Is PhotoLab 9 acceptable on Apple M1?

CAcreeks · Sep 13, 2025

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

Apple ProRaw support is less useful. I recall that PRIME noise reduction isn't supported for ProRaw, but might be misremembering.

Ability to import HEIC is interesting, but without ability to export, pointless. It would be better to use Apple Photos or other software that fully supports HEIC.

Digital Nigel · Sep 13, 2025

CAcreeks said:
For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Actually, I think they’re reporting that you don’t actually need a faster GPU for PL9 than PL8.

CAcreeks said:
AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

Apple ProRaw support is less useful. I recall that PRIME noise reduction isn't supported for ProRaw, but might be misremembering.

PRIME NR isn’t supported for any type of file in PL9, as it’s been retired (it dates back to 2013). DeepPRIME is only supported on raw files, which ProRaw files are not.

CAcreeks said:
Ability to import HEIC is interesting, but without ability to export, pointless. It would be better to use Apple Photos or other software that fully supports HEIC.

tbcass · Sep 14, 2025

CAcreeks said:
For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

CAcreeks · Sep 14, 2025

tbcass said:
CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

Thanks, Tom and Nigel. I will set aside funds for a PhotoLab update, if offered at a discount in November. It was $89.99 last year.

As for Deep PRIME not supported for Apple ProRaw [sic] I have never seen a ProRaw edit that improved upon out-of-iPhone HEIC, anyway.

If you disable "Live" motion stills on an iPhone, it sometimes produces mild HDR that is visible with HEIC in Apple Photos, but not so much elsewhere. Live motion HEIC shows up on Facebook, somehow, but I don't know how it's implemented.

Pixel8888 · Sep 15, 2025

CAcreeks said:
For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

Apple ProRaw support is less useful. I recall that PRIME noise reduction isn't supported for ProRaw, but might be misremembering.

Ability to import HEIC is interesting, but without ability to export, pointless. It would be better to use Apple Photos or other software that fully supports HEIC.

Best is to to test the trial.

Allan Brown · Sep 15, 2025

tbcass said:
CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

This is TOTAL RUBBISH!

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

People are being told by DXO to install older drivers for NVidia cards but no mention for AMD cards.

People are installing newer GPUs without success - there still problems.

However, I and a couple of others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7.

Have a look here

DxO PhotoLab

Welcome to the DxO PhotoLab forum!<br> In this section, share your feedback, ideas, questions, and photos processed using DxO PhotoLab.

forum.dxo.com

and my post here

PL9 on older computers

@Allan The images aren’t actually much smaller! It might be the drivers but I think it is the fact that you are using GTX cards with their drivers and I am using RTX cards with their drivers. I re-fitted the 2060(6GB) and it was a disaster! With the drivers I had been using with the 5060Ti, PL9...

forum.dxo.com

Allan

Allan Brown · Sep 15, 2025

CAcreeks said:
For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

Apple ProRaw support is less useful. I recall that PRIME noise reduction isn't supported for ProRaw, but might be misremembering.

Ability to import HEIC is interesting, but without ability to export, pointless. It would be better to use Apple Photos or other software that fully supports HEIC.

There are similar problems on the MacOS side.

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

People are being told by DXO to install older drivers for NVidia cards but no mention for AMD cards.

People are installing newer GPUs without success - there still problems.

However, I and a couple of others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two older computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7.

Have a look here

https://forum.dxo.com/c/dxo-photolab/14

and my post here

https://forum.dxo.com/t/pl9-on-older-computers/51694/13

and here

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4815874?page=2

Allan

tbcass · Sep 15, 2025

CAcreeks said:
tbcass said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Tom and Nigel. I will set aside funds for a PhotoLab update, if offered at a discount in November. It was $89.99 last year.

As for Deep PRIME not supported for Apple ProRaw [sic] I have never seen a ProRaw edit that improved upon out-of-iPhone HEIC, anyway.

If you disable "Live" motion stills on an iPhone, it sometimes produces mild HDR that is visible with HEIC in Apple Photos, but not so much elsewhere. Live motion HEIC shows up on Facebook, somehow, but I don't know how it's implemented.

Is the ability to process HEIC files all you are interested in? I personally see no sense in processing Smartphone files as the processing in the phone is about as good as you can get.

tbcass · Sep 15, 2025

Allan Brown said:
tbcass said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

Click to expand...

This is TOTAL RUBBISH!

I am talking about here on DPR.

Allan Brown said:
There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

The problems with the Drivers is something else altogether. We are talking about how fast the files are processed with the M1 apple processor. The problems you site are totally different. It's one of the reasons I don't install new software until the bugs are worked out.

CAcreeks · Sep 15, 2025

tbcass said:
CAcreeks said:

As for Deep PRIME not supported for Apple ProRaw [sic] I have never seen a ProRaw edit that improved upon out-of-iPhone HEIC, anyway.

If you disable "Live" motion stills on an iPhone, it sometimes produces mild HDR that is visible with HEIC in Apple Photos, but not so much elsewhere. Live motion HEIC shows up on Facebook, somehow, but I don't know how it's implemented.

Click to expand...

Is the ability to process HEIC files all you are interested in? I personally see no sense in processing Smartphone files as the processing in the phone is about as good as you can get.

I'm more interested in HDR than in HEIC per se.

But my iPhone SE can produce pretty good semi-HDR results with Live mode disabled. There are some applications in the Apple store that claim to edit HDR, but I've never seen any documentation about, nor Youtube videos.

Allan Brown · Sep 15, 2025

tbcass said:
Allan Brown said:

tbcass said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

Click to expand...

This is TOTAL RUBBISH!

Click to expand...

I am talking about here on DPR.

Then you are leaving out a very important data set.

tbcass said:
tbcass said:

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

Click to expand...

The problems with the Drivers is something else altogether. We are talking about how fast the files are processed with the M1 apple processor. The problems you site are totally different. It's one of the reasons I don't install new software until the bugs are worked out.

It is being discussed by others who have Apple hardware and MacOS, so, How is it Different?

Toermalijn · Sep 15, 2025

Allan Brown said:
CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

Apple ProRaw support is less useful. I recall that PRIME noise reduction isn't supported for ProRaw, but might be misremembering.

Ability to import HEIC is interesting, but without ability to export, pointless. It would be better to use Apple Photos or other software that fully supports HEIC.

Click to expand...

There are similar problems on the MacOS side.

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

People are being told by DXO to install older drivers for NVidia cards but no mention for AMD cards.

People are installing newer GPUs without success - there still problems.

However, I and a couple of others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two older computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7.

Have a look here

https://forum.dxo.com/c/dxo-photolab/14

and my post here

https://forum.dxo.com/t/pl9-on-older-computers/51694/13

and here

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4815874?page=2

Allan

Older cards can't handle the latest AI enhancements that new GPU-cards have. The latest cards have AI on-die (on the chip) enhancements, wich will result in higher speeds for AI.

If the software uses online AI, then your GPU is less important.

Allan Brown · Sep 15, 2025

Toermalijn said:
Allan Brown said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

Apple ProRaw support is less useful. I recall that PRIME noise reduction isn't supported for ProRaw, but might be misremembering.

Ability to import HEIC is interesting, but without ability to export, pointless. It would be better to use Apple Photos or other software that fully supports HEIC.

Click to expand...

There are similar problems on the MacOS side.

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

People are being told by DXO to install older drivers for NVidia cards but no mention for AMD cards.

People are installing newer GPUs without success - there still problems.

However, I and a couple of others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two older computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7.

Have a look here

https://forum.dxo.com/c/dxo-photolab/14

and my post here

https://forum.dxo.com/t/pl9-on-older-computers/51694/13

and here

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4815874?page=2

Allan

Click to expand...

Older cards can't handle the latest AI enhancements that new GPU-cards have. The latest cards have AI on-die (on the chip) enhancements, wich will result in higher speeds for AI.

But, that is one of the points - the older cards with older drivers ARE handling PL9 better than the newer cards with the latest drivers. DXO, themselves, say to roll back the drivers.

The reason for this is still unresolved.

Toermalijn said:
If the software uses online AI, then your GPU is less important.

It is Not online AI, it is local to your computer.

Allan

tbcass · Sep 15, 2025

Allan Brown said:
tbcass said:

Allan Brown said:

tbcass said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

Click to expand...

This is TOTAL RUBBISH!

Click to expand...

I am talking about here on DPR.

Click to expand...

Then you are leaving out a very important data set.

Allan Brown said:

Allan Brown said:

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

Click to expand...

The problems with the Drivers is something else altogether. We are talking about how fast the files are processed with the M1 apple processor. The problems you site are totally different. It's one of the reasons I don't install new software until the bugs are worked out.

Click to expand...

It is being discussed by others who have Apple hardware and MacOS, so, How is it Different?

I am responding to this comment by the OP.

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

You have changed the subject.

Allan Brown · Sep 15, 2025

tbcass said:
Allan Brown said:

tbcass said:

Allan Brown said:

tbcass said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

Click to expand...

This is TOTAL RUBBISH!

Click to expand...

I am talking about here on DPR.

Click to expand...

Then you are leaving out a very important data set.

tbcass said:

tbcass said:

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

Click to expand...

The problems with the Drivers is something else altogether. We are talking about how fast the files are processed with the M1 apple processor. The problems you site are totally different. It's one of the reasons I don't install new software until the bugs are worked out.

Click to expand...

It is being discussed by others who have Apple hardware and MacOS, so, How is it Different?

Click to expand...

I am responding to this comment by the OP.

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

You have changed the subject.

I said...

"There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

People are being told by DXO to install older drivers for NVidia cards but no mention for AMD cards.

People are installing newer GPUs without success - there still problems.

However, I and a couple of others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7."

Please tell us HOW this is changing the subject?

I mention GPU four times and the links I provided address both Apple and Windows computers.

Roger Stone · Sep 15, 2025

I've used DXO for over 10 years. It's a great application, but they have a history of releasing versions on a strict time-line, often before they are ready for prime time. I generally purchase every other upgrade, but only during their Black Friday sale. Right now, they are reportedly having issues with NVIDIA drivers, which is unfortunate, as NVIDIA cards are the preferred cards for speeding-up their noise reduction modules. In fact, they are almost required, if you want to process more than a few photos.

I plan to wait until they resolve this issue, before I purchase an upgrade (I currently have Photolab 8, which is great). I'd like the AI features of release 9, but if the NVIDIA issue is unresolved, I'll wait until next year.

One of my motivations to purchase the new release, in advance of my normal pattern, is to once again get Fujifilm film emulations, which they removed in version 8.5, due to copyright issues, a few months ago. If they do not have their own versions of these, with version 9, I may wait until next year, as I continue to use the version of release 8 that did not remove them, and I've always liked Fuji's film color science (but shoot Canon).

Allan Brown · Sep 15, 2025

Roger Stone said:
I've used DXO for over 10 years. It's a great application, but they have a history of releasing versions on a strict time-line, often before they are ready for prime time. I generally purchase every other upgrade, but only during their Black Friday sale. Right now, they are reportedly having issues with NVIDIA drivers, which is unfortunate, as NVIDIA cards are the preferred cards for speeding-up their noise reduction modules. In fact, they are almost required, if you want to process more than a few photos.

I plan to wait until they resolve this issue, before I purchase an upgrade (I currently have Photolab 8, which is great). I'd like the AI features of release 9, but if the NVIDIA issue is unresolved, I'll wait until next year.

One of my motivations to purchase the new release, in advance of my normal pattern, is to once again get Fujifilm film emulations, which they removed in version 8.5, due to copyright issues, a few months ago. If they do not have their own versions of these, with version 9, I may wait until next year, as I continue to use the version of release 8 that did not remove them, and I've always liked Fuji's film color science (but shoot Canon)

As I said above, I and a few others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two older computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7.

Right now I am processing 43 images, some with extensive masking, on my older computer without any issues. The exports are averaging 13 seconds. Here are the specs:

28gb i5-8400 CPU GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6GB, Driver 560.94

Take a look at the links I provided in my post above.

I skipped PL8 and stayed with PL7.5 because of the 37 day rule. The AI masks are very interesting.

Allan

Toermalijn · Sep 15, 2025

Allan Brown said:
Toermalijn said:

Allan Brown said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

Apple ProRaw support is less useful. I recall that PRIME noise reduction isn't supported for ProRaw, but might be misremembering.

Ability to import HEIC is interesting, but without ability to export, pointless. It would be better to use Apple Photos or other software that fully supports HEIC.

Click to expand...

There are similar problems on the MacOS side.

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

People are being told by DXO to install older drivers for NVidia cards but no mention for AMD cards.

People are installing newer GPUs without success - there still problems.

However, I and a couple of others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two older computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7.

Have a look here

https://forum.dxo.com/c/dxo-photolab/14

and my post here

https://forum.dxo.com/t/pl9-on-older-computers/51694/13

and here

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4815874?page=2

Allan

Click to expand...

Older cards can't handle the latest AI enhancements that new GPU-cards have. The latest cards have AI on-die (on the chip) enhancements, wich will result in higher speeds for AI.

Click to expand...

But, that is one of the points - the older cards with older drivers ARE handling PL9 better than the newer cards with the latest drivers. DXO, themselves, say to roll back the drivers.

The reason for this is still unresolved.

Allan Brown said:

If the software uses online AI, then your GPU is less important.

Click to expand...

It is Not online AI, it is local to your computer.

Allan

Than your GPU matters most.

tbcass · Sep 16, 2025

Allan Brown said:
tbcass said:

Allan Brown said:

tbcass said:

Allan Brown said:

tbcass said:

CAcreeks said:

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

Click to expand...

Nobody who is using PL9 has reported any such problem. What you see are people who haven't purchased or upgraded to PL9 asking if they need a faster GPU. The ones who are actually using PL9 are reporting no problems.

Click to expand...

This is TOTAL RUBBISH!

Click to expand...

I am talking about here on DPR.

Click to expand...

Then you are leaving out a very important data set.

Allan Brown said:

Allan Brown said:

There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

Click to expand...

The problems with the Drivers is something else altogether. We are talking about how fast the files are processed with the M1 apple processor. The problems you site are totally different. It's one of the reasons I don't install new software until the bugs are worked out.

Click to expand...

It is being discussed by others who have Apple hardware and MacOS, so, How is it Different?

Click to expand...

I am responding to this comment by the OP.

For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

You have changed the subject.

Click to expand...

I said...

"There are dozens of complaints with people saying that their computers are crashing with PL9 and the root cause seems to be the GPU driver - both with NVidia and AMD GPUs.

People are being told by DXO to install older drivers for NVidia cards but no mention for AMD cards.

People are installing newer GPUs without success - there still problems.

However, I and a couple of others have older computers with older GPUs and drivers. I have PL9 on two computers and it runs without any issues, just a little slower than PL7."

Please tell us HOW this is changing the subject?

I mention GPU four times and the links I provided address both Apple and Windows computers.

Because it concerns the Apple M1 processor where the GPU is built into the CPU. Apple computers don't use a separate GPU.

Night Pixel · Sep 17, 2025

CAcreeks said:
For those who purchased DxO PhotoLab 9 for use on an early Apple M1 computer, is speed acceptable? Windows users complain that faster GPUs will be required.

AI masking is a useful feature, for sure.

"I encountered no issues running the beta on a 2021 MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro CPU." SOURCE: PetaPixel Review

"I’m running PL9 on my M1 MacBook Pro with 16gb RAM and I don’t have this issue at all. The only slowness I have experienced is in exporting images that have AI masks, which seems to increase export time by 3-4x." SOURCE: DxO Forums

"’I'm running a Mac Mini M2 Pro 16GB, and PL9 is running really slow for me. I’ve different acceleration options, without any joy. I drag a slider and it lags whilst showing “Correct Previews”.

The only thing I could do to make the app work correctly, is to disable 'High Quality Previews" in the settings. I can live with that (But I shouldn’t have to!)." SOURCE: DxO Forums

Note that DxO recommends the M2 PRO or higher:

64fec54e102e4cb3ac1b9635126ac00b.jpg.png

--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know." - Diane Arbus

Is PhotoLab 9 acceptable on Apple M1?

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