I come from many years of Lightroom, started when it just came out but now Adobe and its subscription model is just bad practise in my opinion, so I’m voting with my wallet. Anway, after reviewing different programs I chose DxO. After a few months of use, here is the list of the things I think it needs fixed and features added, and also want to ask why the DxO PL developers don’t care about their user base? I’ve searched this forum and at least 2 features in my list are in other threads, with devs commenting YEARS ago, saying “it’s on their list” and to date they’ve not been implemented.
View > Grid Overlay → cycle through different grid overlays, not just an arbitrary grid!!
The ability to compare 2 images, FFS
1-click auto-mask foreground/background, AI? Even free mobile apps today have this, come on.
Ability to move Local Adjustments tools!!! Oh dear god, it’s always in the way!
Ability to paint, do more with local adjustments. Local mask for colour.
Ability to use ALL global adjustments in JPEGs too, not just RAWs.
Ability to use ALL local adjustments in JPEGs too, not just RAWs.
Proper Black & White editing mode.
True Colour Mixing / IR processing.
Allow rotate while cropping!!! Wow…
Ability to customise keyboard shortcuts, ANY and ALL functions.
Ability to flip horizontally or vertically an image I can’t believe one has to request this feature in a professional software that costs hundreds of dollars. Extremely simple feature, requested years ago in forums, devs responded, they don’t care.
You can get Lightroom and Photoshop for just under 100 euros a year. How much did you spend testing different programs? Each update of Photolab is more expensive. In addition, Photolab is limited in many respects and does not recognize many cameras.
Certainly sounds like this is a moan based on not getting the same functionality as the Adobe subscription. The OP might not have noticed, more and more software houses are going that way. The subscription is a pretty good deal imo - Lr, Ps, Mobile and more.
Une petite chose très agaçante dans Silver Efex : la comparaison de 2 photos en mode portrait ne les juxtaposent pas mais les présentent l’une au dessus de l’autre, ce qui les rapetissent inutilement et oblige l’utilisateur à les réaligner l’une à côté de l’autre pour profiter d’un grandissement adapté à l’écran.
Everything you say is quite true. However, many of us here were users of Lightroom & Photoshop and now we use DxO products instead. Why do you think that is?
The mostly futile subscription argument, which is no measure of software capability or value for money anyway? I actually use both but if I had to chose it would be Adobe. I truly see little difference in image quality and prefer having black an white sliders along with a capable dam.
Many features have been requested so far, loads of bugs have been reported too.
Implementing new features takes time and follows priorities that are not published, so we simply do not know, what DxO has up their sleeves. New features appear on a regular basis, but they are not necessarily the ones we want the most.
I don’t expect every app to have the same features and quality and therefore use PhotoLab as an accessory to Lightroom. While I agree with your list of features, it would take much more to make me abandon Lightroom.
@TorsteinH
Yeah, I probably should have ordered the bullets by importance… I agree those 2 should be in the top, along with the image flipping and keyboard shortcuts.
@platypus
I didn’t want to link to the older threads as it would be redundant, but yea I see people have been requesting some stuff and they just don’t care. I’m appalled, truly. I thought I could do it, completely abandon Lr. And realistically I have - I don’t have it installed. But I’m in pain every time I develop my photos - good thing I’m not working as a pro at the moment, but that’s just not a reliable workflow and the moment I start my photo business again, I’ll be VERY tempted to run back to Lr, despite [just like Mark says] liking more the end results in DxO =[
To develop photo editing software to meet endless expectations of users cannot be simple. Take it easy on the developers.
I support many of this user’s requests. For what it’s worth, I’m going to bold the ones I most strongly agree with.
Grid Overlay → cycle through different grid overlays, not just an arbitrary grid
The ability to compare 2 images
1-click auto-mask foreground/background, AI? Even free mobile apps today have this, come on.
Ability to move Local Adjustments tools!!! Oh dear god, it’s always in the way!
Ability to paint, do more with local adjustments. Local mask for colour.
Ability to use ALL global adjustments in JPEGs too, not just RAWs.
Ability to use ALL local adjustments in JPEGs too, not just RAWs.
Proper Black & White editing mode.
True Colour Mixing / IR processing.
Allow rotate while cropping!!! Wow…This one is very, very, very important to me.
Ability to customise keyboard shortcuts, ANY and ALL functions.
Ability to flip horizontally or vertically an image I can’t believe one has to request this feature in a professional software that costs hundreds of dollars. Extremely simple feature, requested years ago in forums, devs responded, they don’t care.
I would also add making a short cut key for the horizon tool, or better, make it like LR and allow horizon within the cropping module.
I’d love it if Photolab just emulated much of LR’s shortcuts and editing modules.
To those saying “just get LR”: PL5 renders my Fuji RAF files so much better than LR.
@colin_g
Not a moan, yes a complaint. DxO advertises their software as “The best photo editing software… it’s that simple.” while boasting about being “up a notch” in “power and control”. It’s not the best if it’s lacking such basic features as a flip or the ability to customise a hotkey.
And exactly like @mwsilvers says, there’s a reason many of us are migrating to DxO, and it certainly isn’t the abundance of features as my post states! =P
@olfreddy
I know the pricing of Lr+Ps, I just don’t agree to having my software tied to their online service. If their system crashes [and it has happened] I can’t open a program I bought ? Well, technically I didn’t even buy the program, I bought a subscription. So I don’t like that part, however that’s not the point of this thread. The point is that there are basic features [yes, present in Lr, but present in other professional or otherwise photo- related programs], like flipping an image vertically or horizontally, and the developers should add that super basic feature, rather than expect me to buy Lr AND PL so I can flip an image. I’m glad you’re another user, not a developer who answered this way, if it was a dev that would just show they are not trying to appeal to their base.
Dear @TomDX
Thanks for this feedback. As always, this helps us to confirm or update our roadmap which is (we confirm ) based on different sources, our users feedbacks being one of the most important.
All the features described in your list have been identified.
All of them have been, are being or will be part of developments at DxO. Some of them will come very soon, some other next year and the rest in upcoming versions for sure.
So, keep posting your feedback and tell us more about your needs and workflows, this help us the most.
And of course…stay tuned!
Best regards
11 Likes
Deneice
(French photographer | PL5, Film Pack and NIK suite user)
16
@Musashi
Hi Mushashi !
The forum already contains all you need to make PL better and adjusted to our needs. I understood that there are 2 approaches from the members, those who want a simple raw converter and those who want a LightRoom’s like software because they want to quit Adobe’s subscription system.
Personally, I’m between both I need the basics but in a coherent workflow process from culling hundred of photos after a reportage (with the missing side by side tool), indexing them with metadatas (IPTC/XMP sidecar and not proprietary .DOP) and finally processing raw files. No need to print or making a book from Dxo PL. And one important thing, I want to stay inside DXO ! Don’t suggest me a photomechanic just for ingest/culling, or to add basic metadatas. It’s also the role of a Raw software in 2022 to assume it.
As a professional photographer, the less software I use during my workflow process the happier I am.
I would suggest to open a bug tracker tool, opened to the members to be able to add, vote, comment each features. Forum is nice to give feedbacks but features are lost or duplicate and finally lost if they do not have been integrated in aTodo list. Maybe it already exists in the DXO internal Information System but open it to us would enhanced the matching process between our needs and your roadmap/tasklist
DxO makes a program for Lightroom users. It’s called PureRAW. I’m really glad that Photolab is quite unlike Lightroom. Rotating the image and then cropping is not difficult to do.
For the keyboard shortcuts, you can have them if you are on Mac. Keyboard Maestro will let you rewrite all the keyboard shortcuts for any app.
Flipping the image and the rest of it sounds a bit more like a job for a bitmap editor where one is creating digital art and not processing photos. The line has become blurred lately between RAW tools and bitmap tools like Affinity Photos or Photoshop, I’ll admit. But once we start down this path, there’s no satisfying the complainers. Until all of Photoshop is inside every RAW editor, the griping will go on.
Soon all of these RAW editors will become clumsy, top-heavy and unusable as too much functionality will have been shoved in.
I would be on board for better colour tools. What one can do with colour manipulation in CaptureOne is extraordinary. Not that I will defect soon to CaptureOne. I’ve spent years improving my skills in Photolab and not using CaptureOne at all. I can achieve much better results with colour in Photolab as it’s a tool that I know well.
I’d advise the ex-Lightroom crowd to take a similar approach. Photolab is not Lightroom nor it should be. Learn to use the tools and workflow Photolab offers properly, and less time carping about how Photolab is not Lightroom. It’s possible to achieve very good results in all three programs (Photolab, Lightroom, C1), what’s most important is knowing one’s tool
100% Agree, I was a longtime Lightroom (v1 to v6) user until I defected from Adobe when they went to a subscription model. I found PhotoLab 1.0 and never looked back. I like how PL works and I can produce the results I want very easily without the need to maintain a database catalog. Yes, there are some features missing that I could use but I can easily get by.
) based on different sources, our users feedbacks being one of the most important.
I need the basics but in a coherent workflow process from culling hundred of photos after a reportage (with the missing side by side tool), indexing them with metadatas (IPTC/XMP sidecar and not proprietary .DOP) and finally processing raw files. No need to print or making a book from Dxo PL. And one important thing, I want to stay inside DXO ! Don’t suggest me a photomechanic just for ingest/culling, or to add basic metadatas. It’s also the role of a Raw software in 2022 to assume it.