Tag Archives: DxO Photolab

Friday Image

PhotoLab 3 Launch and Review

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This week’s been very busy. I’ve been out on location twice and have another shoot planned for tomorrow if the torrential rain stops. I also completed a review of the new PhotoLab 3 RAW converter from DxO ready for when it launched on Wednesday. Producing a video review to a deadline is always demanding, especially when you also have a packed diary. Fortunately, I already use PhotoLab 2 which made the task quite a bit easier.

Here’s the link to the review on YouTube (https://youtu.be/OKqTG7BmFJc).

Friday Image No.234

Wyming Brook, Peak District.

I must admit to being pleased with this weeks Friday image. Woodland scenes are my nemesis and I’m never truly happy with the results. This image which I captured on Wednesday is different and I rather like it. It’s turned out just as I had imagined it when I took the shot which is always a good thing.

I shot the image using my Fuji X-T3 and Fuji 10-24 lens at 10mm. The image is tripod mounted as the shutter speed was 7” using an aperture of f/14.0 at ISO160. I used a Kase Polarising filter to remove a lot of surface glare from the water, allowing you see the flow more clearly. This also greatly intensified the colours in the moss and leaves which looked a little washed out without the filter. In addition to the polariser I also used a Kase 0.9 (3 stop) Soft ND graduated filter. This prevented the waterfall and highlight from blowing out in the top part of the frame.

I performed the RAW conversion using Capture One. I then enhanced the image using the Nik Collection from DxO.

I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.

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Friday Image

Friday Image No.212

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Heswall. Olympus EM5, 9-18mm Olympus lens, ISO200, f/8.0, 1/25″.

Today I’m returning to an image that I’ve probably shown before. It may not be the same identical file but it’s possible you’ve already seen this. I’m doing this because I’ve been back through my image library and reprocessed quite a few of the RAW files.

The reason for this is because I noticed some of my image quality problems of the past are fixed by changing RAW converter (no, I’m not talking about Fuji). In fact, some of the lens and camera performance problems were so bad I ended up selling the camera/lens. Now I’ve discovered the problem was mostly my RAW converter. If you want to see five examples here’s my video.

But back to the image above.

I shot this with an Olympus EM5 (micro 43) using the Olympus 9-18mm lens at 10mm. The camera was tripod mounted and I used an ND grad on the sky (2 stops I think). In the past when I processed this file it was a struggle. There were noisy shadows which lacked detail and a blown-out sky. The image also had a lot of distortion, especially in the corners of the frame.

The difference is that I used DxO PhotoLab to process the RAW file.

Now I’m not recommending switching to DxO, but it is interesting how good the RAW processing now seems to be. What I am recommending though is to always shoot in RAW format and hang onto your files. At least that way you can take advantage of future developments in software.

An unfortunate side effect of all this though is that it’s made me think of buying another Micro 43 camera.

I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.