759 - Try Some, Buy Some

A bicycle? I must be back to Vienna 🙂

Over the last two weeks I have spent quite some time with DxO Lab’s new version 5.3 of DxO Optics Pro. When I began processing today’s image, taken at f1.4, 1/60s and ISO 3200, I found that the demo had expired and I was back to Adobe Camera RAW and probably Noise Ninja. I reined in my first impulse to finally buy DxO and began working on the image with my usual tricks. I even uploaded the result to SmugMug, but the more I looked at it, the more I felt the need to go back and try it once again with DxO.

The result is, I did it, I am now owner of a license of the standard version of DxO Optics Pro, and I am glad that I did it. The result is clearly better than my first effort with Photoshop alone. I spare you another comparison on pixel level, fact is that I see a difference and that the difference is big enough to make me shell out the money.

DxO is not perfect. We have seen that Adobe Camera RAW plus Noise Ninja can outperform it under pathological conditions, and it also lacks in terms of workflow. Rather than acting as an import plugin, I’d like to see DxO being integrated into Photoshop as an alternative RAW converter, but all that is nit-picking. In practice DxO gives me the best RAW conversion that I’ve ever seen, at least for the Nikon D200 and D300. I probably won’t use it all of the time, but when I need it, it will be available.

The Song of the Day is “Try Some, Buy Some”, David Bowie’s George Harrison cover from the 2003 album “Reality”. Hear the album version and a live version on YouTube, and when you’re already there, why not compare it with the Harrison original?