DxO PhotoLab RAW Processor Comparison

I’ve noticed a lot of criticism aimed at DxO over their pricing model and a perceived lack of features compared to some of the competition. I think a lot of the complaint is classic “Grass is always Greener” but I decided to try and construct a side by side comparison of DxO PhotoLab RAW with other competitive products. Naturally features were problematic to compare and pricing turned out to be affected by seasonal discounting, so be sure to check any prices before buying!

Scope of Comparison

The only way to compare like for like is to narrow the focus of the comparison to functionality that I would consider to be essential to a RAW Processor. After all that is what PhotoLab markets itself as.

The Competition

Here I’m going to talk about all four products, including PhotoLab and outline who their market is as this has a direct bearing on the way the product evolves and is perceived.

DxO PhotoLab

DxO PhotoLab markets itself primarily as a RAW Processor, the DxO portfolio includes other tools such as ViewPoint and FilmPack that can be used as plugins to extend the functionality of PhotoLab.

You can check out my recent review of PhotoLab 9.

Capture One

Capture One started life as a studio image capture software, supporting tethered shooting and has over the years added HDR and Panorama stitching functionality bringing it into direct competition with Adobe Lightroom.

Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom which includes Adobe Camera RAW is the best known RAW Processor, apparently with 58% market share. If you add Photoshop to this you’re probably looking at close to 80%.

source – https://shotkit.com/photo-editing-software-survey/

With this much of the market, it’s difficult to define a niche other than “photographers”.

Luminar NEO

Luminar NEO was amongst the first product to embrace and build on AI features. Given the efforts that have been put into the product to support “point and click” processing and an enormous array of Presets that can be purchase from Luminar I’d say the target audience is Young, Beginner Photographers, and Influencers who want to embrace AI.

Price

Pricing is notoriously difficult to compare as the advertising can be quite difficult to understand. In one case I had to write to the company to gain clarification on their use of large discounts after several people observed the advertised price was never actually levied.

In all cases, I’ve gone for the most popular deal.

So in no particular order we have:

Capture One

The All in One subscription costs €24.92 per month (€299 a year). There is a Desktop only deal (All in One entitles two installs) at €18.25 a month.

Lightroom & Photoshop (Adobe Photographers Bundle)

€12.03 per month forever. Worth noting that if you stop subscribing then functionality ceases.

DxO PhotoLab

DxO Advertise a Lifetime license – one version of the software, yours for life. You can buy upgrades for two years after the current version at roughly half price.

€229 for the lifetime license. It’s worth noting that if you were to upgrade every two years instead of every year the cost of ownership would come down to €9.54 a month. Also worth noting that adding Viewpoint €109), FilmPack (€139) and the Nik Collection (€159) would cost a further €407, but you would have a comprehensive set of tools, albeit one with the same licensing for upgrades model as PhotoLab.

Luminar NEO

Luminar are the company I had to write to for clarification as their Buying page is so difficult to nail down.

Essentially they advertise a retail price and discount it heavily. So the current retail price is €317 per year or €26.41 per month. Luminar also advertise a “Lifetime Perpetual” license at €417. It is currently Black Friday Sale and these prices are heavily discounted – the Lifetime Perpetual costs €79 and the subscription €49 both of which appear to represent astonishingly good value.

The Black Friday price is guaranteed to remain the same at renewal time which is both unusual and a very good deal.

The Lifetime Perpetual license does not include version upgrades, but still a fraction of the price of DxO.

What is notable however is that Luminar push templates and presets relentlessly and although the program has decent RAW processing capability, the main focus appears to be the presets, which at €15 a piece are not cheap. Inevitably there are bundles and discounts applied to these too, but they are of little interest to me so I haven’t attempted to understand them.

Price Verdict

Factoring in current sales, which disadvantages some vendors, the value for money table looks like

1. Luminar NEO – but watch out for the extras
2. DxO PhotoLab – but be aware of dependencies on other DxO software for Luminosity Masks, Image rotation and Geometry tools.
3. Lightroom/Photoshop – third place because of subscription lock in
4. Capture One – just very expensive for anyone other than pro photographers

Quality of RAW Conversion

RAW conversion is the process that brings the demosaiced RAW file to the desktop and adds lens and camera corrections and pre-process noise reduction and sharpening.

DxO have a long history in this space and although Adobe and Capture One have made big strides, for me, DxO PhotoLab is the front runner, closely followed by Capture One. Luminar RAW conversions appear to be less sharp and Lens corrections unreliable compared to DxO PhotoLab or Lightroom.

It is no surprise that DxO lead in this category as a major part of their business was lens and camera body testing. They have access to probably the most formidable database of lens/body characteristics available. Other competitors rely largely on lens manufacturer data. The difference is noticeable when comparing products side by side.

Color

Color processing in the RAW space is in my subjective opinion led by Capture One based on my experience of using it professionally in studio photography – manufacturers are very picky about color representation, and they should be.

DxO have pioneered the DxO Extended Color Palette which was available a year before Adobe’s HDR standard. I would have liked to test PhotoLab against Capture one but as PhotoLab doesn’t support tethering that is difficult to achieve.

I definitely favour DxO PhotoLab for landscape photography over Lightroom and Luminar. I find Luminar produces pictures that look very glossy but it is easier to tell what software has been used than it is to tell which photographer made the shot. That I find off-putting. Lightroom has superior masking tools to DxO and I’ve found that a satisfactory way of getting the best of both worlds is sometimes to use DxO PureRAW to preprocess the RAW file and Adobe’s masking tools to apply creative corrections. Depends on the picture.

Contrast, Tone Curve & Luma

It is well known that the contrast sliders model an S-Curve, depressing the darks and raising the lights across the entire image. Manufacturers have tried to give more control by introducing Fine Contrast or Micro Contrast and offering a bewildering array of tone sliders that overlap but I prefer to use Tone Curves to control contrast and tone. In addition to the traditional RGB Curve which is present in all products, DxO introduced a Luma Curve that alters brightness without affecting color so much. I’ve found this tool to be amongst the most useful innovations in PhotoLab.

Noise Reduction

Noise Reduction is DxO’s forte, an absolutely spectacular set of tools that used judiciously offer realistic and precise removal of noise artefacts, and adjusted sharpening.

Adobe have recently update their noise reduction turning it from a joke into a genuine contender. Perfectly adequate for most photographs.

In my use of Capture one as a studio tool, noise was never an issue. Currently Capture One offers luminance and color noise reduction plus a details slider to counteract any softness appearing in the image after noise color or luminance noise has been removed. This balancing of noise removal and loss of detail is critical to the noise removal process.

Luminar only offers rudimentary noise reduction tools compared to the others.

Summary

I had envisaged a points based system but I quickly realised the pricing variations would distort any such system and I have no intention of adjusting the table seasonally! So instead I decided to rank based on which software I anticipate using in perpetuity.

1. DxO PhotoLab – it is simply so good at the core functionality that one forgives the limited toolset and sometimes irrational dependencies on other products to flesh out the toolset.
   
2. Lightroom/Photoshop – Between them Lightroom and photoshop offer the most sophisticated set of tools in the industry. Impossible to ignore.
   
3. Capture One – Price has cost Capture One first place in this rather subjective table. It is fantastic software and to anything other than expert eyes matches PhotoLab most of the way and adds a couple of very capable tools that PhotoLab lacks. I simply can’t afford it!
   
4. Luminar NEO – Superficially impressive, very easy to learn and use, massive array of presets, innovative use of AI, leaves me completely cold I’m afraid.

Check out my full review of PhotoLab 8.

Try or Buy

You can download a free 30 Day Trial version of DxO PhotoLab 8 from the link below:

Free 30 Day Trial

or if you are upgrading or simply purchasing a new license then

Upgrade or Buy