@platypus agreed but please ignore the above test I managed to apply the wrong preset in the PL6 case!! So clean slate and correct preset in both cases and we have
But for the previous tests we have
One of the biggest takeaways of all of this, in my opinion, is that it is approaching shameful that DXO doesnât have an official presence on this forum to help with our understanding of everything PL6 vs PL5, as well as the dng issues/questions. Someone with some expert, inside knowledge could relatively quickly lessen a lot of the dissatisfaction and confusionâŚincluding my ownâŚthat is so very clearly expressed on this forum.
DXO is missing out on a very valuable opportunity to reinforce and expand their customer base. They will never be able to have a customer base with a significant number of working professionals without being more involved and present here. The advanced amatuers and hobbyist photographers know enough about color management and the need for full dng support to lose confidence in investing (or reinvesting) their hard earned money in the DXO universe.
Please join us in these discussions DXO.
Having said that, I really like PL6, as I did PL5 and PL4. I am not about to change yet as there really isnât another raw converter to compareâŚyet.
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It looks like a policy decision with V6 to effectively stop having a presence here. If so its one of the more stupid ones DxO has done as there are some valuable discussions going on that I would have thought of value to them if they had any intrust in how their products were being received and problems.
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@John7 and @bconner if it is a deliberate policy then I would contend that it is a particularly self-destructive one!
I received information that @sgospodarenko was assigned to another assignment and that the @DxO_Support-Team was now the point of contact. When using this @DxO⌠you get a warning that it is assigned to 4 people and there are no responses in the forums from this as a group but, presumably individuals who are part of that team can respond individually, as can any other DxO employees who are assigned the task of investigating or assisting.
Unfortunately the more I am ignored the more I want to elicit some sort of reaction, any sort of reaction would be good at this point, but âŚ
In the meantime we will just have to keep ourselves occupied/amused without any DxO expert assistance/guidance. The danger is that all or some of these posts find there way onto the greater web, that will include real problems, âimaginedâ problems and gripes like this one!!
Regards
Bryan
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Its a pity, whatever the downsides of the new Affinity there forums get fast feedback from staff even if you may not like their response. I know this it is there support but there is input over a wide range of topics. I have even seen postings saying they have got something wrong! They also have a lot of new videos on the new version something lacking here. As I understand it the size of the firms is about the same (if you believe the internet information DxO actually has more!) so I wonder how they can do it but others fail?
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@Hugo I did what I should have done way back which was to compare PL5 preset with PL6 presets and when I did I got this
which clearly shows some major âupheavalâ with the PL6 DxO presets!?
I attempted to create a new preset by applying the â1 - Portrait - Standardâ to an image in PL5 and then creating a new preset and then importing that preset into PL6 (looking for a workaround)!
The result was essentially the same as applying the original DxO preset in PL6!
So new test(s)
- Single image in PL5 directory and PL6 directory both start with â5 - No correctionâ
- For each create 6 VCs
- For each VC assign from the following table to VC
Please note the difference between PL5 and PL6 menus -
- Export the resultant images.
- Compare and contrast!?
None are as extreme as VC[2], the âDxO Portraitâ rendering, but I was hoping for better consistency between releases, i.e. we want no colour to be present in the comparison window and that was not the case!
Repeating the tests with my own â055 - SL(7St) CV(20) C(0) Mc(5) LS(0)â preset produced the hoped for grey comparison screen on most âRenderingâ options, except for VC[2], which gave the following yet again!
and again when I created yet another test directory and tested a [M]aster image with my preset and the âDxO portraitâ âRenderingâ which does not produce the same result on PL5 and PL6.
and except for whatever is happening here!! unless that is simply jpeg artefacts at work!?
Which appears to be happening on all the otherwise equal comparisons!?
So can I please quit now 'cause it is all getting too much for my old brain and I am not being paid nearly enough!
The one area of DxPL that we emphasised, during Beta testing, that must be treated as sacrosanct was that it should be possible to put images into PL6 and be able to get the same results out as was happening with PL5!
Hence it should be possible to use the same workflow and get the same results!
Changing the workflow to take advantage of new features and get enhanced results is acceptable but it should always be possible to âretreatâ to the old workflow with the new release not have to revert to an old release!!
As always I may have done something wrong in the execution of these tests but I have tried to rectify errors wherever possible!
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Wow, you put in a lot of work. Thanks! Letâs see how DxO treats the issue: request #387371 (https://support.dxo.com/hc/requests/387371). I hope you can follow it if not issued the request. Otherwise Iâll keep you informed.
@Hugo you can keep me up to date. The above rambled because I wrote it as I tested and retested and âŚ
So the summary is
-
If using the â1 - Portrait - Standardâ Preset from DxO there appears to be no direct correlation between the two releases, all outputs will differ between PL5 and PL6 with the âRenderâ of âDxO Portraitâ causing the most (major) difference!!
-
If using your own presets then all but the âDxO Portraitâ render appear to be compatible between the releases but âDxO Portraitâ appears to be way off again!! Notwithstanding the strange random dots that appeared to crop up!?
That should have appeared at the front of the post but hey ho!!
This lack of DxOâs presence on the forums is a major âdowngradeâ to the helpful, friendly relationship we used to have until the PL6 cycle. And itâs not just in the public forums, the beta forums were deathly quiet as well.
As a result, I will be installing my beta reward licence instead of paying the upgrade price as I used to for previous versions. I will use this only for helping others in these forums, staying with using PL5 for my production work until DxO get their act together over explaining this colour pipeline stuff. Dxo staff donât have the time to respond here? I donât have the time to continue finding nasty surprises part way through working on a project.
I also find myself liking what I see in Affinity Photo 2. As some have said, their support forums are far more responsive.
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Lack of comments from DxO on these forums are inexcusable but letâs cut them a bit of slack for the following reasons:
- Everybody was crying out for Soft Proofing and now we have it. There will always be teething problems with a big change like this.
- The new Wide Gamut Working Space is a huge change and there will be all sorts of unforeseen issues that this feature would throw up.
- Nobody complains about the huge improvement to the Repair/Clone tool which works really well. This is a big change for me when fixing stitched panoramas.
PL6 will improve and the bugs will hopefully get sorted out but feedback would be nice.
I would suggest to DxO that they have a dedicated person to read and provide comments and feedback on these forums.
I was on the beta program for Photo Mechanic Plus and Kirk Baker was a permanent, dedicated and continuous presence on those forums which was a pleasure for all and they got far better feedback from their testers. DxO could learn from them.
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My understanding of RGB working spaces is that they cannot implement perceptual intent via profiles when converting to another RGB space. So, everybodyâs software ends up doing relative ( clipping) intent when perceptual is selected in these cases. Printers are normally in another space that can do ICC perceptual intents which is why the option exists in the profiling options.
Thatâs why DxO has chosen to do it via an algorithmic approach.
Hey Keith,
I was one of the persons asking for soft proofing, but I wanât a solution like all the other players in the market implemented it. With the possibility of assigning printer/paper profiles and working that all people knowing a little bit about this theme can work with and not to study rocket science to understand.
And the low response from DXO regarding many issues makes me a little pensive.
I want to work with a productive release and not always go to work thinking about possible errors.
A lot of statements from the users here not to upgrade and still work with the V5 shows that Iâm not the only one thinking this way
Have fun and always good light.
best regards
Guenter
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@KeithRJ Of all the things that was put to DxO during beta testing was that nothing should be done that would irrevocably alter the workflow of users, i.e. provide the new features as options, options that allow experimentation with the new features while working with the existing workflow, thereby allowing users to grow into a modified workflow while continuing with their normal work(flow).
With the DxO supplied presets they have done the reverse, as far as I can tell! I made it as far as â5 - Landscape - Standardâ and all âRenderingâ options for just âGeneric renderingsâ. All the presets yield different results between PL5 and PL6 with âDxO Portraitâ yielding the worst performance.
I am glad they got something right in this release and that they have moved the product on but the lack of support from DxO, who have the design brief in front of them, and the code and coders to hand and who could immediately state YES there has been a change and this is what it is, @CaptainPO, the sooner we could stop investigating this item and move on to a ânormalâ life or start investigating something else!
Thanks for everyone trying to run down the issues with moving to PhotoLab 6. Iâm astonished and very unhappy to know that if/when I move to PhotoLab 6 I will have to worry a great deal when opening up older images to rework them. Maintaining multiple versions doesnât sound like fun either.
Itâs a pity as I love the idea of better repair tools for cloning and healing (always a bugaboo when using the repair tool in PhotoLab 5, itâs a lot of trial and error and sometimes just doesnât work).
PhotoLab is fantastic RAW development software (I can turn out better looking pro quality retouched images faster with PhotoLab than any other software out there) but this database/DAM is wreaking havoc with using it without performance and metadata issues.
Ignoring the forums is the first step towards closing them. This forum is one of the key reasons I invested so heavily in the DxO ecosphere and did free PR for them for about three years. My alienation started with PhotoLab no longer supporting a reasonable number of OS X versions (just the two most recent ones). Their new approach is what Iâve always called âCustomer Alienation Policiesâ in apposition to âCustomer Loyalty Policiesâ.
Someone very high up in DxO has his head screwed on wrong and thinks we â the users â are at his disposal and mercy, rather than accepting the reality which is that DxO continues to exist thanks to its users.
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@uncoy please explain why you believe that to be an issue (I may or may not agree butâŚ)
We can continue to âentertainâ one another in the forum but the tests that I have undertaken over the past year in particular take a long time and careful planning to set up and execute and then check to make sure I have done everything the right way.
One look at the code and DxO could remove the need for empirical determination of the boundaries of a problem. It would take some fun out of the countless hours I have spent but âŚ
The development process is flawed, so flawed that both PL5 and PL6 are a testament to how badly flawed it is! Everyone involved in the testing works hard to take part in what we in the trade referred to a âhackers partyâ and there is a place for such testing!
But DxO
-
Only expose certain elements to our gaze, the rest comes as a surprise (shock!?) when the product is finally released
-
Rarely engage to elicit opinion (and none that I can see post the PL6 release)
-
Request volunteers to test specific elements of a new feature, and yes there were such requests for Viewpoint etc., in guided testing, i.e. where DxO is engaging with the testers directly to test certain features in a certain way! A completely missed opportunity when DxO did not engage during PL5 Beta testing with DAM users to ensure/enhance interworking!!
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Request users to take part in regression testing, i.e. that âoldâ features still work the way that they used to. This is hard to schedule because the bulk of the release needs to be present for it to be of maximum value.
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Test the release procedure with selected users, but the PL5 release was such âfunâ as a consequence!
It all comes down to treating Beta testers and customers as âequalsâ rather than âcheapâ resources. DxO seems to have the mindset that âfree advice is worth what you pay for itâ. Just as well they donât have to pay us for the time that we expend Beta testing and then trying to help limit the damage after the release.
Another 30 minutes of my time wasted writing this now back to the lawn before it starts raining again!
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That you of all people should come to this decision is a sure sign that DxO have lost their way and are in considerable danger of becoming irrelevant.
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Hi,
I had opened another thread on this topic (was not aware of this thread).
Here DXO confirmed (the issue with âDXO Portraitâ color rendering looking washed / different to PL5) will be fixed in January release.
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Good to know, thanks!
A very interesting thread from some very knowledgeable users / Beta testers.
I am relatively new to Photolab and for now will continue to use PL5 purely as the RAW converter âengineâ for Adobe Lightroom Classic (which I have used since it was first released). My reasoning is simply that I find with DeepPrime selected it does a much better job at demosaicing and removing unwanted noise whilst preserving detail than Adobeâs tools.
However, this thread (and others) justifies and supports my decision not to upgrade to PL6 - even at the Black Friday âdiscountedâ price. For me the additional features did not entice me (DeepPrime XD seems better only in certain cases) and the mess DxO are in with their changes to Colour Management are something I can do without. Additionally, Adobe is adding new and useful features with few âgotchasâ and heading in a direction I find more appealing.
As a result I find I can no longer recommend DxO Photolab to the photographic communities I work with, which is a shame as it appeared to be so promising. I am therefore glad I havenât wasted my time getting to grips with the processing tools DxO PhotoLab offers which are quite different to Lightroom and present a significant leaning curve to become proficient.
Ultimately, if I find another toolset that matches the demosaicing / denoising performance of PhotoLab I will move on. Many others might do also, given the way DxO appears to be treating their knowledgeable users / Beta testers, who up to now have been very loyal and supportive.
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