I've used DXO earlier products (up to and including 4.5) for Macintosh with extremely satisfying results for several years. The new 5.1 is proving to be a problem for me because it doesn't provide the same satisfying outcome. This is a BIG problem because I've become lazy and just like letting DXO do all the heavy lifting for my final photo results. The problem is, I'd like to purchase one of the more recent Canon or Nikon cameras that are not covered in 4.5- but I sure don't want to have to start processing everything in Aperture, Photoshop etc.

Here's a long email I sent to DXO about a month ago (no reply other than a message that it was being referred to one of their product specialists for comment). I sure hope they will get this new version perfected because I really want to purchase it and use it if it's perfected.

Gentlemen,

I have been using the new DXO 5.1 for Macintosh for a couple of days.

My equipment:

Mac Pro 2.66 GHZ
5 GB RAM

Camera:

Canon 20D
Canon 17-40L
Canon 70-200L
Canon 10-22mm

I took about 250 pictures of a stage show over the week-end. All shot in RAW, all shot indoors
with a tripod with the 70-200L on tripod.- about half with an electronic flash at ISO 800 at f7.1

The other half at ISO 1600 at f4.0 with the 70-200L on tripod (no flash).

I developed all with DXO 4.5 with these settings:
distance: 35 feet
Highlight Recovery: Strong

Everything else was whatever the program automatically does without my making any other selections.
I have never increased the DXO Lens Softness control beyond the approximately 45% position that the slider indicates automatically when opening a RAW file. No unsharpness masking has ever been used.

I have processed thousands of images this way with DXO and have almost always been delighted with the results.

The results were very good- very sharp images in the majority of instances- any unsharp were caused by focus or motion problems.

I noticed after doing this that the new 5.1 software was finally available and downloaded it and processed again about 130 of the photographs to compare results.

Once again, I used the exact same method I have used in the past:

distance: 35 feet
Highlight Recovery: Strong
DXO Lens Softness control left where it automatically appears.
Unsharpness masking control not used.

The results were consistent for all duplicate pictures: The DXO 4.5 pictures were sharp on my 23" Macintosh LCD monitor. The DXO 5.1 pictures were consistently less sharp.

I examined the jpegs at 100% in iPhoto- it is clear that the 5.1 produced jpegs were much smoother in appearance (considerably fewer of the jaggy artifacts that the 4.5 software revealed on the ISO 1600 images) but the photo viewed on the monitor did not look sharp- it looked like a RAW file opened by iPhoto before any sharpening has been added). I tried re-processing several of the RAW files again with the DXO Lens Softness turned further up in one instance- and turned fully up to maximum in other instances- there was no improvement in picture sharpness compared to the earlier jpeg produced at the basic sharpening level preset when first loading the images).

I processed some earlier images taken outdoors using the 17-40L lens, results were the same. The pictures were sharper looking on my 23 inch monitor with 4.5 than with 5.1. The 17-40 mm lens was always a source of irritation in the past before I purchased DXO. When I shot JPEGS with the 20D, the 17-40 pictures always required the use of additional attention with iPhoto to increase the sharpness to a satisfactory level. After I began to use DXO, I no longer had to use unsharp mask. When I started to shoot all RAW and process with DXO 4.5 I was in Nirvana. The 17-40 became my favorite lens.

Another problem with both sets of images is in shadow areas. In 4.5 the shadows remain open- and much more detail is visible than with the same images processed with 5.1. The dance pictures had the floor of the stage and scratches on it clearly visible with 4.5, on 5.1 the floor was much darker and other shadow areas were less visible. Outdoor pictures- same problem.

In order to get acceptable results with 5.1, I have to resort to using unsharp mask settings again.

I'd appreciate it if you could tell me if these are the results I should expect with this new product? Is it normal for the perceived sharpness of RAW files processed with 5.1 to look less sharp than 4.5 processed files when no additional unsharp mask is applied? Perhaps there are some internal changes to the 5.1 software that still have to be made.

I am delighted with the ergonomic aspects of 5.1 compared to 4.5. It is much easier to use and everything looks much more professional. But the results as they stand now will cause me to avoid purchasing the product until the finished output is at least as good as the 4.5.

If you would like me to email you comparative images, please let me know. The images are approximately 2 MB (I process to 90% quality level as jpgs).

I'd appreciate hearing from you.



Does anyone reading Versiontracker have different results?- please comment