DxO Photo Lab 8 has been out for a while now – time for another review!

Summary

Long reviews are a long read. If you want a summary of the conclusion, here it is:

DxO Photolab 8 – Cons

• DeepPrime XD/XD2s is a little slow (depending on your PC)
• DeepPrime noise reduction not available for non-RAW images
• No reverse geocoding
• XMP Data cannot be viewed or edited
• Image browser not the fastest
• New loupe tool slow* to display noise reduction results
• Luminance masks require the Nik Collection or Film Pack

*Of course, speed depends on your PC. I have a reasonable graphics card, but the loupe was quite slow to show results.

What’s new in DxO Photo Lab 8?

If you already own a previous version of Photo Lab, you might wonder if the upgrade is worth the price. Of course, that’s a subjective question and it depends on if the new/improved features add value to you. Here is what Photo Lab 8 offers in addition to Photo Lab 7:

• Access to the latest Camera+Lens intelligent adjustments.
• Even better RAW noise reduction, retaining its best in class position.
• Loupe tool to see noise reduction results.
• Hue masks.
• Enhanced tone curve.
• Better lens softness correction.

See DxO’s website for the full list of enhancements.

DxO Photo Lab – Quality Features

DxO is all about image quality. To achieve this it offers the best RAW noise removal I have ever seen, and its unique camera + lens corrections.

When you first start DxO Photo Lab it suggests basic settings, and these already improve your image. Here’s an example, with the left hand side of the image being the uncorrected image and the right hand side showing the basic corrections:

The difference is obvious. Look closely at the top of the stones. The unprocessed image has plenty of chromatic aberrations. DxO has eradicated these. And DxO gives the image definite ‘pop’ as well as sharpening it up, without any overprocessing. And this is just the ‘default’ settings. So far, I have done nothing to the image other than let DxO open it!

Noise Reduction

It’s so easy. If you have a noisy RAW image, select Deep Prime XD/XD2s from the Detail tab. Click Auto. That’s it. DxO does the rest. Here are some examples. Here, I’m pitching DxO agains Topaz Photo AI, which has the best post processing noise reduction and excellent RAW noise reduction – a clash of titans! The images show the original noisy image on the left, followed by DxO’s result, followed by Photo AI’s RAW noise reduction result, and then Photo AI’s result from a TIF version of the image.

Here’s an example of DxO’s latest DeepPRIME XD2s noise reduction – the unprocessed image is on the left. It has considerable noise, being taken at ISO 6400 with an APS-C camera. DxO has removed the noise, retained the colours, and kept the image looking natural.

I have tested this, and other noisy images, with many noise removal tools. With a RAW image, NOTHING is as good is DxO. With a JPEG or a TIF image, DxO is less strong, and Topaz Photo AI remains my tool of choice for such images.

Image Processing

DxO is primarily a RAW image processor, although it is also excellent with JPEGs and TIF files. Here is a list of its development features:

That’s a comprehensive set of image processing features. I am going to highlight some of the unique ones.

DxO Smart Lighting + DxO Clearview Plus

This combination of features provides the simplest way to enhance photos. Smart Lighting, as its name suggests, intelligently fixes issues with the lighting in an image. ClearView Plus clarifies an image. Whilst aimed at images with hazy light, it can improve any image. Both tools are fully customisable.

Here is an example, with the adjusted image on the right:

Local Adjustments

You can apply DxO’s adjustments globally, to the whole image, and some locally, to areas you have selected. The adjustments available locally are:

• Exposure
• Selective Tone
• ClearView Plus
• Contrast
• White Balance
• HSL
• Sharpness
• Blur

The challenge is to select the local area accurately. I find manually drawing ‘masks’ (areas I want to adjust) slow, error prone, and frustrating. When the Nik Collection introduced Control Points, an intelligent masking technology, I was an immediate fan. DxO purchased Nik some years ago, and now the best masking technology is available in the best RAW converter.

In this review I will look at Control Points and the new Hue Mask.

Control Point Masking

A control point is a circular area which discerns the area it is placed in a masks its area according to its central point. The beauty of these control points is that they can be resized and combined to quickly make a selection. In this example I want to only select the sky:

The presence of the tree makes this tricky. But not with control point masking! It took my 10 seconds to apply this mask:

The masked area is shown in red. Only the sky is selected, as I added an exclusion  control point to the tree, and now I can deepen its hue by saturating it and reducing the exposure:

I’ve adjusted the sky without addecting the tree or the mountain.

Hue Masking

New to DxO Photo Lab 8 is Hue Masking, where you create a mask simply by selecting a hue, or colour, in the image. Here, I want to adjust the ferns, and make them richer in colour, without affecting other elements in the image:

All I did to create the mask was click in the middle of the ferns. I’ve highlighted on the right the range of tones it selected, and you can easily adjust this. It has selected some of the tree and unrelated areas on the left of the image. I’ll use the Erase tool to fix that:

Now the mask is right I can adjust the ferns:

Dxo Photo Lab 8 makes creating masks and local adjustments about as easy as could be, without sacrificing power or accuracy. I don’t think I could create a mask manually so accurately, and why spend hours trying when the above edits took minutes?

Digital Asset Management

DxO has a good image browser, with the following features:

• Simple – select a folder and it displays the images. No pesky importing
• Advanced – ask DxO to index a whole folder tree
• Auto maintained – DxO (as long as it’s running) detects when you add images to an image folder and adds them to its database. 
• Dynamically maintained – go to a folder and DxO adds in any new images and removes deleted ones from its database. Manual syncronising is not required!
• Edit:
  • Keywords
  • IPTC Data
  • Rating
• Image search
  • Type a search term and DxO finds it in any editable field!
• Projects
  • Group related images into projects

This is not a full blown digital asset management system. But it provides the basics that we all need. If you really need more, then a dedicated tool such as Photo Mechanic may help. But I have always said that Digital Asset Management begins with a good folder structure on your PC. Get that right, and your image collection is easy enough to organise.

DxO Photo LaB 8 Conclusion

This new release of DxO Photo Lab adds some useful enhancements, and maintains the excellence that DxO is rightly famous for. I use it on every single photo that I publish and it’s one of the few software tools I would never be without. Combined with DxO’s Nik Collection, Topaz Photo AI and Affinity Photo and you have the ultimate photo editing toolkit, without a single suscription in sight.

Disclaimer – I am in a partnership with DxO and I receive a small commission if you purchase it as a result of my review. This does not affect your purchase price. DxO do NOT supply me with the software – I purchased it with my hard earned cash and use it in my own photography. I am honest in my reviews. I have criticised faults in the past and will highlight any issues I encounter with the software.