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DXO Photolab vs Capture one

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RichWilliams

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Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
I realise that I need to get on and try it for myself and that’s exactly what I’ll do for a month. But just wanted to put the feelers out and see people’s thoughts.
Many thanks.
 
I tried C1 but went back to DXO. Probably because I am used to DXO after years of using it and did not want to invest the time learning C1.
 
RichWilliams said:
Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
Click to expand...
C1 in my opinion is a one trick pony - for portrait photographers. It can't quite shake the heritage of being a Phase One product. You are better off to go back to Lightroom, that has improved so much in the last few years that it wipes the floor with the competition (except for the noise reduction it seems, not that I ever had any problems with that - but even that may be remedied sooner than later because some people are already beta testing their own AI driven noise reduction)...
 
charlyw64 said:
RichWilliams said:
Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
Click to expand...
C1 in my opinion is a one trick pony - for portrait photographers. It can't quite shake the heritage of being a Phase One product. You are better off to go back to Lightroom, that has improved so much in the last few years that it wipes the floor with the competition (except for the noise reduction it seems, not that I ever had any problems with that - but even that may be remedied sooner than later because some people are already beta testing their own AI driven noise reduction)...
Click to expand...
It also has worse lens distortion correction than DxO, and often crops the corrected raw image unnecessarily.
 
Lan said:
EG said:
I moved to Capture One and never regretted it. Takes a little while to learn but I found it easier and more intuitive than DXO...

YMMV :-)
Click to expand...
Absolutely, I found it very much the opposite. I find it easy to get the results I want from DxO, but C1 never really seemed intuitive to me!
Click to expand...
For me, C1 has more features and I believe it's a little more intuitive. But, on the other hand, DXO gives me a better result. I have made some tests before, comparing side by side the images I've gotten with both, and for me DXO gives a more pleasing raw conversion.
 
aanogueira said:
Lan said:
EG said:
I moved to Capture One and never regretted it. Takes a little while to learn but I found it easier and more intuitive than DXO...

YMMV :-)
Click to expand...
Absolutely, I found it very much the opposite. I find it easy to get the results I want from DxO, but C1 never really seemed intuitive to me!
Click to expand...
For me, C1 has more features and I believe it's a little more intuitive. But, on the other hand, DXO gives me a better result. I have made some tests before, comparing side by side the images I've gotten with both, and for me DXO gives a more pleasing raw conversion.
Click to expand...
To be honest I think intuitiveness is partly down to what you've used before, and partly just down to the way your brain is wired. What is instantly understandable to one person may be baffling to another, a vice versa. That's why every UI is different, there isn't one single approach that suits everyone best.
 
RichWilliams said:
Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
I realise that I need to get on and try it for myself and that’s exactly what I’ll do for a month. But just wanted to put the feelers out and see people’s thoughts.
Many thanks.
Click to expand...
C1 is in some ways excellent, and in some ways the best of the options. It also has some pro functionality that if you are dealing with clients makes it the clear best choice (capture one live)

It is also very expensive, run by investment people (and sometimes that shows), poorly supported, slowly developed and buggy as hell. Your setup and use will determine how much for you in terms of bugs.

It has great tutorial videos run by Dave Grover that are really informative.

A lot of people have just moved away from them because of their badly handled recent charging structure changes, and we don't still know honestly what that will look like going forward. Sometimes you'll get a bug that they will try and fix for a bit, then just start ignoring you about, except when they email to say there's a new version, try paying for that and see if it fixes it'

I just went back to LR, and it is a mixed bag - LR has much better masking and much better ipad versions and cloud integration. (I appreciate LR isn't your other option)

Just be aware at full price, UK pricing at least, the subscription is about £25 a month, and if you want the ipad app as well it's another £4.50, and if you do want the live client service, which is excellent, it's another fee on top again. Very expensive compared to the other options, and easier to justify if it was less likely to crash or you absolutely need the pro stuff, or it was supported well.

Good product, mostly - greedy company.
 
Digital Nigel said:
charlyw64 said:
RichWilliams said:
Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
Click to expand...
C1 in my opinion is a one trick pony - for portrait photographers. It can't quite shake the heritage of being a Phase One product. You are better off to go back to Lightroom, that has improved so much in the last few years that it wipes the floor with the competition (except for the noise reduction it seems, not that I ever had any problems with that - but even that may be remedied sooner than later because some people are already beta testing their own AI driven noise reduction)...
Click to expand...
It also has worse lens distortion correction than DxO, and often crops the corrected raw image unnecessarily.
Click to expand...
I observed the same with several of my lenses. Absolutely unnecessary strong crop for perfectly fine lenses, that are tack sharp in the extreme corners.
In terms of lens profiles DXO is worlds ahead, as long the lens is supported.

I always import with unconstrained. But it's a pain to correct manually.

Auto level and a bit of clarity/structure give my images a one click pop, that I cannot easily replicate with PL5.

I wish DXO would introduce (auto) levels, some preset custom curves and better sliders. The capture ones sliders are way better to use on a notebook.
And speed edit, it's really great on a notebook screen.

I like the ergonomics of Capture One a bit better, but DXO is for a third of the price for a perpetual license a very strong competitor.
 
Last edited:
Thank you all for your valuable input. I think based on the above and some reading around elsewhere I’m going to leave off downloading the trial and stick with what I have. I may try Lightroom again when they eventually pull their finger out and sort the de-noising out. Won’t hold my breath on that though despite hearing there is beta testing going on.
I realise I can send my pics from PL6 to Lightroom but those dng files are huge 😂
 
RichWilliams said:
Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
I realise that I need to get on and try it for myself and that’s exactly what I’ll do for a month. But just wanted to put the feelers out and see people’s thoughts.
Many thanks.
Click to expand...
I have both Capture One Pro (the old version 12) and DxO PL6. I fully agree with you that the tone sliders in PL6 are much less precise than the ones in C1. Moreover, the Clarity and Structure sliders are also very precise in C1. Btw, To have similar sliders in PL6 you have to buy DxO Filmpack as well.

So I use the best from both worlds: Optical corrections and noise reduction (and perspective corrections, if needed) in PL6 and export as DNG. Then use the DNG as input for C1 to do the final editing.

Hope this helps
 
Ab S said:
RichWilliams said:
Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
I realise that I need to get on and try it for myself and that’s exactly what I’ll do for a month. But just wanted to put the feelers out and see people’s thoughts.
Many thanks.
Click to expand...
I have both Capture One Pro (the old version 12) and DxO PL6. I fully agree with you that the tone sliders in PL6 are much less precise than the ones in C1. Moreover, the Clarity and Structure sliders are also very precise in C1. Btw, To have similar sliders in PL6 you have to buy DxO Filmpack as well.

So I use the best from both worlds: Optical corrections and noise reduction (and perspective corrections, if needed) in PL6 and export as DNG. Then use the DNG as input for C1 to do the final editing.

Hope this helps
Click to expand...
 
RichWilliams said:
Hi

I am going to trial capture one this weekend. I’m currently using PL6. Was using PL5. And prior to that was using Lightroom for many years.
I love PL6 especially the Prime denoising. But I still struggle with tone settings particularly on wildlife. When I say struggle, I can get the result I want most of the time, but it seems to take me ages to get there.
I’m just curious if anyone has made the jump to C1 and stayed there or gone back? What were your experiences jumping ship so to speak?
I realise that I need to get on and try it for myself and that’s exactly what I’ll do for a month. But just wanted to put the feelers out and see people’s thoughts.
Many thanks.
Click to expand...
I use C1 and understand what you mean but with V6 DXO has improved greatly for me.

Perhaps if you put a raw file on Dropbox and described how you approach editing it in DXO, some knowledgeable person like Nigel could suggest workflow improvements?

Ian
 
I've used DxO for many years, and I think it works great. That said, DxO, Lightroom and Capture One are all very good programs that will give good results. I'm of the mind that it's best to learn one program really well and become proficient with it. So, with that mindset, I doubt I ever change.

However, each program does have its strengths, and that can determine what you choose. DxO has really good camera/lens correction modules and noise reduction. But it doesn't do things LR and Capture One do with masks, layers, etc. DxO instead has its control points. So, there can be valid reasons for choosing one program or another. LR has a popular image catalog feature too, and that is appealing to a lot of people. I think a fair amount of LR users also have DxO PureRaw to get the best of both worlds.

I'm a Fuji guy, and so I like using DxO Photolab 6 Elite along with FilmPack6 elite and I make use the of the Filmpack Fuji film sims. That combined with the lens corrections and noise reduction makes me a happy camper.

I think your approach of trying the free trials is a good way to go.

Best of luck.
 
I use Capture one and dxo interchangeable depending on what side of the bed i get out of. Now nobody should buy capture one these days as its just a rip off imo but it has to be said that capture one tonal controls are just nicer to use than dxo. The shadows, highlights, brightness, contrast, midtones, curves all just more consistent and balanced and quicker to get where you want in C1 as is color control.

Dxo lens corrections are overhyped imo and just plain annoying if you get a lens thats not supported. Not one time have i ever looked at a dxo processed image and said, wow check out those lens corrections.. lol

capture one can still go to hell though as they still dont support my GRIIIx ;)

no need for any dxo/capture one fans to respond to this, its just MY OPINION! and no im not an adobe user, then can do one as well as i dont do subscription!
 
Last edited:
maltmoose said:
I use Capture one and dxo interchangeable depending on what side of the bed i get out of. Now nobody should buy capture one these days as its just a rip off imo but it has to be said that capture one tonal controls are just nicer to use than dxo. The shadows, highlights, brightness, contrast, midtones, curves all just more consistent and balanced and quicker to get where you want in C1 as is color control.

Dxo lens corrections are overhyped imo and just plain annoying if you get a lens thats not supported. Not one time have i ever looked at a dxo processed image and said, wow check out those lens corrections.. lol

capture one can still go to hell though as they still dont support my GRIIIx ;)

no need for any dxo/capture one fans to respond to this, its just MY OPINION! and no im not an adobe user, then can do one as well as i dont do subscription!
Click to expand...
Yes, I have just looked deeper at the C1 cost. It is a bit silly. I am amazed so may people pay that amount.

DXO PL6 supports my lenses so no issue there.

I just downloaded a 7 day trial of Lightroom. Not changed much. I had the masking last time I used it. But I have found the same as you experience with C1. The tone controls in LR are massively easier to use. I can get brilliant tone in no time at all. PL6 seems such a pain in comparison.
 
I'm just finishing a trial of Photolab and while I'll agree that it doesn't do a bad job overall, I've found myself using it primarily for images that I know won't need a lot of help. After a while, everything else went straight into Capture One.

Capture One's controls; sliders are much easier to use and allow far more accuracy.

I think also, that the finished results frtom Capture One are more pleasing.

Maltmoose says above that he reckons Photolab's lens corrections are overhyped and I also wondered whether they really are any better than the opppositions' versions.

it's all well and good raving about how DxO produce their own lens corrections and while that might make them different, it doesn't necessarily make them the best.

I can't say that I preferred one option to another.

Likewise noise removal. I don't subscribe to this idea that seems to have taken hold with some people, that every image needs it and it's been my experience that the images that I used to try it out; shots taken in the disused tube tunnels in the bowels of Charing Cross Station, so plenty of noise, looked any better for having been de-noised in Photolab than the same shots having been through Topaz DeNoise AI (and latterly, Photo AI).

In all, I quite liked Photolab, when I was just after a quick fix, it did a really good job and I might even buy it for that purpose.

For all else, I'll carry on using Capture One.

"It's good to be . . . . . . . . . Me!"
 
Have alot of money in camera bodies, lenses , printers , paper, and ink. when it comes to developing the raw and converting it im going to buy the cheapest? Or complain about how much it is , I would love to use DPP becuse in my opinion it gives the best result with Canon files, But it takes way to long to export , I have Dxo , and capture 1 . When I do side by side I always see more detail in Capture 1,so I use Capture 1 to get the best out of all my equipment , also use Qimage which in my opinion prints the best. Just use whatever gives you the best results but dont call people names because you dont like the product or its to expensive.
 
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