By James Booth
As many of you know, high-end digital cameras shoot in a format called RAW. In essence, RAW is the "raw" data from the image sensor, before it has been processed and converted into a more familiar format, such as JPG. For more information on the RAW image format, checkout John Roling's article "A RAW deal" in the May 2005 issue of Connected Photographer Magazine, http://www.connectedphotographer.com/issues/issue200505/00001529001.html.
In order to make any use of these RAW files, you need a RAW converter. In most cases, the manufacturer of your camera will supply the conversion program with your camera. But horror of horrors, some camera makers actually make you buy the RAW converter for their camera. And like many other industries, third party manufacturers have produced their own RAW converters, including features the camera makers don't.
In this article, I'll be looking at DxO Optics Pro v3.0, a third party RAW converter that packs a complete darkroom's worth of features into one program. The RAW converters supplied with cameras are, of course, camera specific, and the other third party converters can be used with any camera that produces RAW files, but DxO Optics Pro strays from both of these formulas.
Let's go pro
Although it was created to work with pretty much any digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) that produces RAW files, Optics Pro is not only camera, but also lens specific. During the setup process, DxO will ask for the camera and lens you use, and will load the specific module for that combination. Should you change camera or lens, you can download additional modules. The purpose in having camera/lens-specific modules is that Optics Pro corrects for the aberration inherent in every lens, something I have yet to find in any other converter.
As you can see in Figure A, Optics Pro displays your loaded RAW files as thumbnails, letting you process individual, or whole batches.
FIGURE A
Load your RAW files as thumbnails to begin your workflow. (click for larger image)
From the workspace, you can add and remove images, rotate your images, and flag images to specifically NOT be processed. The real magic is done in the image-editing screen shown in Figure B, where the exposure controls appear.
FIGURE B
Tweak your images in the editing screen. (click for larger image)
When it comes to correcting your images, Optics Pro offers three levels of interaction: fully automatic, key controls, and expert. Fully automatic is as you would expect, automatic. Optics Pro will apply all of the corrective measures it feels are appropriate for each image. The Key Controls option in Figure C gives you access to the most essential control features (white balance, exposure, histogram), yet remains easy to operate for those who are new to image correction.
FIGURE C
The Key Controls are a happy medium those new to image correction. (click for larger image)
DxO Optics Pro is most useful though when in Expert mode. It is with the controls shown in Figure D that Optics Pro reveals its true power.
FIGURE D
DxO Optics Pro has powerful Expert controls. (click for larger image)
In Expert mode, you can activate or deactivate any of the advanced corrections, apply them manually, or let DxO make the corrections automatically. For my part, I opted for a combination of both manual and automatic.
I feel the strongest of DxO's filters come under the Color and Exposure tab. Here you can correct the White Balance, Exposure Compensation, Tone Curve, and Hue/Saturation/Lightness. I found the White Balance correction to work much better than any other RAW converter I've used to date. As you can see in Figure E, Optics Pro will compensate for pretty much any lighting situation, or let you set the light temperature manually.
FIGURE E
Optics Pro's lighting compensation will correct for any lighting situation. (click for larger image)
The Exposure Compensation is DxO's next most powerful correction. It can adjust an image's exposure by four full stops, up or down, in .05 increments. This correction filter is a definite asset, as even the most advanced camera can misread an exposure now and then.
The Lighting filter, shown in Figure F, allows you to adjust all aspects of an image's lighting, automatically, leave it as the image was shot, or adjust it manually.
FIGURE F
Take control of your image's lighting controls with the Lighting filter. (click for larger image)
For the most part, I allow the Lighting filter to run automatically, but the filter gives you an amazing amount of control over the white and black points, gamma brightness, shadows, and contrast, both global and local. The local contrast is something I'd never encountered before, and it's amazing how DxO's filters are able to single out the most miniscule areas of an image that would benefit from local contrast adjustment.
The Optics filter is the next of Optics Pro's adjustments that you'll have quite a bit of interaction with. The filter in Figure G is the reason for DxO needing to know what camera and lens you shoot.
FIGURE G
The Optics filters correct the natural aberration of your lens. (click for larger image)
By selecting your shooting range from the drop-down menu, the Optics filter will adjust for the natural lens aberration at that distance. You can also adjust for Distortion or Vignetting, or let DxO run those filters automatically.
Optics Pro also features Noise and Sharpening filters shown in Figure H, but honestly, I let it run those automatically.
FIGURE H
Noise and Sharpening are just two more of the corrective filters featured in Optics Pro. (click for larger image)
I've toyed with these filters and found that in most cases, Optics Pro provides the best results when left to itself.
What's it all for?
So what's the point of all these filters and adjustments? The point is for you to get the most out of your images and make them look their best. Sometimes the corrections you make with Optics Pro will be subtle, but enough to make an image dramatically better. Check out the images in Figure I; the one on the left is a straight RAW conversion, with no effects applied, the image on the right was corrected with DxO Optics Pro.
FIGURE I
Slight corrections from Optics Pro can make your images drastically more appealing. (click for larger image)
There's so much more to DxO than subtle changes though. Optics Pro can actually make a bad image good. Silly exposure meter, it exposed for the light coming in the windows behind the girl in the picture on the left in Figure J, but as you can see from the image on the right, Optics Pro was actually able to salvage the image.
FIGURE J
DxO Optics Pro can actually make a bad image good. (click for larger image)
Not bad, eh?
The greatest thing about Optics Pro though is that it doesn't make any changes to the RAW image, that data is preserved exactly as the camera captured it. Instead, DxO creates a log file of the correction parameters that were applied to the RAW image, saving that file with the original image. When the RAW file is converted, those correction parameters are applied, and the image saved in the format you specify, but preserving the original RAW data.
Conclusion
There are so many features to DxO Optics Pro, and so many things to cover; I know I can't even begin to touch on it all. I've really only found one thing about it that I didn't care for, and that's how the image is displayed on the workspace during editing. The image is placed dead center in the workspace, and I would like to be able to move the preview image around, to place it all the way to the left or right if I so chose. In some instances, the filter window will cover portions of the image on the workspace, and even though each tab can be pulled out of the window and placed anywhere on the workspace, I still feel there's a need to be able to move the image.
It would also be nice to be able to zoom the image in the workspace. Although there's a Zoom tab in the filters window, it localizes the zoom to wherever you place the selection window on the preview image. It would be nice to zoom in and out the preview image itself.
Of all the RAW converters I've used, DxO Optics Pro is the only one that was actually capable of improving the images with its filters, rather making things worse. Other than addressing my issue of being able to move the preview image on the workspace, I really don't see how DxO could improve on Optics Pro. Apparently they do though, as version 3.5 is due out later this month, with more improvements. You'll have to stay tuned for updated coverage.
Optics Pro comes in two flavors, Standard and Elite. Both versions work identically, and feature the same conversion and correction abilities. The difference is in which cameras are supported. The Standard edition will work with most prosumer (professional consumer) professional digital SLRs, but not with the high-end SLRs like the Canon 1D or the Nikon D2X. The Elite version works with all dSLRs. Pricing for the Standard version is $150 US, or 124 Euros, with the Elite version going for $300 US, or 250 Euros. Optics Pro is an excellent value at either level, and these prices include all available lens modules.
I think DxO Optics Pro v3.0 has come closer to getting a perfect score, without actually achieving it, than any other product I've reviewed. Really, the one and only glitch to that is the inability to move the preview image around the workspace. This is a must for me, and if this were addressed in the next version, I would be more than happy to give it a perfect score. As it stands though, I have to give DxO Optics Pro 4 out of 5 lenses, an excellent rating indeed, and far better than any other RAW converter I've used.
RATING: 4 STARS