biglouis
Well-known member
I've been trialling DxO PureRAW 2 (PR2) and in certain cases I have found it to be an advantage over my normal workflow. I thought I'd share some samples here. I am not related to the company, have no axe to grind and am not shilling.
My workflow is normally RAW --> LR --> TopazAI products if required --> Export to JPEG.
With PR2 it is RAW --> LR --> Export to PR2 --> TopazAI products if required --> Export to JPEG.
The whole purpose of PR2 is to process the RAW file at the same time correcting lens distortions, fringing, noise reduction and sharpening. It is a one-stop shop. In my tests it is rarely necessary to apply further noise reduction or sharpening, even on severely noisy or slightly soft images. I am most surprised in this respect. I recently acquired the WA adapter for my Ricoh GRIII which introduces fringing in objects against a light background (e.g. sky) and PR2 removes it entirely. Also impressive is the fact that so far DxO has recognised my Fuji lenses, including combinations like the 100-400+TC2.0x and has specific profiles for them (I haven't check all of them but I would be surprised if the list was not comprehensive).
The main disadvantage of PR2 so far is in terms of work flow. The software insists on keeping all processed images in a sub-folder off the folder containing the images. This may not affect you but it interferes with my workflow. After processing the image appears in a new film strip in Lightroom. I thin have to right click and select 'show image in folder' to have it displayed in context with the original folder film strip. What is more all my export presets are to subfolders and now I have to remember that my jpegs for the DxO processed files go into a sub-folder of the sub-folder! This may not impact you but it does me and there appears to be no way to have the processed images just be in the original folder.
Once the trial is completed (and it is a full working copy with no limitations for 30 days) I will purchase the software but my plan is to use it only for those small percentage of images that one ends up with after a particular shoot. The one or two hero shots that I end up keeping or I submit as the finished work if a client is involved.
If I have one recommendation it is that while the software is a free, fully working copy, you will benefit from giving it a try. I had to photograph in some very difficult lighting last week (full candlelight!) and in normal circumstances I would have spent a long time with the Topaz products trying to get something out of the handheld shots taken necessarily at high iso, (fortunately most of the shots were long exposures at base iso on a tripod). With PR2 I was staggered that I passed some very high-iso, noisy shots through the software and got out results which were clean, sharp and still full of detail (and not 'plasticised' like a lot of heaving noise reduction software). They can easily be printed up to A3 the client requirement, without any apparent loss of acuity, imho. I'm not sure I could have got to the same result with the Topaz products, or at least it might have taken me a long time, to do so.
The proof of the pudding is in the easting and these are three photographs that I took on a recent trip to capture images of Red Kites in the Chiltern Hills in the UK. I chose an image which was not quite sharp but had a lot of potential in terms of impact. These are full sized crops from the image which I hope will be reproduced here if you click on them.
BOTTOM LINE: especially for birders but also people aiming to create high quality fine art images, I think PR2 is able to sharpen and reduce noise but leave good detail and is worth using to either improve or rescue your images, if it fits into your workflow. It a surprising conclusion to me that it seems to create better results than just using the Topaz suite alone.
What do you think?
This particular photograph was taken with the X-T4, XF100-400+TC2.0x, 719mm, iso1250, f11, 1/2000. This is cropped to 11% of the original 25mpx frame giving a 1600x1867 image. (Cropping like this is part and parcel of a lot of bird photography). The TC2.0 has had inevitable impact on the IQ leading to a soft image, even though the shutter speed has stopped the action. Perhaps a faster shutter speed might have increased sharpness further but at a loss of iso and in my experience little additional improvement.
This is the image after putting the RAF file through PR2 first - there seems to be an immediate improvement in sharpness and detail.
As a test I then put the DNG created by PR2 through TopazSharpen, my normal tool for sharpening. There is still some benefit to be gained and my preference is for this final image.
My workflow is normally RAW --> LR --> TopazAI products if required --> Export to JPEG.
With PR2 it is RAW --> LR --> Export to PR2 --> TopazAI products if required --> Export to JPEG.
The whole purpose of PR2 is to process the RAW file at the same time correcting lens distortions, fringing, noise reduction and sharpening. It is a one-stop shop. In my tests it is rarely necessary to apply further noise reduction or sharpening, even on severely noisy or slightly soft images. I am most surprised in this respect. I recently acquired the WA adapter for my Ricoh GRIII which introduces fringing in objects against a light background (e.g. sky) and PR2 removes it entirely. Also impressive is the fact that so far DxO has recognised my Fuji lenses, including combinations like the 100-400+TC2.0x and has specific profiles for them (I haven't check all of them but I would be surprised if the list was not comprehensive).
The main disadvantage of PR2 so far is in terms of work flow. The software insists on keeping all processed images in a sub-folder off the folder containing the images. This may not affect you but it interferes with my workflow. After processing the image appears in a new film strip in Lightroom. I thin have to right click and select 'show image in folder' to have it displayed in context with the original folder film strip. What is more all my export presets are to subfolders and now I have to remember that my jpegs for the DxO processed files go into a sub-folder of the sub-folder! This may not impact you but it does me and there appears to be no way to have the processed images just be in the original folder.
Once the trial is completed (and it is a full working copy with no limitations for 30 days) I will purchase the software but my plan is to use it only for those small percentage of images that one ends up with after a particular shoot. The one or two hero shots that I end up keeping or I submit as the finished work if a client is involved.
If I have one recommendation it is that while the software is a free, fully working copy, you will benefit from giving it a try. I had to photograph in some very difficult lighting last week (full candlelight!) and in normal circumstances I would have spent a long time with the Topaz products trying to get something out of the handheld shots taken necessarily at high iso, (fortunately most of the shots were long exposures at base iso on a tripod). With PR2 I was staggered that I passed some very high-iso, noisy shots through the software and got out results which were clean, sharp and still full of detail (and not 'plasticised' like a lot of heaving noise reduction software). They can easily be printed up to A3 the client requirement, without any apparent loss of acuity, imho. I'm not sure I could have got to the same result with the Topaz products, or at least it might have taken me a long time, to do so.
The proof of the pudding is in the easting and these are three photographs that I took on a recent trip to capture images of Red Kites in the Chiltern Hills in the UK. I chose an image which was not quite sharp but had a lot of potential in terms of impact. These are full sized crops from the image which I hope will be reproduced here if you click on them.
BOTTOM LINE: especially for birders but also people aiming to create high quality fine art images, I think PR2 is able to sharpen and reduce noise but leave good detail and is worth using to either improve or rescue your images, if it fits into your workflow. It a surprising conclusion to me that it seems to create better results than just using the Topaz suite alone.
What do you think?
This particular photograph was taken with the X-T4, XF100-400+TC2.0x, 719mm, iso1250, f11, 1/2000. This is cropped to 11% of the original 25mpx frame giving a 1600x1867 image. (Cropping like this is part and parcel of a lot of bird photography). The TC2.0 has had inevitable impact on the IQ leading to a soft image, even though the shutter speed has stopped the action. Perhaps a faster shutter speed might have increased sharpness further but at a loss of iso and in my experience little additional improvement.
This is the image after putting the RAF file through PR2 first - there seems to be an immediate improvement in sharpness and detail.
As a test I then put the DNG created by PR2 through TopazSharpen, my normal tool for sharpening. There is still some benefit to be gained and my preference is for this final image.
