Dxo Capture One

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Dxo nik collection capture one

Capture one vs dxo photo lab 2

Often people wonder if software really makes a difference. They may as well use Adobe CC or CaptureOne to process their images. Partly it's herd mentality. People just follow what 'others are doing'.

DxO PhotoLab 4 indeed offers some features that are one of a kind. DXO DeepPRIME technology is the first example of building artificial intelligence into a post-processing software for denoising purposes. When it comes to noise reduction, PhotoLab definitely beats Lightroom in every aspect. It preserves more detail while maintaining colour. DxO PureRAW is now available for download on the DxO website for a special launch price of $89 instead of $129 until May 31, 2021. A free 30-day trial version is also available.

Sometimes software really is different. The original Final Cut Pro changed the post-production industry thanks to how much more usable, how much easier it was to learn and how much more affordable it was than Avid's Symphony. Adobe Premiere was around then but then as now, Premiere as a poorly integrated cross-platform video editor was relatively unreliable. All kinds of driver conflicts and crashes.

In photo editing right now, there is one piece of software which has a clear edge in noise reduction and hence in processing high ISO images.

DxO PhotoLab performs miracles with noise reduction. Lightroom is a distant second. No one else comes close. No Canon shooter should be without DxO PhotoLab. Adds two usable stops to any of their cameras. A 5D Mark III image looks clean at ISO 12800 instead of topping out at ISO 3200.

I've been asked to show an example and I'll pull one from a recent football match where I was trying out my 'new' Canon EF 300mm f2.8L IS I. It turned out my copy was delivered with a circular polarizer and not a placeholder filter, hence I was shooting about 1.5 stops darker than the lens normally would be. ISO was cranked out at 12800 on my Canon 5DS R and the image was still a bit dark. This is about technically the worst image I shot all season, but due to the content – compact Mario Marko stiff arming a much bigger defender – I wanted to use it. I made my best effort with each software program.

Here's how it looks out of PhaseOne's CaptureOne (C1) which is considered the professional benchmark for photo processing these days.

The above is a horrible image, barely publishable, somewhat embarrassing.

Here's what the same image looks like after DxO PhotoLab with Prime Noise Reduction.

Software does make a difference.

Capture One Vs Dxo Photolab

Capture

Here's a link to the full RAW file if you'd like to try your own post-production software on this image.

Dxo Capture One

CaptureOne is not without its merits. For low and normal ISO images, the colour manipulation tools are much more powerful and useful than what DxO offers. DxO has colour correction tools while C1 offers the ability to do advanced colour manipulation.

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Those who know me know that I’ve been trying to eliminate Adobe products (specifically, Lightroom and Photoshop) from my photo processing workflow. And so it is that I come to be in possession of licenses for both DxO‘s Optics Pro and PhaseOne‘s CaptureOne RAW processing software.

CaptureOne software is one of the best RAW processors on the market today – and (remarkably), to an even greater degree than Lightroom, it eliminates the need for Photoshop in most situations. Its library (digital asset) management, though not stellar, is adequate to the degree that’s it’s a fairly solid replacement for Lightroom. I’ve come to a point where I’m using it fairly exclusively in my workflow.

Dxo vs capture one

Dxo Vs Capture One Vs Lightroom

In my (unscientific) testing, however, DxO’s Optics Pro is superior for lens aberration correction and is far superior for noise reduction (in fact, in my opinion, Optics Pro is the best noise reduction software on the market today).

Capture One Vs Dxo Photolab

So how to integrate Optics Pro into the CaptureOne workflow? Prior to CaptureOne v8.1, it wasn’t any fun, and it’s still not exactly straight-forward – but it’s very doable. Here’s how!

Dxo Capture One Workflow

  1. Perform your standard workflow to get your images into CaptureOne.
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  2. In CaptureOne, Select the image you want to process in OpticsPro and then right-click it. On the context menu, select Edit With…
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  3. On the EDITING OPTIONS dialogue, set the format to TIFF; with the exception of the Open With option, the remainder of the settings are irrelevant because you’re not actually going to edit this exported image anyway.
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  4. In the Open With dialogue, browse to your Optics Pro executable; on Windows, it’s probably at C:Program FilesDxO LabsDxO OpticsPro 10DXOOpticsPro.exe. Once you have the executable selected, click Open. You should be returned to the EDITING OPTIONS dialogue.
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  5. Click the Edit button. Optics Pro should open with the new TIFF selected.
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  6. In Optics Pro, select the RAW file. You are going to apply your edits to the RAW image and then overwrite the TIFF that CaptureOne just generated.
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  7. Apply desired edits in Optics Pro. I would recommend that you restrict your edits to exposure (with the knowledge that it impacts noise reduction), noise reduction, and lens/sensor corrections (chromatic aberration, dust, distortion, and if you have Viewpoint, perspective and volume deformation). CaptureOne, especially for skin tones, does detail, saturation, and color balance adjustments better than Optics Pro.
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  8. Use any of the nearly half-dozen methods available to you to direct Optics Pro to Export to disk.
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  9. Set the output to TIFF and then set Process as to TIFF.
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  10. Set Quality as you desire; you would be well-advised to select 16-bit.
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  11. Set Destination to Original image folder and then clear any value in the Suffix field.
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  12. Set your Resolution and ICC profile as you see fit. FWIW, 240 ppi is generally considered to be the minimum resolution for quality printing. The ICC profile should probably be set to Original or AdobeRGB; you probably want to preserve as many colors as possible at this stage.
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  13. Click Export. When prompted, overwrite the existing TIFF!
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  14. Switch back to CaptureOne.
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  15. Click File and then Regenerate Previews. Voila! You now have an Optics Pro corrected TIFF in your CaptureOne library!
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  16. Edit the “new” TIFF in CaptureOne as you see fit!