I took a look at a demo of DXO PhotoLab some time ago when I shot with a four thirds body, because I was getting frustrated with the noise at high ISOs and the YouTube demos looked https://showbox.bio/https://tutuapp.uno/ amazing with the Prime noise reduction. When I tested the trial version with some of my RAWs however, it was not any better than LightRoom, and in some cases seemed worse.
I’ve moved on since to Canon full frame bodies and I recently received a “special offer” email from DXO for PhotoLab 2 Elite edition. I watched another demo on YouTube tonight and it looked great, so I downloaded a trial again, shot ISO 12800 RAW on my Canon R, and then processed it in PhotoLab 2 and LightRoom. I kept the edits to a minimum outside of lens correction and noise reduction. I went with Prime NR on DXO with different settings, plus auto. I then developed the same shot in LightRoom, and compared the exported jpegs from each side by side.
The LightRoom edits looked very reasonable. 12800 is never going to give you an excellent outcome, but the result was mote than reasonable considering. The PhotoLab version was blotchy with that classic color noise look, and this is after the auto or max correction was applied.
DXO’s PhotoLab 2 is promoted as being really special for noise reduction. I’m just not seeing it though., at least with my equipment. Anyone here use DXO Photolab 2 and found it on a par or better than LightRoom?
Welcome. The current version of PhotoLab Elite is 3.2, not 2. Can you confirm which version you are actually using? Are you certain that you applied PRIME noise reduction to your images in Photolab before exporting? It is far superior to Lightroom’s noise reduction. I’m surprised that you are unable to see the improvement. Can you supply comparative images from both Lightroom and PhotoLab and perhaps a copy of the raw file?
Hi Jaxon,
I agree with Mark…in my opinion the results of PL 3.2 (Win) are better than Lightroom (6.14).
I’ve tested with old Nikon NEF ( D7100 and P7700) and Olympus ORF (OMD-EM5 MII)
Have you compared noise on images that you exported or on screen? What are the differences? Do you lose detail or does everything look like it was made from plastic? What is the quality you’re after and what are the criteria that define this quality?
Comparing NR of Lightroom and PhotoLab feels like picking cherries out of two baskets filled with many delicacies… PhotoLab and Lightroom can do marvellous things in capable hands and both products offer things that make life easier - or more complicated, because each basket has a set of goodies, but neither has them all. If money does not matter to you, use them both and see which tool serves which purpose best.
Software progresses and PhotoLab 3 does some things better than PhotoLab 2 (which you mention in your posts) and PhotoLab 8 will be much better still - whenever it may be available…
All you can do is see what you can do with both apps in regard to noise (and all the other features) and I suppose that the number of tests you need to do is rather above 100 than below 10.
I’m using 4 different RAW converters at the moment - Capture One 20 Pro, Lightroom Classic 9.1, DxO Photolab 3 and I’m also testing the latest version of On1 and nothing comes close to DxO Prime noise reduction. I can say the same for Photolab 2 and Photolab 1.
It does not matter which version of Photolab you have. They all have superior noise reduction compare to anything else on the market.
So there must be something wrong at your side.
I usually use Prime noise with value from 1 to no more then 20 and I’m shooting 7 years old Nikon crop camera (D7100).