Hi DxO,
I’m member at another photography forum and today we had an exchange on Pure Raw 3 there. During the discussions I found out that some of the possible denoising adjustments from PL6 are missing at PR3. One example is the so called “Noise Model” control (Schieberegler “Rauschmodell” in German language). Why is that missing?
PR3 is getting really bad feedback from wildlife photographers as they cannot control the details during denoising when using PR3.
Best, Joerg
It has been like this unfortunately for PureRaw from version 2 (or even 1) that almost nothing can be fine tuned. I just installed PR3 to see what are the so called added “vignetting” option, turns out it’s an on/off toggle. I anticipate there will still be some photos blowing up the corners (overly corrected) when the vignetting correction is applied and that cannot be toned down.
I knew as I bought PR2 without fully understanding these limitations and ended up also buying PhotoLab 6 to use DxO “the way a normal user expects he can”. Without the ability to fine tune the setting, PureRaw is nothing more than a lucky draw. On the other hand, Photolab has been amazing.
Yes, Pure Raw is repackaged technology at lower price for easier handling, at the expense of control one gets with PhotoLab. I also prefer PhotoLand control it gives me. I rarely use other programs for further raw processing so its all I need.
Although I do like PureRAW simplicity of just quick raw conversion with noise free, sharp results.
I would not know if there are any UI differences, between MAC and PC, or how DXO scales with high-resolution screens, but personally I did not find it a big problem, I just miss the preview to see what settings will do with the image.
After spending some time with one of the users from the other forum and performing dozens of exports we now can nail it down:
Solution: DxO-team, please implement the same contols for lens corrections into PureRAW 3 as you have it at Photolab (6.4).
@sgospodarenko, if you need pictures / examples please don’t hesitate to contact myself.
I grew cautious with PureRaw2 because of its one-size-fits-all approach. Sometimes PR2 saved an image, and sometimes the results were ghastly.
Today I fiddled around with PureRaw3 on one of my night shots with a lot of detail (Fuji GFX50S II).
– Noting the comments on fur and feathers above, and my own quick comparisons, I can’t see the need to ever use “Lens softness”. You are just handing over too much control.
– Going through the choices on noise reduction, I’m not exactly excited. Again, a button selection without fine tuning. I’d be VERY happy if the next update allowed us to turn off noise reduction. For me, that would still give me batch de-mosaicing and lens correction.
My workflow choice for some batches of photos will be PR3 with no Lens softness and the lowest possible NR setting. One inside PhotoLab6, it’s easy to hop out to Topaz DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI, both of which give you more AI choices, more control, and a hugely better user interface that lets you make effective side-by-side comparisons, or four choice comparisons.
If one has PhotoLab, there is no need to get PureRAW imo. DPR is a subset of DPL, and it has crude controls only. YMMV.
Those who wish to have a preprocessor with DxO denoising and optical corrections without further functional duplications and at the lowest possible price can get happy with DPR. It’s easy to work with and runs reliably so far.
How it is (PureRaw3 DeepPrime XD + Lens corrections):
How it should be (PL6 DeepPrime XD + Lens sharpness corrextion -2)
I hope that the forum resolution will show the difference (unwanted shaggy and prickly fur). Otherwise you have to download and compare the 100% view.
…it usually does not show because images are scaled to whatever the dimensions will be.
Attach links to services like google drive, wetransfer etc. to share files in full size/resolution.
… attached a link to Magentacloud below the pics.
When I check the squirrel files, I find that one of the files is more than twice the size of the other. Assuming that you used the same settings for JPEG export, this means that the larger file must have more detail or noise.
Comparing the files in Lightroom, I see that the one with DeepPrimeXD looks over-sharpened, which is something one does not want from a pre-processor. On the other hand, we must also accept that default settings can suit some and not others, which means that we have to play with DPR’s settings (test thoroughly) and see if we can tune its results to out liking. If we can’t get there, DPR is not for us, unless DxO adds more sliders for us to tune our output files.
Again, DPR is a simplified subset of DPL and the price difference is too small (imo) to make it an interesting alternative to DPL.
That’s exactly the point. The over-sharpenimg is a result of missing control sliders on PR3’s lens correction. If there would be a chance to modify the lens correction like it is implemented in PL6.x, everything would be fine.
I know users who will not buy PR3 exactly because of this. So DxO is loosing money here as they made it different from PL6. 
I found a way for myself (I’m a PL6 user), but I know people who like to stay with Lightroom, but would invest the money to get the PR3 denoising, but only in combination with a suitable sharpness control. Separating denoising and sharpening is not what they want, so the choose Topaz.
Yes. I think DXO team wanted to impress people with “look how much sharper it looks” and before and after, but in reality it mainly does a better job with smaller sensors, lower MP count and softer lenses. When applied with large FF or MF sensors with lots of resolving power in sharp lenses, its way too much sharpening. And as you and others have said. Having the ability to preview the level of sharpening and applying the correct ammount manually would very important to user. I hope DXO team implements in in the next release. Otherwise for many DXP PholoLab is practically a necessity for that reason alone.
Just for your info: The squirrel has been shot with a MFT system!
Oh, I actually didn’t see your previous posts. I was making a general comment.
Also, did I miss it or you posted what level of lens sharpening did you choose in settings.
You said: (PL6 DeepPrime XD + Lens sharpness corrextion -2) But lens sharpness has three sliders. So which one is -2.
(PureRaw3 DeepPrime XD + Lens corrections): But you didn’t mention which setting. I think there are several strengthens.
Because DxO want you to buy PL.
I can’t see DxO ever doing that. See my comment above.
DxO would lose even more money if they enhanced PureRAW to match PL as more people would then not buy PL and instead buy the cheaper option of PureRAW.
They won’t because as you say:
I’m willing to give DXO team a benefit of a doubt. Pure RAW proved to be a successful product for them. They found new audience, bridging the gap between those committed to Lr or C1 workflows that did not want to switch to PhotoLab. And that proved to be something DXO managed to tap into by releasing PureRaw. Also I don’t know where else can they take the product in the next release beyond improving support for lenses and cameras. I think if they listen to users they will implement some way to control the lens correction with a preview and sliders.
There is a lot of things I like PhotoLab for other than just that one feature so for me its not the only reason to use PhotoLab, but for people who are committed to Lr and C1, it might be.
the first one, called “general” (“Allgemein” in my German version) was -2, detail remained at 50, Bokeh was set to 100.
Usually I find this to be a good setting. Sometimes I set Bokeh to 0% because it essentially softens the sharpening, so depending on the lens sharpness and weather or not the scene has high or low frequency details, Bokeh slider can softer that up if need be.
I don’t know what exactly do various settings do in Pure RAW since they come in presets. According to user manual for DXO Pure RAW …
Lens softness: Defaults to Standard (which is equivalent to the DxO PhotoLab Lens Sharpness setting, with the global slider set at +1), you can also opt for a soft, strong or hard intensity. Optical sharpness improves image detail and overall image sharpness from the center to the edge of the frame.
It does offer some control. No preview until one exports, but still some control.
