Separation of Selective tone sliders

Just because you are used to different sliders doesn’t make the choices DxO made wrong in this case. Calling the people here fanboys is both misguided – we’re not fanboys here, we’re mostly veteran photographers with a large experience of other software before using PhotoLab – and quite rude. If you were to have more than a superficial look at the posts of the people on this thread, we all have lists of serious and well thought out improvements we’d like made to PhotoLab and/or Nik plugins.

We do have an issue with Colin who hates PhotoLab and denigrates it at every chance, again poisoning this thread and a potential new user. That’s his goal. Why can’t ColinG just move on?


By dismissing PhotoLab so casually, you’re missing out on a lot. It takes a bit of time to fully appreciate a complex new application. I don’t like C1 at all but I’m would not judge it too easily as a casual and not expert user, since other photographers create some astonishing images in C1. C1 is almost completely useless though with high ISO Canon 5DS R and 5D III images, which is important to my photography as I regularly shoot night sports on Canon.

I’m prepared to be harsher with Lightroom as I have used it as my main development engine for a period of over a year. I know it’s weaknesses and its strengths. For years, Lightroom was an absolutely horrible tool for Fuji X Trans and damaged the Fujifilm brand and sales with its poor support. For years, Lightroom was terribly slow on the best hardware of the period (Lightroom probably hasn’t got much faster, new hardware has just hidden its speed issues). Lightroom does not play well with other applications, particularly non-Adobe applications (Adobe has long embraced the Microsoft originated tactics of embrace, extend and extinguish). Aesthetic design is also primitive and depressing to look at in comparison to either Aperture v2.x or DxO Lightroom. But Lightroom’s design issues go more than skin deep. Lightroom workflow is awful with four clumsy modules which require loading and unloading separating evaluation from modification or to even export images. That said, Lightroom has competent noise reduction – much better than C1 – and almost all its sliders do work in real time. Moreover, Adobe had compatibility with a huge range of hardware which can be useful.

Those who really like Lightroom should probably stick to it. It’s fortunate that it exists – McDonalds’ has its dedicated clientele as well.

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Sorry to see you move on. Just a couple of points before you go.

I just looked at how the shadows slider is implemented in ON1 and found that the range adjustments when using that slider is similar to Photolab. So apparently the DXO developers are not the only ones who find that range appropriate. That said, like you, I wish the range of that slider was a little more selective. The on1 highlight slider may be a little bit more to your liking, but I felt it covers too small a range. I guess we’re all looking for different things.

The second point is most of us who use PhotoLab regularly enjoy using it very much, while some of us may be more passionate than others. But we all understand both it’s benefits and deficits very well and are much more frustrated than you regarding it’s limitations and the long timeframe for their resolution though new features as well as updates to existing features. Despite that, with continued use we find Photolab to be extremely useful, and for many of us our main editor of choice. If you had hung around here long enough you would have seen that and perhaps not be as willing to jump to conclusions about us.

Mark

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I’m sorry if I offended someone on this forum. It was not my intention; not at all. I just had a feeling that some of the forum members are taking my writings as personal attack. That’s why the word ‘‘fanboy’’ in my writing. Obviously I misinterpret some of the answers. My english is not as good as yours. My bad.
Like I said I like DxO Photolab and most of the tools it offers. It works most of the time. I’m not trashing or bashing DxO but some of those tools in DxO does not work as I would like. I will say again – they does not work as I personaly would like or I’m used to or I think they should.
I just don’t understand how this would help me if for example Shadows slider also affects midtones or Highlights slider also affects midtones. Just forget for a second Smart lighting and ClearView.
If I want to adjust the highlights (no matter what reason I have to do that) and I wan’t to use Selective tone sliders because they are there to use them; well, I move the Highlight slider to the left and all image goes darker and dull. If I push Shadows slider to the right all the image goes bright and dull with no contrast and it gets this weird orange tint.
I also can’t do much with HSL tool as it is right now. I also miss this dropper tool as in Lightroom to remove purple and green fringe.

I can see most of you are trying to improve some things in DxO and asking here the developers for improvements. I don’t know if they will improve all those things you think they should but they must if they are smart. They need to listen to the users. Right?

Would I use DxO if you could give me a lifetime trial version of the premium package?
Yes I would.
Will I buy it?
No, not at the moment.

You should try working with the software for a bit, rather than just bringing over your exact workflow from another application. As you mention, there’s SmartLighting to start. Combined with an overall Manual Exposure adjustment, SmartLighting will get exposure to a good place much faster than tinkering with Selective Tone sliders in any application – I usually use SmartLighting at very low values, btw, not the defaults, which are very strong.

Once I have the image in general exposure range I want, I’ll use Selective Tone or curves to tune specific ranges. As others have mentioned, there’s no need to push Selective Tone sliders as far as in Lightroom. Push down highlights a bit and push up mid-tones a bit and you’ll probably see what it is you are after. Neither way of calibrating Selective Tone sliders is right or wrong. They are simply different. DxO’s calibration is more subtle. Not all cars steer the same way, even though they all have steering wheels. Same thing for the tiller on sailing yachts. A new user must acquire a feel for the software.

The trial is 30 days. It’s mystifying that that think you should be entitled to a free lifetime trial just because you don’t like the calibration of Selective Tone Sliders.

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No; I’m not saying I should be entitled to free DxO software for any reason.
I’m just saing I would gladly use it for free without complaining about any slider. I just won’t buy it at the moment.
I will use it till free licence expires.

Here’s an example of recent image with difficult dynamic range (shooting into a sunset with dark foreground) which I’ve largely corrected using almost exclusively DxO’s Selective Tone Sliders. First, here’s the settings (there’s no noise reduction or horizon - these are the only corrections made).

Notice the way I used multiple sliders, subtly correcting one another. The overlap is very helpful in getting a subtle tonal result. There’s no gradient masks or local adjustments. Here’s the result of that correction:

Based on this image, corrected almost entirely with the Selective Tone Sliders, it’s clear they work pretty well even if they don’t work exactly the way you are used to.

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I have a doubt. You got to use the preset “DxO Standard” first to enhance your image.
This preset cancels Chromatics aberrations. Nothing more.

Pascal

I think Alec may have just misunderstood the intent of your post. I know you didn’t mean to suggest any long term entitlement.

Mark

Regarding fringe; here you go,
Look at the hadphones wires. DxO image is ‘‘DxO standard’’ profile. It couldn’t remove green fringe and Lightroom had no problem.
No other post processing has been done. In Lightroom just import on ‘‘Camera standard’’ profile and I used Defringe tool and in DxO ‘‘DxO standard’’ profile and I also clicked on ‘‘Purple fringing’’.
In LR it was a quick job. I could play a few seconds with defringing tool for even better result.

Whatever Lightroom is doing there is awful. There’s horrible discolouration all the way along the cables and the hair isn’t cured either. As there’s purple on one side and green on the other, I’m not sure it can be fully solved as neither Lightroom nor PhotoLab are getting the job done well here.

Could you upload the .NEF file? I won’t fix it and show you how to repair chromatic aberration as I don’t face much of it and chromatic aberration is rarely an issue for me, but Pascal or someone else might. I’d certainly be happy to learn how to deal effectively with very strong chromatic aberration in PhotoLab.

You indirectly answer my question. DxO is better with caracterized lenses for chroamtic aberrations.
I don’t know qulity results without.
Pascal

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Pascal, how should I handle chromatic aberration on my vintage manual lenses? The way I deal with it now is checking which aperture yield ghosting and chromatic aberration and not using them. What happens if I do have an image with strong chromatic aberration with a vintage lens with no CPU information?

I’m not a specialist Alec :wink:
I think I know Chromatic Aberration depends on your lens, a large optical-aperture, the strength and inclination of light. Good !?
I think know the value is not important.

DxO helps you with the maggic wand.
You must correct it at minimal 75% zoom display to see the effect.
Go :smiley:
Pascal

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Perhaps this was not a good example. I should find another image.
Let me play some more with the software.

Meanwhile back to the topic heading… :wink:

In Photoshop one can choose how the Parametric sliders affect an image (in PhotoLab the “Selective tone” sliders).

As we know images can vary so why not have the option to adjust the “roll off” of the various sliders rather than just a fixed setting determined by software engineers?

A screen shot from Photoshop. The pointers directly underneath the graph can adjust the effects of the sliders.

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Hello to All!

A bell just went off in my brain’s RAM > there is already a “Feature Request” for the improvement of the “Selective Tone” sliders here.

@sgospodarenko Can we bring these votes together?

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Yes, this subject of the adjustment range of the sliders, most notably, the highlights and shadows sliders, has been discussed in at least a few threads over the last year. I don’t believe the feature request you provided a link to articulates the problem well.

Mark

Agreed.

My request was to bring the votes together for the same feature enhancement, not specifically favoring the thread I linked to.

I vote for it but I am out of votes, so can not click

Consolidating the votes and the feature request threads make sense here. m9k’s request was just for the default extreme Lightroom calibration (I prefer the softer calibration in PhotoLab). Based on those Photoshop screenshots, there’s definitely scope here for some advances to the selective sliders. This kind of improvement falls squarely within the domain of a RAW development tool.

I’m not certain though how to integrate such controls though without making PhotoLab “fiddly” – the kind of application where you spend all your time calibrating instead of processing.