DPP Digital Lens Optimizer

I've been playing around with Digital Lens Optimizer in Canon's newest version of their DPP software, and am a bit confused about when to apply it during the raw editing workflow.

The instructions on it in the DPP "help" menu say that sharpening should be set to zero before use, but that's about it. Does anyone know if it's best to apply other raw editing corrections (such as color balance, brightness, curve, saturation, contrast, etc) before or after using the Lens Optimizer? Also, any ideas about where the "slider" governing the amount of the Lens Optimizer effect should be set under normal circumstances?

Once the Lens Optimizer is applied can it subsequently be undone, or do you have to make a clean copy of the raw file before-hand in case you want to revert back to the original?

Many thanks for any input.

Make the picture as unprocessed as you can before running DLO, basically. That way the process doesn't get confused. I'm not sure why they don't just do that automatically in DPP. I have a recipe called "Camera Neutral" that applies DLO to all my pictures, and then I customize the settings after that. It takes so long to do this for more than one picture that I just run it and come back later.

Makes sense - Thanks!

I'm not sure: there's a case for setting any global NR you want prior to DLO. DLO seems to apply deconvolution sharpening (hopefully based on kernels that track lens performance) and after that it'll be harder to get good results from NR. But whether that will give worse results from DLO I don't know: but I don't really see why it would.

In what amount do you apply the DLO? Slider all the way up, down, or half way?

jwiegley said:

Make the picture as unprocessed as you can before running DLO, basically. That way the process doesn't get confused. I'm not sure why they don't just do that automatically in DPP. I have a recipe called "Camera Neutral" that applies DLO to all my pictures, and then I customize the settings after that. It takes so long to do this for more than one picture that I just run it and come back later.

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rtburgess1 said:

Once the Lens Optimizer is applied can it subsequently be undone, or do you have to make a clean copy of the raw file before-hand in case you want to revert back to the original?

Click to expand...

You can remove DLO by going back into the DLO tool and unchecking the box and then clicking save.

I've been testing DLO as well and am impressed with the improvement it makes in the resolution of the 50L.

IMO, the higher the ISO, the uglier the noise artifacts from DLO (which someone else mentioned, cannot really be removed effectively with standard noise reduction). Obviously, the higher the setting, the more artifacts are introduced. At this point, I am doing about 50% DLO for 100-400 ISO on my 5D2. Anything 1600 and above have yileded better results for me with DLO off and DPP sharpening at 1 to 3; then selectively applied unsharp mask in CS5 afterwards.

Anyone else less than pleased with DLO on high ISO images?

KnightFall said:

In what amount do you apply the DLO? Slider all the way up, down, or half way?

Click to expand...