Lightroom Vs DXO Pro

[30D'er]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for an addition to my workflow, something that will ease the pain on the front end, right when my pics have just been downloaded from my camera and still in RAW.

I read great things about Lightroom, but have not actually tried it yet. I have tried previous versions of DXO and do like the results. I realize this is more of an automated application, but from what I remember, the user can customize actions.

Do people tend to have both products? Or would one make the other redundant? Have you found yourself asking the same question?

Thanks!!

[NorCalAl]

Used both - like DxO better. The latest version, 4.2, even seems to perform a bit better on my setup. Certainly like it for sharpening and noise reduction better.

[snake0ape]

I am using trial versions right now - LR 1.0 and DXO 4.2. With my short term experience with them, I concur with NorCalAl. And DxO offer more tweaks. What I like best is DxO offers a very complete set of geometry corrections. I do wide angle shots off of my Canon 10-22mm lense. DxO has a tweak that allows correction of "disproportionatley wide and short people/objects" that are at far right/left portion of the picture. No other software I know has this feature.
However I have a feeling that LR will be alot better in future versions and that is scary good.

[Lord_Malone]

I've tried DxO. Nice software. But I just love the seamless integration to photoshop you get with LR. For me LR offers more than enough tweaks. I really don't need to fine tune an image more than what the program is already capable of. And it will only get better with later versions. As far as the DxO distortion correction goes, I just use the ImageAlign plug-in for CS to get that sort of work done. Sharpening is further tweaked in CS if need be, and noise reduction is handled using Noise Ninja if LR doesn't acheive the desired result.

[gparvan]

Using LightRoom and really like it. Haven't tried DxO.
Download LR and give it a whirl you just might like enough to keep going with it.

[30D'er]

Doesn't photoshop cs2 have a feature to correct that fisheye distortion?

[Lord_Malone]

Doesn't photoshop cs2 have a feature to correct that fisheye distortion?


Yeah, but it's not as powerful as DxO or dedicated distortion correction software like ImageAlign.

[Bollan]

Two different kind of apples, both very good though. I think they complement eachother very well.

DXO is very good on lens corrections with its individual module system. No other software can correct distortions as well as DXO. The noise reduction in DXO is far superior than lightroom. Also there is an infinity of tweaks that you can apply to your pictures which is nice if you need them. File management is the really weak point.

LR on the other hand have a fantastic file management. The individual color adjustments are unbeatable. Awsome and very user friendly interface plus the seamless integration with CS2 is nice.. The final output files looks really good. Sharpening is useless and the memory leak is really bad.

I use them both as they are good at different things though i much prefer LR's UI and file handling.

[canoflan]

I tell you this. LRs presets you can save or download from others that have developed them win me over every time. Ithink the only thing I would benefit from on DxO is the distortion correction, therefore, perhaps I should buy the best distortion correction software there is.

[30D'er]

I shoot mostly with my 24-70, which I don't think has any distortion in my opinion and I already have Noiseware for noise reduction.

It seems LR might be the way for me to go. Thanks for everyone's input.

I freak'n love this forum...

[NorCalAl]

Hmmm. I just tried Light Zone for the first time. All I can say is...wow. I'm not a PS expert, so perhaps there's ways in PS to do all that Light Zone does - in fact, I'm sure there are ways - but man, selective changes are so easy.
True, I've only worked on three photos, but I am impressed.

[convergent]

I am loving Lightroom so far... warts and all. I expect by mid-year we'll see a lot of Lightroom plug-ins, and I wouldn't be surprised if programs like Noise Ninja and DxO were in the mix. I think that a year from now Lightroom will be the hub of workflow, and we'll have lots of tools we can insert into the process using this hub.