Thank you very much Reily.
Indeed a very good result! Sharpness could be improved using Topaz Photo AI, as a plug-in to your main editor or on the TIF/JPG result. Moving subjects always leave some blurriness (I don't mean the left wing here) due to motion and/or AF minimal off.Thanks everyone for participating. A pretty fair standard achieved. Capture
One is MIA so far.
My best effort on this started with a basic DXO PL6 with lens correction using Prime XD with all the DXO stuff turned off. No Lens Sharpening, no Unsharp Mask, no Smart Lighting, no Clearview, etc., etc.
Export to Lightroom.
Open in Photoshop. Extend left side with Content Aware Fill to relieve the constriction caused by my not being able to get the bird centered at the shoot. Cheating? You bet! Nothing sacred about stretching a bit of blurry background in my world :^) The old guys in this forum would have done that straightaway. 16X9 aspect because that's by far my preference for computer viewing.
DXO/LR/PS
Could have softened the background with LR's new Blur feature, but used reverse Clarity instead.
DXO Prime XD raw conversion was selected over LR Enhance/Denoise AI by a purple hair. Noise free and nearly artifact free when sharpened in Lightroom.
So you have to import. I don't see the issue. It's not stealing the files. Import and do something else for a few minutes. You have to wait for DXO export files. 23 seconds for DeepPrime per file. 45 for DeepPrime XD per file. LrC export is instant.
How do you it doesn't need to read metadata? I don't exactly know how the catalogue works but it needs information about the files for key wording, searches etc. I can open the library and open any file and metadata is there instantly for me to view. No waiting. But I will look that up to verify.
I know you really dislike it. It's obviously the wrong product for you. That's OK because I have a major dislike of one of the competitors. You know what I do about that? They never see a dime of my money, even if they are better at something.
You said this. Someone who is not familiar with LrC could interpret this as it whisks files off to some unknown location without user intervention. I've read that more than once over the years including it creates duplicate files.
Ahhh. Good point but I see members here are using up to 3 developers for this friendly challenge. Anyone using DXO won't be using Adobe Denoise AI. Can't anyway because it won't open a DNG - yet.I don't think C1 can compete with Adobe/DxO in this case , despite their new AI masking. Their Noise Reduction is on par with the old NR in LR ... just horrible
Well, you can't stop it from happening. It just happens silently. The main difference is that you can delete PhotoLab's database whenever you like if it's not serving a purpose for you, and everything else will function normally. But the database will start rebuilding automatically as soon as you start working on files again.
Much the same for me.
Why do you do that? Once a folder has been opened, all its files remain visible in the thumbnail strip unless you've hidden it. Even in that case, the left and right arrow keys will move through the file sequence. Or you can set up the library view to show only the thumbnails and double-click any file from there to have it open in the customization view.
You can translate it to as a developers fault.....He likes it differently then intended. But that is more a design fault then a technical fault. It can still be a nuisance but technically working correctly.
Most people use more then one application, to overcome weaknesses in the other program. No program is perfect.
The main job of the import process is to create a new database record for each photo that includes all the metadata created by the camera, the exact location (path) to where that photo is stored on your system, and any additional metadata you add along the way (like copyright and contact information).
Thanks... I tried the new (Beta) background blur tool, as I found the branches a bit nervous. It actually worked better on this photo than any of mine.
ON1 seems to be popular. AceeDcee or Affinity? Don't know much about them. Affinity is like PS thus a pixel editor. Has high praise around here.
That's an amazingly sharp result in most areas of the bird, but you've also got halos on many edges, like these:
I'm gonna wait for reviews on the AI masking before switching, DXO's masking is perfect for my needs. So far the only one I've seen that is better is LR.ACDSee and C1 just got AI masking. Both See - Affinity and C1 need DxO Pure RAW
I think the halos are following the edges of the mask. Turning back the strength of the sharpening in Topaz is most likely the only way to reduce the halos. At the end it is finding the balance between halos and sharpness.That's an amazingly sharp result in most areas of the bird, but you've also got halos on many edges, like these:
What change in the process would avoid that, at the expense of some loss of sharpness?
And that was what I meant by saying it's a trade off. What media type are you presenting on and who will your audience be.I think the halos are following the edges of the mask. Turning back the strength of the sharpening in Topaz is most likely the only way to reduce the halos. At the end it is finding the balance between halos and sharpness.That's an amazingly sharp result in most areas of the bird, but you've also got halos on many edges, like these:
What change in the process would avoid that, at the expense of some loss of sharpness?
I hide the thumbnail strip, both to gain screen space for the preview of what I'm working on, and because I find the thumbnails distracting. I'm never in the library view except with PhotoLab first launches, when I immediately click out of it. If I could disable that, I would; it just slows down startup a hair. That's just me--there certainly are ways to use DxO that others find make more sense for their needs and preferences.
It's an extra step on the front end, needing import then selection from the DAM then switching to the Develop module. With DxO, in Windows Explorer and the file I want to edit, I right-click -> Edit in PhotoLab. But with LR / LrC, after import, it's in the catalog, ever-increasing clutter unless you actively delete it. I much prefer the DxO approach of creating a sidecar right new to the raw file it edits.
Yes and no. LR / LrC doesn't whisk your files off--but if you or I move the files for whatever reason, then LR / LrC won't know where to find them unless you manually redirect it. The catalog makes this more cumersome then the workflow I use in DxO.
