My requests for PhotoLab 7 and beyond

I agree on your statement about AI and it’s non-existence, but the abbreviation is there, available and believed to be be the big mystical cure for everything (resulting in the answer “42”). And it is only sort of off-topic as a couple of DxO PL users want to have more of artificial non-intelligence. There were requests for more AI in PL, meaning more refined algorithms for whatever. Usually I thought “for what - why would I want an artificial judgement about what to do with my image and get it done?”

I’m happy with PL4 and am in no rush to upgrade, even after evaluating PL6.

One thing that for sure would make me upgrade is generic support for cameras and phones. I have some RAW files from these oldies that I’d love to be able to use DeepPRIME NR on. I don’t mind if there’s no support for optical corrections or if I’d have to manually calibrate colors by shooting some color target and providing the software an in-camera JPEG (thinking out loud here, no idea how color calibration actually works).

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Try this app: Narrative Select | Fast image selection | Photographers. It’s free to use for up to 4 projects per month. And it works really, really well from my experience. Additionally, the auto-zoom on faces really helps culling portraits and people photos. I found that for landscape and other work, the app is less useful since it doesn’t auto zoom in or anything.

This (and similar apps) is why I think PhotoLab shouldn’t just go that route. Leave other apps to take care of that and focus on the core editing and usability. Just support the basic stuff to enable a workflow between apps (with color labels that’s now the case).

Dank u wel @florisvaneck , but I’m actually satisfied with what Capture One delivers in terms of culling. And I made better experiences with one app instead of half a dozen workarounds of specialized apps. As specialists are, they do few things really well and ignore the rest. But DxO with all their special apps sets the atmosphere for workarounds

Does Capture One support viewing two different photos side by side?

Of course :grin: up to 12 images, each either full image or enlarged up to 1600%. And for a better overview there’s a “navigator” window

Sad to say, I may have the download the C1 trial.

Warning. Subscription software – $20/month. No thanks. FastRawViewer is $18 one time purchase right now during autumn sale.

Agree with the sentiment though – there’s all kinds of good culling software. Trying to cull large sets in a RAW development tool has always been awkward and slow with the sole exception of Apple Aperture.

The free version allows for 4 projects per month. And also: it’s folder based and it imports sub-folders so that’s an easy work around.

If I were a wedding, sports or event photographer it would probably be an easy justification for me. But I am just a hobbyist.

I’ll take your excellent list (I’ve removed the ones that aren’t of great concern to me) and to it with:

Rename files on export
HSL adjustment added to U-Point control points/lines
AI sharpening (similar in functionality as Topaz AI, which I find does an excellent job with slightly mis-focused images and images with motion blur)
AI for auto selecting of areas of an image
The latest C1P AI for applying a consistent image style to multiple images looks like an amazing time saver (I’ve not used it, so I’ve no idea how effective it is in actaul real life use but I love the concept) - note: this is different to a style preset, because a preset still needs to be tweaked for every image.

Er, with all due respect, how’s the Wide Gamut colour space “a mess”? While I would have appreciated more documentation and education about it on DxO’s part (where there’s been virtually none that I’m aware of), it has actually given me significantly richer and more natural-looking colours. It was an overdue improvement, and is a headline feature of PL6.

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Here’s just one example of how it is little better than a beta version:

There’s also this long thread:

I’m amazed how much of this discussion is focussed on C1. If it’s so good, use it! Oh; you’re still using DXO? Why’s that? It’s a better RAW processor than C1? Question fully answered!

A UI is something you learn and once learnt, it’s a pain to become fluent with a new, complete change. All I’d’ like is an improvement in shading as collapsed rarely used adjustments are so “uncontrasted” they’re hard to find quickly.

I’d like to see a big improvement in the repair/clone tool. Object removal/repair tries to patch, which when the object has a complex background is rarely successful. Masking an object with a more “intelligent” replacement algorithm is needed.

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Repair could be better, but I’m having quite a bit of success making sure that I fit the repair area quite tightly under the brush (don’t make the brush too big). It’s usually faster to zoom the image out and in, rather than resize the brush. CTR-scroll on macOS.

A small brush painted on to a complex fix works surprisingly well. My old technique was dab-dab-dab but a quick and complex continuous paint patter carefully following the lines of what needs to be changed seems to work well.

If anyone else has some advanced tips on repair and clone, I’m all ear. The manual is lacking on real world tips.

Hopefully in time for holiday shopping: (1) a proper tone curve to include a sampler tool and possibly masking, (2) Resizer, and (3) Sharpener (for display and print). Cheers!

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@CHPhoto Great requests (each one and one) unfortunately it seems that DXO goes more towards the PureRaw concept (just plugin with Optic module corrections and Denoise AI) rather than improvements like C1 features and/or AI algorithms

Hello,
today I received a mail survey from DXO because I requested the trial for PL6 but have not yet purchased a licence.
The survey asked many questions that we have been discussing here for years. Interface, satisfaction with the DAM, handling etc.
I then took the liberty of referring to the forum, and hope that the colleagues from DXO who are evaluating the survey will read the FRs here.

Hope dies last

Guenter

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with Adobe now providing “AI” NR inside there shall be good deal less sales for PureRaw ( granted ACR/LR is not the only game in town serving as destination for linear DNGs - but market share they have )… so time to go to basics

Support dng raw images from phones, in particular Samsung and Apple.

Accept HEIC HEIF formats

Support NIKON Z8 and Z9 HEIF

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I use 2 monitors for PL, 1 for the image viewer and edit in the other. When it comes to using the Nik Collection or Export I need to scroll way over the the far end of the the Image Viewer to click on them. It would much more ergonomic if the Nik Collection and Export are on the PL edit page…
To enhance the difference between image viewing and photo editing, I think the KEYWORDS palette should be on the image viewer and enable multiple photos can be selected for bulk update of keywords.

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