DxO Photolab 8 - InDepth Review - One RAW Editor to Rule Them All?

I appreciate this introduction to DxO Photolab 8. I've been frustrated with Adobe for the common reasons but only just began to search for an alternative... As an American who lives in France, I'd like to say Thank You & "Go Cats."

Awesome & Thanks Sir :)

The price alone, here in Australia, scared the hell out of me. As a pensioner I'm afraid that DXO have followed in the steps of Adobe and the Dodo bird...

That's a bit of a swizz about not being able to do things like select the sky automatically, for instance, if I've understood this review correctly. I want the results without the effort!

(Adobe could probably easelly buy DXO or ...
but I guess this all is like an accordeon... )

Very intelligent reviews, so nice to get educated by someone who actually knows his stuff.

Great review!

IMIO. Dxo are lagging behind on denoise. Both the AI and non-AI. it's barely better than LRc buil-in. And Its still so incredibly dependent on what situation you have. But I really hope they can find some inspiration from Topaz' work on recovering unsuccessful or old photos. As it is now, they are all heavily developing to catch up to Adobe, I will have to wait until they have, Topaz, Dxo, and others. IF not, I will have to purchase every new version they release, and then, it'll be as costly as the Adobe photo package. It'll probably a couple of years until I make the switch it seems. I'm not in need of very big AI-features, although I hate the heal-features of LRc, they are so bad. It's the only thing I use PS for instead. Really really apreciate this walkthrough. I'm gonna follow the development of Photolab as it seems to be the closest to LRc for now. Cool! :)

Do you need internet connection to have the AI feature on PL8 to work? ie. for offline work. ? And does PL support Wacom boards?

When talking to DxO support last week, I get the feeling that there wont be any support for Fuji X-Trans Sensors, they simply avoid answering my question on when to expect the X-Trans support :-(

Still no smartphone support other than Apple? COME ON DxO. What about the new Samsung phones, you supported up to the Galaxy S5, so what's changed? What about Google Pixels? SMH!

I just gave you the one point required to make 1,000 likes

As a since-beta LR user, I was all set to leave AdobeVille for this software, but then I checked the compatibility list. The two raw file types that I need are Sony RX100 VII and Apple HEIF , and neither are supported. Argh!
Great review, though! 👌🏻

Thank you Andy for an exact and Informative review. I use DxO Photo Lab 7, but I'm considering upgrading to DxO Photo Lab 8 for the Hue Mask and Deniosing capabilities. Thank's again.

COLOUR IN PHOTOS LOOK ARTIFICIAL

No ai masks.. this is where i stopped watching

It just can't open raw files of the most popular cameras: smartphones 🤯

does this denoise work well for Fuji raw file?

Nice presentation, but not enough to make me switch from Lightroom.

What a clear and articulate presentation.
Love the Rainbow Lorikeet.
I've used PL7 & 8 on Z8 files at ISO 50,000 and the denoise and sharpen functions work really well.

HI again! I am continuing with my trial, and I've been really impressed overall. 
The interface is customisable, which makes it easy to cut though the complexity so you just see the tools you need.
However, it was supposed to be a fully featured trial, and yet certain functions such as anything expect HQ processing are disabled and there are several other functions also disabled.
I've upgraded to Sequoia 15.0 which is less than a month old, so that may be the reason, but I just wondered if you had upgraded to Sequoia also and if so whether you have had similar issues? I'll also contact DXO...

Great points, manual transmission indeed!

I'll just wait for the new noise reduction and lens correction algorithms to make it into the next version of PureRAW. PL is far too clunky to use as a replacement for ACR and PS. When ACR is used in conjunction with PureRAW however, I get the best of both worlds.

You piqued my interest till the end about the masks. Time is my most valuable resource and LightRoom simply saves me too much time with the masking ability.

I always smile hearing your accent!

Since I'm a relative beginner Lightroom Mobile user on my phone so I won't bother changing.

Really useful review, thanks. Just a small point. Photolab 8 is a new version, not a point release. Admittedly, the change in function is not huge. A point release would be minor changes in 8.1, 8,2...

PL8 noise removal finally -- finally! -- does proper and excellent NR on astrophotos. For me, that alone is worth the upgrade price. (Nobody else comes close on astro NR, btw. DxO is the only game in town.)

Ive used DxO Raw Software for years, I have now upgraded from Photolab 6 to PL8 and up to now all is good, Great review by the way.

the irony here is that DxO is supposed to be the software for the thinking photographer who wants to do things manually without AI assistance but yet the default develop settings for the software give a ridiculously over-sharpened (with lens softness overcompensation) and micky-mouse cartoon colours (with completely unnatural so-called "natural" setting) which would immediately put any discriminating photographer off. It seems the company are not quite sure who the product is actually for. And you still can't see the results of corrections like purple fringing without a preview of at least 75% -- this is ridiculous. A shame because in many ways Photolab 8 is really good!

Thanks for your review Andy. Love your unbiased reviews. I tried PL8 myself, hoping I could ditch CaptureOne but I have found PL8 to be unbelievably buggy and their implementation of masking is just clumsy. I don't mind that they haven't jumped onto the AI band wagon as much as other brands but they're even doing a shit job in implementing non AI mask tools. What I mean in particular is the ability to check with a colour or grey overlay what exactly I have selected in the mask. In PL8 I found it difficult and unintuitive to switch between various mask display modes and it's missing hotkeys to quickly switch between these display modes. Sure enough the noise canceling and colour technology are great, no question about that, and what I find super high value is that you can do noise suppression without the need for an intermediate TIFF or DNG file, but the non intuitive UX just puts me off. I'll stick another year with C1 and hope DxO have improved their UX next year.

I will say a flat out no, of course not. The features for .jpegs are so severely limited, I subscribe to Adobe Lightroom for my older photos, and photos I need to take in jpeg right now. Photolab is just really, a fail-editor for jpeg. Everything else is true for raws, but its just very bad for jpegs. Users need to understand they will need a competent jpeg editor for those times they need to burst in jpgs.

Nice looking program. I did download the free trial and maybe I'll buy it as something to own and maybe look to in the future. Very happy with LRC and Capture One, but will be letting the C1 subscription expire as it is a bit costly. Love the $10 a month for both LRC and Photoshop. I wish DXO had something like C1 where you could mimic the LRC workspace, but I suppose just using it more often, it will become more familiar. Good to have competition out there. I know everyone loves to hate on Adobe, but they are number 1 for a reason.

Very good review. I downloaded the trial.

The lifetime license, is that for all future versions or for the current one? Also at the current exchange rate it's $331 AUD for the elite version. Not so bad if this is perpetual for every release like Davinci etc

Adding luma NOW reminds me of that Macintosh advertisement from the early 2010s: "we're introducing the exciting new feature called auto-save" 😅

But seriously it's not a bad program and offers a different approach to photo editing. Better than lightroom imho, but still behind Capture One (with Nik Collection and Pure Raw 4).

Their sales practices are a little shady though. One would buy the Elite version and think to have the full software. Still, parts of it are behind a paywall. At least, I hear, they're now giving free upgrades to people who purchased the previous version a few weeks before the new came out.

I still prefer Adobe Photoshop 2024 version is awesome

I am interested in DxO PL8, but I am concerned it does not have distraction removal tools like Photoshop. Am I wrong? Is there Removal, Clone Stamp and Content-Aware tools in PL8? Or is PL8 strictly a raw processor? Thanks.

Too many things to have to buy to get the "finished" DXO product. By the time you've bought all the add -ons and other products, you're paying way more than with Adobe. It's a fair review but if you don't just compare default settings but compare best results possible from each product, this is not greatly better than Adobe.

A well thought out presentation of Photolab 8. Thank you from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

I remember switching from Adobe to Capture One back in 2017. Adobe was slow and horrible with Fuji files. What's your take on how this software compares with Capture One. For AI stuff I use TIFFs exported from Capture One in Luminar Neo or Evoto. I wouldn't mind a good raw editor without monthly payment.

I understand the emotional desire to go to another product, we all assume that will help our photography (kinda like getting new golf clubs). And DxO may indeed be as good or better than the PS/LRC subscription at $10/month U.S.). DxO at $230 U.S. purchase would take about 2-years to break even, but neither Adobe or DxO will remain static. They both tend to introduce improvements and new features all the time. The upgrade price of DxO is listed at $100, or at least every two years (or less), so there is no cost savings. So, if we switch away from the ever improving Adobe products to an ever improving DxO product, it would be for the added features or improved results, not price. It is a bit like using one camera brand, getting numerous expensive lenses for that mount, and then considering another manufacturer, but not really thinking about now needing to get new lenses.

I ditched Adobe a little while ago after using it for about 20 years. For a short while I filled the gap with (free) Darktable. But I'm so happy DxO PhotoLab 8 crossed my path. I'm so happy with the purchase, the processing (and output) of raw pictures is amazing!!

No AI masking is a deal breaker for me. Once you get used to it, it is hard to go without.

Thanks Andy, just got chance to watch. Currently using V7 since its release. May wait on this one, maybe. As always great video, thanks

$209 N O P E

We really need subject masking.

I have friends who are still glued to Adobes Lightroom, but I'm afraid they'd they've lost me. DxO is where I always start, I've just upgraded to PhotoLab 8 and looking forward to getting stuck into it. I haven't found anything better than Topaz Photo AI to deal with noise, so it will be interesting to compare the two. Some of the others - YUCK! The more I did into PhotoLab 7, the happier I become and the less interest I have in using PhotoShop or LightRoom - each to his own!

Your comparison with cars - automatic or manual - resonates. The car I loved most, out of the 20 or so that I've owned over the past 65 years, was a Morgan Plus4, that I had "souped up" to Cosworth specifications - and I even used to service it myself, on a service pit a friend of mine had in his garage. So many of the others were merely
a "means of transport", devoid of the "fun" component!

Same with sharpening. Some programs LOOK improved, if you don't enlarge them - but, when you do, you find they've cheated, they've given you an optical illusion that makes you THINK the image is sharper. One cheat I caught was turning the edges of the image into a horrible line of square pixels, and yes it certainly was "sharp" - but not the way I wanted it. Another did something vaguely similar, tracing a line of contrast, dark vs vs light, along the edges to make your eye tell you it was sharper - on examination, under enlargement, this was actually LESS sharp than the original. Sigh !!! People like that should devote their lives to going into politics, where that kind of behaviour has cache.

In 2024 no support for HEIF files.

Lol!...All these people hurting themselves by not using the best of tools simply because of mass-induced hysteria like..."It's subscription!", or "they steal your photos!"...It's hilarious...

Thanks. I'm not a fan of renting software, so when Adobe went that route, I first tried Corel AfterShot Pro 3, as it was cost-effective and served my needs at the time (I also got PSP Ultimate as a cheap upgrade, so that's a nice bonus). Then I found DxO, and haven't looked back. I dove into PL (4 at the time), Nik, and FilmPack and eventually upgraded every time (adding ViewPoint 4 when it arrived). I say eventually, as although I think they've got the best RAW processing suite available (I use Topaz for old JPGs and scans as it works with any file type), and I feel it's well worth getting, they simply charge too much for evolutionary rather than revolutionary upgrades--they should give their loyal customers better value! I'll probably wait until it goes on sale to upgrade from 7 to 8. As nice as the new features are, why didn't they add the better masking tools, such as Control Polygons, as they did for Nik (at least some form of AI/smart/machine learning masking to better identify obvious borders, as you mention)? Plus, I really wish they'd integrate Nik into PL as they did FilmPack and ViewPoint for better workflow! Also, as useful as the loupe is, I'd rather see the entire image updated to show any changes, including NR. I'm still going to use and promote DxO, but it would be nice of they'd address these issues.