Reading mode: Light Dark

15'' Macbook Pro Retina- with Iris pro graphics for DXO Optix/LR

Go to last post
M

MMAhmad

Member
Messages
22
Reaction score
4
Location
Surrey, UK
All

I am in the market for a new mac. I have narrowed my search down to either a 15in MBP with 16gb and I7 (Haswell) and Iris Pro Graphics or a 21.5'' Imac with 16gb, fusion and a faster I7 (haswell).

I am getting both for roughly the same price, albeit it being an excessive one!. I intend to use my purchase for photo editing and general home use. I am not a pro but a keen enthusiast. I currently use LR3 and Dxo Optics pro 8. However both are very slow on my current dual core processor.

I wanted to check whether anyone has used DXO Optics 9 and LR4/5 on these new macbooks (2013) and whether the integrated graphics card works well enough. I am going for a 16gb memory to make things better but it is a very large investment for me which I am hoping to get full use out of for the next 3 years or so.

I have very limited Adobe CS usage but sometimes use elements. Most of my work flow involves LR and DXO for editing (+15k and counting in pics).

What I wanted to check was

1) What has been the people's experience with the new MBP with iGPU for DXO8/9 and LR4/5

2) Is it better to go for an imac which is not portable but has a faster processor, larger drive, dGPU and bigger screen of course (not retina but good enough). portability is not a huge issue for me.

Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance
 
Solution
M
MMAhmad said:
All

I am in the market for a new mac. I have narrowed my search down to either a 15in MBP with 16gb and I7 (Haswell) and Iris Pro Graphics or a 21.5'' Imac with 16gb, fusion and a faster I7 (haswell).

I am getting both for roughly the same price, albeit it being an excessive one!. I intend to use my purchase for photo editing and general home use. I am not a pro but a keen enthusiast. I currently use LR3 and Dxo Optics pro 8. However both are very slow on my current dual core processor.

I wanted to check whether anyone has used DXO Optics 9 and LR4/5 on these new macbooks (2013) and whether the integrated graphics card works well enough. I am going for a 16gb memory to make things better but it is a very large investment for me...
Click to expand...
MMAhmad said:
2) Is it better to go for an imac which is not portable but has a faster processor, larger drive, dGPU and bigger screen of course (not retina but good enough). portability is not a huge issue for me.
Click to expand...
You're asking if it's better to get a computer with a faster CPU, a faster GPU, larger screen and drive over one that is less well specified in all these respects?

I think you've answered your own question.

Me: I've got a retina macbook attached to external screens and not an iMac because portability is a huge issue for me, if it wasn't I would have bought an iMac.

As to whether the GPU in the rMBP makes a big difference? I don't think there's been application specific benchmarks run yet so you're going to get "It's fast enough for me" answers from those who bought with and without discreet GPU. Is it a faster GPU? Yes. Does software make use of the GPU? Some. Will more software in the future make greater use of the GPU? Probably. Is the upgrade worth it?... only you can answer that.
 
Jen Yates said:
Jen Yates said:
2) Is it better to go for an imac which is not portable but has a faster processor, larger drive, dGPU and bigger screen of course (not retina but good enough). portability is not a huge issue for me.
Click to expand...
You're asking if it's better to get a computer with a faster CPU, a faster GPU, larger screen and drive over one that is less well specified in all these respects?

I think you've answered your own question.

Me: I've got a retina macbook attached to external screens and not an iMac because portability is a huge issue for me, if it wasn't I would have bought an iMac.

As to whether the GPU in the rMBP makes a big difference? I don't think there's been application specific benchmarks run yet so you're going to get "It's fast enough for me" answers from those who bought with and without discreet GPU. Is it a faster GPU? Yes. Does software make use of the GPU? Some. Will more software in the future make greater use of the GPU? Probably. Is the upgrade worth it?... only you can answer that.
Click to expand...
Thank Jen. The only reason why I am/was considering the rMBP is the portability and the retina display. My budget wont allow me to get an additional screen so will have to make do with what I end up getting.

The imac is very good on paper but my other usage for a imac are limited (with a MBP I can take it around with me for movies/home laptop). Guess I better get the scales out and weigh up the pro and cons of each.

Have you used DXO with Iris Pro yet? Any notes from your experience would be helpful. Thanks
 
MMAhmad said:
All

I am in the market for a new mac. I have narrowed my search down to either a 15in MBP with 16gb and I7 (Haswell) and Iris Pro Graphics or a 21.5'' Imac with 16gb, fusion and a faster I7 (haswell).

I am getting both for roughly the same price, albeit it being an excessive one!. I intend to use my purchase for photo editing and general home use. I am not a pro but a keen enthusiast. I currently use LR3 and Dxo Optics pro 8. However both are very slow on my current dual core processor.

I wanted to check whether anyone has used DXO Optics 9 and LR4/5 on these new macbooks (2013) and whether the integrated graphics card works well enough. I am going for a 16gb memory to make things better but it is a very large investment for me which I am hoping to get full use out of for the next 3 years or so.

I have very limited Adobe CS usage but sometimes use elements. Most of my work flow involves LR and DXO for editing (+15k and counting in pics).

What I wanted to check was

1) What has been the people's experience with the new MBP with iGPU for DXO8/9 and LR4/5

2) Is it better to go for an imac which is not portable but has a faster processor, larger drive, dGPU and bigger screen of course (not retina but good enough). portability is not a huge issue for me.

Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
I am afraid that I cannot answer your post directly as my rMBP is slightly older (about 4 months) and not quite as well spec-ed (2.7 GHz i7, 16 GB Ram, separate 1 GB NVIVIA card, 512 GB ssd). However the new rMBPs offer a 1 TB ssd which is very appealing.

As far as using my (slightly older) rMBP with OP 9, my experience was decent enough. Processing of images took about 8-12 seconds each, depending upon the amount of adjustments needed with Prime processing taking about 7-8 minutes per image. That compares well with my 3 year old PC laptop (which was bought highly spec-ed at the time). That machine takes about 10-14 seconds per image with Prime processing taking about 9 minutes per image.

As an aside OP 9 seems slightly faster than OP 7. Processing times with OP 9 seem to be about 10-15% faster than with OP 7 on the same PC.

I don't know if this is of any help.
 
Last edited:
Solution
MikeFromMesa said:
As far as using my (slightly older) rMBP with OP 9, my experience was decent enough. Processing of images took about 8-12 seconds each, depending upon the amount of adjustments needed with Prime processing taking about 7-8 minutes per image. That compares well with my 3 year old PC laptop (which was bought highly spec-ed at the time). That machine takes about 10-14 seconds per image with Prime processing taking about 9 minutes per image.

As an aside OP 9 seems slightly faster than OP 7. Processing times with OP 9 seem to be about 10-15% faster than with OP 7 on the same PC.

I don't know if this is of any help.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's very helpful actually, although your's is slightly older, I am getting a lower spec'd one with no dedicated graphics and less powerful 2.0 GHZ processor.

I think an iMac in my case may be more appropriate. I do most of my raw conversions currently on my DXO 8 (it takes about 2-3 minutes for a standard conversion). With LR running in the background, I think it may be worth going for a more powerful processor.
 
NancyP said:
Say, Nik Dfine, NR in Adobe products, or other? 10 minutes to crunch an image strikes me as excessive, and I have a mere 2-core i7 8G RAM machine.
Click to expand...
In the end it all depends upon the viewpoint of the user.

Having said that, I have found the Prime noise reduction functionality in OP 9 to be the best I have ever seen in any software. I have used Topaz DeNoise and Nik Dfine. They were better (in my view) than Photoshop, but not as good as what I had believed to be the best - Noise Ninja 4 in Photo Ninja. Prime noise reduction leaves them all in the dust. But it is only necessary for high ISO images.

I own a Canon 5D3 and I don't normally use a flash at all. I own one, but rarely find the need to actually take it out and use it. So I end up with a lot of high ISO images (I consider anything at or above about ISO 12000 as high) and Prime has done a wonderful job for me on images like that. I have shots, taken at ISOs of 25,600 and 51,200 that Prime has cleared up remarkably well. No one will mistake them for shots taken at ISO 100, but I think Prime does a wonderful job. I was impressed enough to buy OP 9 because of it and I had left Dxo software at version 7 for Lightroom and CaptureOne Express. Prime drew me back.

YMMV.
 
MikeFromMesa said:
NancyP said:
Say, Nik Dfine, NR in Adobe products, or other? 10 minutes to crunch an image strikes me as excessive, and I have a mere 2-core i7 8G RAM machine.
Click to expand...
In the end it all depends upon the viewpoint of the user.

Having said that, I have found the Prime noise reduction functionality in OP 9 to be the best I have ever seen in any software. I have used Topaz DeNoise and Nik Dfine. They were better (in my view) than Photoshop, but not as good as what I had believed to be the best - Noise Ninja 4 in Photo Ninja. Prime noise reduction leaves them all in the dust. But it is only necessary for high ISO images.

I own a Canon 5D3 and I don't normally use a flash at all. I own one, but rarely find the need to actually take it out and use it. So I end up with a lot of high ISO images (I consider anything at or above about ISO 12000 as high) and Prime has done a wonderful job for me on images like that. I have shots, taken at ISOs of 25,600 and 51,200 that Prime has cleared up remarkably well. No one will mistake them for shots taken at ISO 100, but I think Prime does a wonderful job. I was impressed enough to buy OP 9 because of it and I had left Dxo software at version 7 for Lightroom and CaptureOne Express. Prime drew me back.

YMMV.
Click to expand...
Would love to see a sample if you have any on show. Ta
 
Essentially I'm asking wether one could use DxO 9 as an external editor from Aperture, thus feeding a tiff to it.
 
MMAhmad said:
I think an iMac in my case may be more appropriate. I do most of my raw conversions currently on my DXO 8 (it takes about 2-3 minutes for a standard conversion). With LR running in the background, I think it may be worth going for a more powerful processor.
Click to expand...
My current (3 year old) PC replaced an even older PC and, on that machine, OP 6 took 2.5 minutes per image to process. That meant that I ended up processing each folder over night. That was so much trouble that I bought the old PC to speed up processing. After 150 seconds/image 15 seconds seemed fast!
 
noirdesir said:
Essentially I'm asking wether one could use DxO 9 as an external editor from Aperture, thus feeding a tiff to it.
Click to expand...
Interesting question. I don't see any reason why this would not work although I have not tested Prime NR on a tiff (as compared to a raw image).
 
MMAhmad said:
Would love to see a sample if you have any on show. Ta
Click to expand...
Here are two images. As I remember they are both 1:1 crops. They both come from the same original image which was shot at ISO 102,400. The image is of a carnival mask which I have on the wall in my house. The first was processed with Prime and the second with High. Please note that if you open the image the EXIF data will probably say ISO 65,535 but they are, in fact, 102,400.

I assume that the dpreview gallery does not yet handle ISO values that high properly. 65535 is the largest positive number you can get in 16 bits so that is probably why it is showing that number.


Photo processed with Dxo Prime - ISO 102,400


Photo processed with Dxo High - ISO 102,400

I also processed this with Noise Ninja 4 which is part of Photo Ninja, but even the High processing of OP 9 is better than that is.

As an aside, the Prime processing, which is excellent in images like this, can be too much when the image is too dark. I have some shots which I took on a tour of a cave which, when processed in Prime, were not very good. You have to pick and choose which photos to use Prime processing on.

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
MikeFromMesa said:
noirdesir said:
Essentially I'm asking wether one could use DxO 9 as an external editor from Aperture, thus feeding a tiff to it.
Click to expand...
Interesting question. I don't see any reason why this would not work although I have not tested Prime NR on a tiff (as compared to a raw image).
Click to expand...
I looked around a bit myself and quoting from DPreviews article on the introduction of PRIME it says:

Thanks to PRIME (Probabilistic Raw IMage Enhancement) denoising technology, which analyzes the structure of RAW images in depth in order to differentiate between noise and fine details, DxO Optics Pro 9 offers a gain in image quality of up to one full stop over the best noise reduction algorithms currently on the market.

And this makes sense, if you want to be able to differentiate between actual detail and noise, you would want to get as close as possible to the original data, not something that already has been chewed over by the raw conversion (that doesn't mean it won't work with tiffs but that it will work better with raws). And noise reduction is inherent in any raw conversion, a de-mosaic algorithm has to be tuned to extract as much detail as possible while not accentuating noise. Whether that is part of the algorithm or is just added in series (much like sharpening is) is another question but Aperture has both noise reduction and sharpening as part of its RAW fine tuning parameters.
 
noirdesir said:
I looked around a bit myself and quoting from DPreviews article on the introduction of PRIME it says:

Thanks to PRIME (Probabilistic Raw IMage Enhancement) denoising technology, which analyzes the structure of RAW images in depth in order to differentiate between noise and fine details, DxO Optics Pro 9 offers a gain in image quality of up to one full stop over the best noise reduction algorithms currently on the market.
Click to expand...
The article appears to be a press release for Dxo but, it seems to me, the glossy language and claims are pretty much merited in this case. The results really can be spectacular. Not always, but most cases I have tried.

In some cases the Prime processing is just awful but that is to be expected. Algorithms sometimes are limited to specific ranges of data and it has to be hard to extract data from noise in high ISO images.
 
I obvously havent used prime, but my workflow involves converting raws within DXO before bringing into LR/Aperture for further edits (very limited if any- I find DXO to be the best in most of my editing). I normally bring them into either Jpegs or as DNGs to keep the maximum amount of data possible in an image. Has worked fine for me, however I have a basic kit so may be different to bigger, more complex raw files.
 
MikeFromMesa said:
MMAhmad said:
Would love to see a sample if you have any on show. Ta
Click to expand...
Here are two images. As I remember they are both 1:1 crops. They both come from the same original image which was shot at ISO 102,400. The image is of a carnival mask which I have on the wall in my house. The first was processed with Prime and the second with High. Please note that if you open the image the EXIF data will probably say ISO 65,535 but they are, in fact, 102,400.
Click to expand...
Pretty good shots. You can really tell the different with prime. Just need to wait for my new mac now before getting the latest version.
 
OK. I agree, PRIME did a better job than garden variety NR of DXO OP. This seems like a specialist tool. I will hold off on purchasing and learning DXO OP 9 for a bit. I haven't yet gotten in the habit of shooting at above 6400, and I am not fully conversant with the best use of standard NR offered with LR4 and with NIK. It takes some time to learn the software and its strengths and weaknesses in specific types of photos.
 
Yes, it requires standard Bayer CFA array RAWs. I looked into this, because the Sigma Foveon files can get seriously noisy (chrominance) at ISO 800 and above, though it is a perfectly fine B&W camera at 800 and above.

This algorithm may have something in common with my astrophotography program's industrial strength algorithm for the faint galaxies which may be difficult to see with the standard algorithm.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top