distance and Focus Distance sliders are automatically displayed

Not present in Mac

  • In source browser, no right click for create, rename and open a folder in finder.
  • A compare tool, images side by side
  • Delete icon on thumbnail
  • Image status information on thumbnail - Image correction has been modified after export
  • Canā€™t set database location in preferences
  • Focal Distance and Focus Distance sliders are permanently displayed
  • Zoom value change while cropping ( add in v6.2 )

Different between Win and Mac

  • The switch to display only active tools (blue on Mac, gray on PC)
  • Organisation the menus and shorcuts
  • Undo is managed differently on Mac or Windows

Please tell me what you found as a difference, I will update the list, thanks

109

Interesting, Iā€™ve only known Ctrl-Alt-P since thatā€™s what the menu says. When I look now I see that Ctrl-K is listed in the second column under Help ā†’ Shortcuts.

110

Hear, hear. Itā€™s much better that PhotoLab function as a Mac native app on Mac and as a Windows native app on Windows, than as an indeterminate Java-like platformless, non-descript ugly duckling on both.

I think the DxO is doing a great job maintaining a common engine and common codebase dual platform app while giving PhotoLab the look, feel and experience of a native Mac app.

Performance rocks as well. I recently took the latest Nikon NX Studio for a test drive on an M1 Max. Itā€™s free and based on the mature SilkyPix codebase, but my goodness was it slow doing almost everything. My test drive ended up much shorter than I planned as my images looked so much better in PhotoLab and processing was so much faster. Of course, if there was no alternative, I could make NX Studio work as a RAW developer with finishing Affinity Photo.

But it did make me more grateful for what DxO have achieved. As @mwsilvers says, my images have been better since I discovered PhotoLab and itā€™s been faster and easier to arrive at those good results.

1 Like
111

But that does not prevent having identical functions and menus.
For example, why not have a right click on a folder in source browser and to be able to rename or delete a folder with Mac as with Windows?

112

@uncoy
Iā€™ve not explained well. I mean itā€™s better to have menu/command and so on to be the same than those we have on our specific OS instead of searching to have the same in both Mac and Windows.
So totally agree with you to have PhotoLab developed specifically for each platform and using their native standards.

113

I meant undo on a selection. Undo on a selection works with win but not on mac. Iā€™m on win.

George

114

While the academic exercise of keeping track of the differences between PhotoLab Mac version and Windows version is useful, trying to make the two apps identical will just make both of them worse.

Why?

It would mean sacrificing both the Mac only features and the Windows only features. Most of these features are on their respective platform as the underlying OS and SDK make them easy. They arenā€™t on the other platform as either OS or SDK on that OS make them hard.

Moreover, I donā€™t believe thereā€™s many users out there any more switching between Mac and Windows to run PhotoLab.

That said, where possible, maintaining feature parity is great. Iā€™d sure hate to lose the easy wins on macOS (like split-screen compare, advanced history) and Iā€™m sure the Windows users would hate to lose the file management available on Windows version as well as the compare two images functionality.

Because macOS and the SDK are very different than the Windows one. This kind of file and folder management one receives for more or less free in the Windows environment and making it work on macOS is more work.

115

I agree. I would never expect both versions to look and act identically. I think the big issues for many of us are important features that are available on the Mac version that are not available in Windows and vice versa, as well as a few significant UI issues.

As a Windows user the two feature differences that are most important to me are the ability in the Mac version to uniquely rename virtual copies and the ability to maintain the Advanced History across editing sessions. The ability to create unique virtual copy names was strangely implemented in the Mac version and was first reported here by @Joanna. This feature was never officially announced, and as far as I know it still is undocumented. But, @Joanna and others have indicated that this feature does exist on Macs.

We were promised greater parity between the two versions a few years ago, and DxO has resolved a few of the differences. However the number of differences between the two versions continues to grow with each new release of Photo Lab.

Mark

116

Youā€™ve just been granted your wish, Mark. Complete feature parity between Mac and Windows, with no features to come out until ready for both platforms.

Of course, we will have half as many new features. To make sure parity is complete ten convenience features on each platform (supported by default by the underlying OS) have just been axed. Keyboard shortcuts which donā€™t have an identical equivalent on the other OS have also been removed. To add back keyboard shortcuts from menu items, we are invited to install macro programs (i.e. Keyboard Maestro on macOS).

Absolute feature parity has been achieved. Peace has been achieved in the cross-platform universe of DxO PhotoLab.

Ten years have passed now since this conversation in 2023. Itā€™s the year 2033, complete feature parityā€¦Sadly, there are ever fewer users as PhotoLab doesnā€™t work all that much better than Linux truants RAWtherapee and DarkTable.

This mission for feature parity is foolā€™s gold. Keeping track of what is different is fine. Demanding that the PhotoLab on the two platforms be identical is destructive. Whatā€™s important is that the core RAW development engine works equally well on both platforms and is well-optimised for performance on AMD, Intel and Apple Silicon CPU, as well as Nvidia, AMD and Apple Silicon GPU engines.

117

Alec, I am a realist and I understand there will never be complete parity between the two versions. And frankly, the majority of the feature and UI differences are absolutely meaningless to me. The only thing that bothers me currently are a few specific features in the Mac version that I would dearly love to see in the Windows version, but Iā€™m not holding my breath on them. I think whatā€™s frustrates some people, myself included, were the official promises that version parity would be addressed on an ongoing basis. This set an expectation that DxO is seemingly unable to fulfill.

A handful of UI differences, including an important one to me, have been addressed over the last few years. The most important for me has been the increase in maximum zoom levels in the Windows version from 400% to 1600% allowing for much more precise local adjustment and repair mask placement. I am grateful for those changes to the Windows version.

Mark

118

You win some (Windows users), you lose some (Windows users). Same could be said for Mac users.

While some of the Windows features would be nice, Iā€™m not expecting them, nor am I looking over the fence with envy. None of the named differences should make any difference to the final quality of photographs of either Mac or Windows users.

What I dislike about the coy approach of those of you obsessed with platform differences is that you say you respect platform differences and then start in with just this feature or just that feature or just this or just that.

I would never expect both versions to look and act identically. I think the big issues for many of us are important features that are available on the Mac version that are not available in Windows and vice versa, as well as a few significant UI issues. As a Windows user the two feature differences that are most important to meā€¦

Face it, you do expect the applications to perform identically and wonā€™t be satisfied until they are identical, and poorer for it on both platforms, as outlined above. Thereā€™s no magic wand DxO developers can wave to make Windows and macOS identical and the underlying support of the SDKā€™s they use have exact feature parity.

DxO developers do a damn fine job of maintaining a functional core for image development across a wide range of hardware and two OS and making the application seem native to macOS users and native to Windows users. One couldnā€™t do a better job in my opinion.

Itā€™s not that I see DxO developers through rose-coloured glasses. DxO developers have an absurd love of shiny new things (latest OS changes) and complete lack of respect for their usersā€™ workflow and budget. PhotoLab only runs on current OS -1 reliably on Mac and I believe the situation is as bad on Windows. This forces us to run recent hardware and an OS (now that we are on a far too short annual update cycle) less than two years old. Thereā€™s no good excuse for these requirements except the indolence1 and shiny pebble mentality of DxO developers.

On platform parity, the work of DxO is immaculate. Those of you carping about the differences, or whispering about it in weasel words, if you succeed at anything at all, will only succeed in making PhotoLab on both platforms less capable and constraining any innovation in application as many new features are sure to come to one or the other OS first as those features depend on what the OS and/or SDK offer natively.

This direction of looking over the fence jealously at one another between PhotoLab Windows and macOS users for any other purpose except documentation of the differences is extremely dangerous and destructive.

1. DxO developers would have to create a build on an older OS as Apple doesnā€™t let developers make builds for anything but the latest two OS. Other developersā€™ who care about their usersā€™ workflow, convenience and budgets do it.

119

Listing differences between DPLs made for different platforms is okay imo.
Lusting after a feature that exists on the other platform only is also okay imo.

I also trust DxO to keep their apps interesting enough in order to preserve and possibly extend their user baseā€¦even though some of DxOā€™s decisions are difficult to swallow at times.
:grin:

1 Like
120

Let me put it in a nutshell, at least from my perspective.
I still expect that after watching a DXO tutorial video. whether that was shown on a Windows or Mac system, I will find the identical function on another system.
I have often watched videos of Dan Hughes, Anthony Morganti or Robin Whalley working with Mac, and have not been able to reproduce much on my Windows system.

Oddly enough, this has not happened to me with LR or Affinity Photo videos.

Have fun

3 Likes
121

Alec,

You and I are probably more on the same page than you seemed to believe in your response. Perhaps I did not express myself properly. With regard to the important features which go to the core of what makes PhotoLab different and better than its competitors, like DeepPRIME and camera and lens modules, etc., there should be, and is, absolute parity. However, that doesnā€™t mean that DxO should not make an attempt at greater parity with regard to those nice to have usability features which do not affect the finished product directly but can improve our workflow and the effort required to reach the final result.

As I said earlier most of the the current platform differences are meaningless to me. I have no interest or expectation for absolute parity and no preference that the look and feel of both versions should be identical. It may likely not be practical anyway for technical reasons. Assuming technical feasibility, I do think it is reasonable for any of us to expect that some of the usability features available in one platform will eventually make its way to the other version.

Mark