DxO PhotoLab 6 is the newest model of the famend photograph enhancing software program that continues to set a excessive customary on the earth of digital picture processing. Designed to cater to each beginner {and professional} photographers, DxO PhotoLab 6 gives a complete set of instruments and options that allow customers to remodel their RAW pictures into beautiful artworks — they declare their software program is ‘essentially the most superior, end-to-end, RAW photograph enhancing software program’.
Whether or not you are trying to improve the small print in your panorama photographs, scale back noise in low-light pictures, or fine-tune the colours and publicity of your portraits, DxO PhotoLab 6 has you coated. One of many standout options of DxO PhotoLab 6 is its state-of-the-art noise discount expertise — making it a really enticing choice for astrophotographers.
It may be tough to determine which one of many finest photograph enhancing apps to go for as there are such a lot of choices, so we have examined out DxO PhotoLab 6 utilizing pictures taken on a few of the finest cameras and finest lenses and weighed up the professionals and cons of this software program that will help you make an knowledgeable choice.
DxO PhotoLab 6 evaluate 2023
DxO PhotoLab 6: Pricing and Subscription
There are two variations of DxO PhotoLab 6 — Important and Elite. Because it says on the tin, the Important model accommodates all the fundamental instruments we have come to count on from picture enhancing software program, like optical corrections, primary picture changes (publicity, distinction, white stability, and so on.) and sensible lighting optimization. The Elite model contains every little thing within the Important model, plus superior options like PRIME noise discount, ClearView Plus, and DxO Sensible Lighting. These options present extra refined and exact management over noise discount, distinction enhancement, and lighting optimization. For astrophotographers, we might suggest the Elite model for the DeepPrime XD noise discount.
On the time of writing, Important is $139 and Elite is $219 and each can be found to buy with no subscription. Additionally they supply choices to purchase now pay later or unfold the price over a number of funds, which might make the software program extra accessible and reasonably priced. Model 6 was launched in October 2022, only a yr after model 5. Customers may obtain a 30-day free trial to try it out earlier than deciding whether or not to buy.
DxO PhotoLab 6: Person Interface
- Customizable structure
- Create Tasks to maintain your pictures organized
- Has two predominant workspaces — Picture Library and Customise.
The principle workspace consists of the picture preview window, surrounded by panels for instrument choice, picture changes, and picture data (a reasonably customary structure that many software program makers undertake). It strikes an ideal stability between simplicity and performance, although it might be slightly overwhelming for anybody not acquainted with picture enhancing software program and uncertain about what most of the instruments do, as a few of them are named in a different way from different packages.
We predict the instrument panels are logically organized and supply a variety of enhancing choices, and you’ll even rearrange and favourite them to tailor this system to you and your preferences. From primary changes like publicity, distinction, and white stability, to extra superior options like noise discount and native changes, there are many choices to edit your pictures as merely or as in-depth as you would like.
The library acts as a centralized hub the place you may import, browse, and set up your total photograph assortment. It provides you a transparent overview of your pictures, permitting you to shortly find and entry the images you need to work on. Throughout the library, you may apply filters, kind pictures by varied standards equivalent to date or ranking and create digital copies of your images for various enhancing functions. This lets you streamline your workflow and maintain your photograph assortment well-organized.
You possibly can create Tasks and Venture Teams in an effort to group and set up associated images collectively — primarily the identical factor because the Collections in Lightroom, though, in our opinion, not fairly as aesthetically pleasing.
DxO PhotoLab 6: Key Options
- ClearView Plus boosts distinction and readability in a single click on
- Mushy Proofing ensures correct prints
- Has all of the enhancing instruments you’d count on and extra
The ClearView Plus characteristic in DxO PhotoLab 6 is a really highly effective instrument that enhances native distinction and readability, bringing out wonderful particulars and textures in your pictures. It effortlessly cuts by means of any haze, atmospheric interference, or different parts that may obscure the intricate particulars in your photos.
This characteristic is helpful for any kind of pictures to spice up distinction, however we will actually see it coming into its personal for panorama pictures, and it additionally has its place in astrophotography, too. We tried it out on an astro picture and have been actually impressed with the outcomes — if solely to streamline your workflow and velocity up your enhancing course of. We additionally appreciated that you could modify the depth, as it is not a one-size-fits-all type of characteristic and an excessive amount of distinction can create some horrible-looking images.
One other helpful characteristic is the brand new Mushy Proofing mode, which is a good instrument for anybody who likes to print their pictures. You possibly can be sure that your prints are as correct as doable by activating ink and paper simulations — a really useful characteristic as it may be a little bit of a lottery when sending pictures off for print. This characteristic is simply accessible within the Elite model of PhotoLab 6, although.
The UPoint changes are additionally fairly neat (primarily simply native changes, however with a elaborate identify). You simply click on on the realm of a picture you need to edit, and it will deliver up a wheel of choices together with a brush instrument, auto masks, management level, management line, graduated filter and extra. Then for every of these, there’s an array of adjustment bars for all the principle adjustment settings (lighting, colour and element) Though it is principally the identical as what you are able to do in lots of different picture enhancing packages, we significantly like the best way they’re offered in DxO PhotoLab 6.
DxO PhotoLab 6: Astrophotography Options
- DeepPrime XD noise removing is extremely helpful for astrophotographers
- Different software program makers additionally now introducing AI noise removing
- UPoint native changes could be nice for adjusting colours
Though DxO PhotoLab 6 is not a devoted astrophotography program, we expect there’s one particular characteristic that’s extremely helpful for astro-shooters. The DeepPrime XD characteristic, which they declare is ‘noise removing such as you’ve by no means seen earlier than’ makes use of AI to cut back noise whereas preserving unbelievable particulars. Whereas we aren’t denying that it is an extremely spectacular characteristic of the software program and completely does the job like they are saying it does, different photograph enhancing software program giants like Adobe have additionally very just lately launched AI into their packages, together with AI noise removing, which does kind of water down the USP of DxO PhotoLab 6, to an extent. That stated, we do suppose that DxO PhotoLab 6’s DeepPrime XD does beat Lightroom’s AI noise removing in terms of sustaining readability and brightness — though Lightroom is consistently bettering, so who is aware of how lengthy till they overtake DxO.
We in contrast the DeepPrime XD in DxO PhotoLab 6 to Lightroom’s AI denoise instrument — check out the outcomes for your self. Needless to say this characteristic is simply accessible within the Elite model.
Do you have to purchase DxO PhotoLab 6?
Had you requested us a yr in the past, we might have had completely no hesitation in recommending DxO PhotoLab 6 for its noise removing options alone, that are unbelievable for devoted astro shooters. Nevertheless, as many different packages at the moment are nipping at their heels in terms of AI noise discount, DxO PhotoLab 6 now does not appear as particular because it as soon as did, making it tougher to suggest. The ClearView Plus characteristic continues to be fairly neat, however in actuality, it would not truly take that rather more time to recreate an analogous impact utilizing the distinction, readability and dehaze sliders in different packages.
If, nevertheless, you might be considering of upgrading from model 4 or 5 (which you are able to do for $75 for Important or $99 for Elite), then we expect this worth level makes it extra worthwhile, particularly as you solely need to pay the one-off charge for the license fairly than an ongoing subscription. It’s also possible to use DxO PhotoLab 6 as a Lightroom plugin, so you are able to do nearly all of your edits in Lightroom and head over to PhotoLab 6 for its AI options.
If DxO PhotoLab 6 is not for you
One characteristic we felt was lacking from DxO PhotoLab 6 is the flexibility to stack and align pictures collectively to edit a number of exposures, which astrophotographers typically do. We predict that this characteristic coupled with the DeepPrime XD might make DxO PhotoLab 6 fairly laborious to beat. That stated, in the event you’re wanting the flexibility to stack a number of exposures collectively, take a look at Affinity Picture 2. We discovered the astrophotography stack instrument extremely environment friendly and helpful when we reviewed Affinity Picture 2, to not point out the plethora of different instruments that make it helpful for astro enhancing.
If, nevertheless, you are in search of a strong enhancing program on a subscription mannequin, look no additional than Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is this system that DxO PhotoLab 6 is most frequently in comparison with, and it is just about the business customary in terms of picture enhancing. Though they’ve solely simply launched AI enhancing instruments into their arsenal, we expect that, in time, they may very properly rival DxO PhotoLab 6’s DeepPrime XD noise removing. When we reviewed Adobe Lightroom we gave it 5 stars and thought it was an excellent program for enhancing just about any type of photograph, and we cherished its group instruments, too.
