DxO PhotoLab 4
Reduce the presence of noise and lens distortion.
When shooting in low light, your camera can use a high ISO setting to make it more sensitive to light. However, this can increase the presence of luminance and colour noise in the captured photo. Photo-fixing apps such as Photoshop and Lightroom use lens profiles to help smooth out noise and counteract distortion. What gives PhotoLab 4 the edge is the application of DxO DeepPRIME AI tech.
The app’s AI has been exposed to millions of images produced by different camera and lens models. This enables PhotoLab to learn how to smooth out noise without sacrificing detail, reduce the presence of colour fringing (chromatic aberration), and more. We opened a Canon Raw file that had been captured using a high ISO of 3,200. When viewed at 100 percent we could see garish specs of colour noise; after a click on the Denoising Technologies panel’s DeepPRIME button, the colour noise vanished. Luminance noise was also smoothed out without losing key details.
As well as using DeepPRIME AI to help fix photos, PhotoLab 4 also downloads Optics Modules (which function like the lens profiles used by apps such as Lightroom). These modules enable PhotoLab 4 to understand particular camera and lens settings used, and enable PhotoLab to improve Raw files snapped on a range of cameras. However, at the time of testing, PhotoLab couldn’t process Raw .dng files snapped on an iPhone. This problem applied to older . dng files created by Halide Mark II as well as to newer ProRAW files captured on an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Up and running
When you first launch PhotoLab 4, you are given the option of turning on auto features. This enables novices to overcome common problems with noise, distortion and vignetted edges with the minimum of effort. More experienced photo editors can choose to use a workspace with less automation, so that they can manually toggle palettes on and off. PhotoLab 4’s workspace is designed to look familiar to users of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop 2021, with a collection of neutral grey palettes that don’t distract. You can customise the position of each palette and hide unwanted panels to create a cleaner workspace. PhotoLab 4 can also be added to Lightroom as a plug-in, so you can start editing in Lightroom, then jump to PhotoLab 4 if you need the extra noise-reduction assistance of DxO DeepPRIME.
PhotoLab 4’s workspace is broken up into tabbed panels such as Light, Colour and Detail. Each panel contains a collection of palettes and tools designed to help with particular issues, such as sharpening soft shots (Detail)
or restoring missing highlights (Light). There’s a handy Metadata panel that shows the camera settings used to capture the photo. Here you can keep an eye out for noise-inducing high ISO settings, for example.
One of PhotoLab’s strengths is its ability to make selective adjustments to Raw files. By going to the Local Adjustments panel, you can control-click anywhere on the image to summon a specific selective adjustment tool. The Graduated Filter enables you to selectively darken overexposed sky without altering the correctly exposed landscape. The Control Point tool enables you to make selective adjustments to a sampled circular area.
After applying a selective adjustment, you can tweak properties via a multifunction equaliser. One of most useful equaliser sliders is ClearView Plus, which alters mid-tone contrast to reveal detail in hazy backgrounds. You can also adjust a specific area using brush tips, which enables you to selectively dodge (lighten) or burn (darken) particular areas with great precision.
Get Smart
PhotoLab’s Light panel has a useful Smart Lighting feature that does a similar job to Spot Weighted metering. After clicking the Spot Weighted button, you can draw a marquee over certain areas. The app then tweaks the exposure to prioritise details in these areas, and you can fine-tune them by tweaking sliders for Highlights, Midtones and Shadows. You can also access different metering settings such as Highlight Priority or Centreweighted Average.
You can also quickly reduce the look of barrel and pin-cushion distortion (and ugly colour fringing). However, the app lacks the ability to counteract perspective distortion. You’ll need to purchase the separate DxO Viewpoint 3 app to fix perspective distortion but that will set you back an extra $49.99.
If sharing results, you can use the DxO instant watermarking feature. This has seven blending modes to get a balance between viewing the photo without being distracted by the graphic.
DxO PhotoLab 4 will be attractive to new photographers who will benefit from the AI tools. They’ll then be able to experiment with the various manual and selective adjustment tools as their confidence grows. More experienced photographers will probably be happy to stick with Apple’s Photos or Adobe’s Lightroom app, especially if they want to process Raw .dng files produced on the iPhone. A trial vision of PhotoLab 4 is available to download, so its certainly worth taking it for a test drive. GEORGE CAIRNS
“When you first launch PhotoLab 4, you are given the option of turning on auto features. This enables novices to overcome common problems with noise, distortion and vignetted edges with the minimum of effort.”
If you shoot in Raw then PhotoLab 4’s AI assisted tools are a useful asset in your battle for picture perfection.