Perhaps we can reduce the heat and increase the light? 
Sorry about that. I try to ignore his posts when they go negative and I know that arguing on an forum like this is childish. Unfortunately, in this case, I felt compelled to respond when he, for no apparent reason, decided to include me in his rant. If he had left me out of it, I probably would have ignored his diatribe for the sake of maintaining harmony. However, I was pretty angry with his condescending personal attacks and stand by every word I wrote. I suspect his response to my post will be less than kind. But, I will attempt to ignore it for everyone’s sake.
Mark
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Actually my post was meant to be in accordance with my quote of You.
@uncoy - couldn’t we ratchet things back a notch?
Danke an die Erinnerung Nik Button, aber auch die Geschwindigkeit wird immer vernachlässigt!
Google Übersetzer:
Thanks to the reminder Nik Button, but also the speed is always neglected!
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As long as there’s not a checkbox to remove the in-app advertising inside PhotoLab and I’m still paying for it, probably not. I’ve been very clear about that: either DxO adds a preference to make that ugly Nik button go away or as far as I’m concerned, they’ve defaced software for which I’ve now paid more than €300.
MWSilvers brings it on himself with his patronising posts and his contorted apologetics for DxO. PhotoLab exists because of us (we’re the people who gave DxO €300+ for their Photo Studio now that Nik has been through its second paid iteration). DxO answers to us, not to the Lightroom users who will never migrate to PhotoLab while it’s in this price category (€200+) and not in the lower tier ($100-).
I’m delighted to help users use PhotoLab better, I use it every day myself and do very good work with it. On the other hand, I don’t think we should cut DxO much slack considering how they’ve handled our money and software improvements (lack thereof) over the last two years.
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I think its probably best going forward that we don’t respond to each others posts or reference each other by name, for the sake of other posters here. Perhaps we will be able to resume a civil discourse between us at some point in the future.
Mark
[Emerging from the ditch in which I was hiding until the smoke cleared …] Comments made in this thread have raised additional questions, however I shall break them down into their smallest indivisible parts and post them separately. I will limit my questions to the database/library, although some of these questions stem directly from the manual. I find that manuals have a tendency to give you the how but not the what and the why, and without those learning to operate a new program becomes almost route memorization.
The manual indicates that once a file has been processed in PRIME a file will have a blue banner with a P in the upper left which I assume to mean when viewed in the library window. However, my PRIME files show no such thing, instead showing a star in the same place. And for that matter, is the noise reduction stored in the side car? [see below]
On the other hand, some files have a check mark in lower right, indicating “done”. OK, what’s done?
About the library/database: based on your discussion I looked up what a sidecar was. So is .dop the sidecar file? This would indicate to me that even if the database were destroyed all the work that I’d put into a file would not be lost, as opposed to Lightroom, which I believe stores those changes in the catalog itself, and so to lost the catalog is to lose any changes in a file and you go back to square one. Am I correct in any or all of this?
Finally in the output to disk there is both a standard option, and in my case a TIFF option which read exactly the same way. Is that because the standard option is the default and will remain so until I check another option below it?
Thanks for your help with this.
Josh, that’s exactly why you should have sidecards enabled.
The other advantage to sidecars is that you can just move a full folder from one computer to another. For example, I am away on a weekend and start the work on a set on my MBP. When I get home, I can transfer that folder directly over to my 12 core Mac Pro tower and just keep working. And if I go away again, I can move the folder back to my MBP.
The only issue to be careful with when migrating folders is that you don’t do work in both copies and then try to merge. That’s tricky.
Easy portability of image folders is a huge advantage of PhotoLab over Lightroom and most other RAW developers (Iridient Developer employs a similar sidecar system and I highly recommend it for Fuji X files). The primitive database system which DxO has added suggests that file portability with PhotoLab may be under threat one day. Hopefully DxO is aware that folder portability is one its most important advantages over its competitors.
Sorry for the unfortunate distraction.
On my Windows 10 version there is no blue banner, and images that have had prime applied show a small white diamond (which you refer to as a star) in the upper left corner.
Some entries in the manual may have not been updated since the DXO Optics Pro days which preceded the rebadgeing of that software to PhotoLab. The last version of DXO Optics Pro was version 11. So including PhotoLab there have now been 13 versions of this software. The single biggest change in the first version of PhotoLab from late 2017 was the inclusion of Local Adjustments.
All edit settings, including PRIME, are stored in the sidecar files. If you were to transfer a copy of a raw file and its associated .dop sidecar file to another computer to be edited in PhotoLab Elite, the edits, including PRIME, would be identical in all respects. PRIME NR isn’t stored in sidecar just the instruction to use it.
The .dop is the sidecar file. It contains all the edits and settings for a particular image. Copying the sidecar file and raw file to another computer with Photolab will yield identical results. LIghtroom has sidecar files as well with an .xmp extension. You may just not have turned that feature on. I believe that both Lightroom and PhotoLab have this feature disabled by default. In PhotoLab if you check both sidecar check boxes in Preferences, edits will be saved to sidecar files, and loaded from them, instead of the database.
The various options on the left just modify the settings in the standard output screen. They do nothing that you couldn’t do by changing the standard output settings directly yourself. Some people just find them more convenient to use. I never use them myself. All the settings remain as they were last set. They do not automatically revert to default settings the next time your export.
Mark
So the presence of dop files in the explorer directories does indicate that sidecars are enabled, nothing I did myself.
My stars twinkle twinkle like your diamonds in the sky, so I use them interchangeably,
You should probably go into Preferences and ensure both sidecar check boxes are enabled.
Mark
It was actually so small on my 28" 4K monitor that I needed a magnifying glass to confirm it was a diamond rather than a star.
That check mark, indicating “Done”, means the image was exported. If you see an exclamation mark in that same corner indicating, “processed, but needs to be updated”, that means you’ve made additional edits since the last time you’ve exported the image.
Mark
Mark,
True, but if you undo the additional edits (using Ctrl + Z), the exclamation mark will still remain. Perhaps a minor bug?
Joseph
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I don’t recall seeing that occur, but I rarely focus on those indicators. I suppose it could be a bug. But, if you apply an edit and later think about it and use Ctrl+Z to back it out to a previous state, I guess reverting the original edit could be considered another edit. But, for practical purposes, the exclamation point no longer needs to be there.
Mark
To add to the value of the dop’s I create a multi back up of my data,. All the data is backed up onto a desk HDD and on to a server and again onto my son’s server. The desk HDD is copied onto a portable HDD which I take with me. I have many more years data off the laptop than on it, but if I ever want to use, or reinstall images its no problem PL just reads the dop’s something .
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The lack of a visible history is a real weakness that should be addressed in the next iteration. In Lightoom if you see something in a photo that you decide needs to be edited out you know exactly how many steps to go back, and can get there in a single keystroke. Backing out of a change in Photolab is like going in reverse in a car with no rear view mirror: you only know how far back you are by looking through the windshield. There is also the ability to know at a glance what changes are and are not baked in. If control +z works multiple times then obviously the history is stored in the program – would be it be so hard to make it visible to the user? 
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Quel peut bien être l’intérêt d’un historique “long” dans un logiciel paramétrique tel que PhotoLab ?
Ce n’est pas parce que Ligthroom sait le faire que PhotoLab doit faire de même !
Pour moi, et probablement beaucoup d’utilisateurs de DxO, l’intérêt est plus que limité, d’autant que l’utilisation de copies virtuelles permet de faire toutes sortes d’expérimentations si nécessaire.
Si je pense m’être trompé dans un réglage, pourquoi annuler tout le travail fait depuis ce réglage en remontant l’historique ? Il suffit de reprendre ce réglage et seulement celui ci.
Google translate :
What is the interest of a “long” history in parametric software such as PhotoLab?
This is not because Ligthroom knows how to do it that PhotoLab must do the same!
For me, and probably many users of DxO, the interest is more than limited, especially as the use of virtual copies can make all kinds of experiments if necessary.
If I think I was wrong in a setting, why cancel all the work done since this setting up the history? Just resume this setting and only this one.
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There are a number of useful features in Lightoom that might enhance Photolab’s usability. On the other hand there are things in Photolab that would benefit Lightroom. They are two different software packages from two different vendors so comparing features while perhaps interesting, will just lead to frustration.
My comparison comes down to four questions. Which one is easier to use? Which one takes the least amount of time to finalize my edits? Which one do I enjoy using more? Which one gives me superior results? The answer to all four questions, for me, is PhotoLab. Knowing the limitations of the history list I often make use of virtual copies to allow me to go back in time.
Mark