No, moving the end points of the curve is exactly the same as moving the sliders on the Levels tool, which DXO also doesn’t have. This remaps the entire histogram values so that whatever luma value selected at the end of the histogram eg 236 becomes 255. The sliders are moving a portion of the histogram non linearly to adjust the highlight region of the histogram.
I’m not sure if I agree with you there. Moving the sliders in both Lr and PL creates micro-contrast gradients across the width of each step in the chart. Moving the end points of the curve maintains the same luminance level across each strip.
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The rule of thumb in C1 training videos is that the highlight slider impacts the top 25% of the histogram and the Whites slider the top 5%. Obviously broad brush but easy to describe and understand.
From the DXO manual:
What settings should you use with DxO Smart Lighting?
First, generally speaking, DxO Smart Lighting changes bright images only slightly, but has a stronger effect on darker images. It has little effect on highlights, unlike Exposure Compensation. Second, you should stick with the three automatic correction modes as much as possible, as they can cope with most situations, and then fine-tune with the Intensity slider afterwards. If you need to do further corrections, use the Selective tone palette or the Tone Curve.
So I share colin_g’s concerns that the DXO way is not as intuitive. The DXO approach comes from history where auto corrections and not having local adjustments impacted the development of the software. All understandable but it is often beneficial in any kind of development program to periodically pause and ask yourself why you are doing things this way?
The market for raw converters has changed over the years and they are now, for the majority, the place where most “editing” is carried out with traditional pixel editors relegated to the tasks they do best like compositing, object removal etc.Therefore users expect editing capabilities far in excess of the LR V1 days. I see only advantage in DXO providing more direct editing controls rather than relying on “automatic” control features where you are relying on drawing boxes etc to try and exert control over the tools behaviour.
There is a market for automatic editing which Skylum Luminar software focuses on. DXO is a poor comparison if that is what you want. The danger is being in the middle position in any market is not usually the best option.
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That’s me in a nutshell. It is just so easy in LR. I’m a newbie with PL and it was the first thing I noticed.
That is why I have also asked if it is possible to use PL for the things it seems to do best (eg sharpening, noise reduction), and then return the file to LR to do the rest of the processing. I was told by customer support - when I eventually got a reply! - that it wasn’t possible.
Sorry, I’m not sure I was responding to the right post…
Things have moved on a lot since I originally posted and there are obviously some quite technically-minded people on here!
Thanks, I have seen that; but it refers to Lightroom Classic v3 - does it mean LRv3 or a numbered version of Classic? Customer support told me specifically that DXO isn’t compatible with LR 6.14 and even apologised for it!
Lr6 is old now, very. Nobody is really supporting it and it will eventually just die. If you want to use Lr you need to move on to Classic. The alternative is to get to grips with PL.
Hi Jeremy,
check here https://support.dxo.com/hc/en-us/sections/360010048051-Program-Plugin-compatibility-FAQs for compatibility issues.
( I’m still on LR 5.7, but use LR for softproofing, which is still missing in PL. )
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It only seems easier in Lr because you have developed muscle memory there that you haven’t yet in PL - I’m sure I would find Lr less easy if I were to start using it.
Strictly, it is possible to work on an image in both, but it would mean moving from working on a RAW file to converting it to a TIFF and losing out on the flexibility of being able to do RAW type things.
Might I take the liberty of suggesting you take a few images and only process them using PL? Don’t even open them in Lr and commit yourself to working out what does what in PL. If you don’t know where to start with a certain image, post it here, telling us what you want to achieve, not what you would have done in Lr, and we can suggest which tools we would use, so you get a better idea of which tool works to what effect.
Careful with the compatibility information: imo, it should read support information instead.
I’ve been testing older versions of DxO OpticsPro on an M1 MacBook Air running BigSur and I’ve just tested a roundtrip from Lightroom Classic (current version) to PhotoLab 2, which worked as expected.
What is marked with a 
in those charts does not necessarily mean that the combination does not work. It’s rather meant to mean that if it doesn’t, you’re on your own and DxO will not help you.
Try DNG instead. This will save some drive space for the price of possible colour shifts, mostly in saturated reds.
May I make a suggestion and start with a new tread for this. Otherwise topics jump back and forth in a thread which makes it difficult to follow. Also will become very long and cluttered.
I support your suggestion to work with examples to learn Photolab.
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Lex - also have a look at the DXO academy and on Youtube, some very good videos.
Thank you.
I know about DXO academy and on Youtube. I have seen these and still follow the channel on YT.
But I think it’s also useful to discuss on this forum because not everything is explained. There’re many good suggestions done in this forum. But it’s sometimes difficult to find in threads.
How about posting a clearly defined topic in this forum Tutorials, tips & resources for DxO PhotoLab - DxO Forums
And we all gang up on the person who deviates too far from the topic 
I think this is crucial.
If someone is familiar with LR and knows how to achieve the endresult he/she likes but doesn’t know how to do this with PL, then it would help us to know this endresult (done with LR). Please share this so we know what the objective is. Otherwise everyone gives his/her interpretation.
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The goal should be to get the result that one wants.
If a result can be obtained in Lightroom, DPL can obtain a similar result, albeit with a steeper learning curve because “DPL has more sliders”. The result will never be the same though. DPL is not Lightroom and vice versa.
If results should look like out of Lightroom, use Lightroom.
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QUOTE - It only seems easier in Lr because you have developed muscle memory there that you haven’t yet in PL - I’m sure I would find Lr less easy if I were to start using it.
REPLY - You’re absolutely correct. But moving one slider seems to be a pretty easy task in any software! As I said the lack of the whites slider in PL was the first thing I noticed.
QUOTE - Strictly, it is possible to work on an image in both, but it would mean moving from working on a RAW file to converting it to a TIFF and losing out on the flexibility of being able to do RAW type things.
Might I take the liberty of suggesting you take a few images and only process them using PL? Don’t even open them in Lr and commit yourself to working out what does what in PL. If you don’t know where to start with a certain image, post it here, telling us what you want to achieve, not what you would have done in Lr, and we can suggest which tools we would use, so you get a better idea of which tool works to what effect.
REPLY - Yes, I will have to do that. But when I found this information about integrating PL with LR, I thought I could have the best of both worlds.
Strictly, it is possible to work on an image in both, but it would mean moving from working on a RAW file to converting it to a TIFF and losing out on the flexibility of being able to do RAW type things.
Might I take the liberty of suggesting you take a few images and only process them using PL? Don’t even open them in Lr and commit yourself to working out what does what in PL. If you don’t know where to start with a certain image, post it here, telling us what you want to achieve, not what you would have done in Lr, and we can suggest which tools we would use, so you get a better idea of which tool works to what effect.
REPLY - I agree; I will have to do that in good time. But when I read about integrating PL with LR I thought I could have the best of both worlds for the time being.
https://lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/integrating-dxo-photolab-and-lightroom/
Thanks but unfortunately Lightroom 6.14 doesn’t appear on that chart. Had thought this all through more carefully before purchase I may have made a different decision.
I moved from LR 6.14 to PL and after a period of getting to know PL I have never looked back. Yes, things are different but I get better results with PL, so persevere and you will be happy 