dxo Photolab 1.2
£99/$129 Essential, £159/$199 Elite
top optical correction with Local adjustments
DXO Photolab is the replacement for Optics Pro, adding local adjustment tools to make it a much more powerful all-round photo-editing solution.
You use the Organize window to browse your image folders and carry out basic filtering and housekeeping tasks. It’s basic, but perhaps enough for many.
The Customize window is where the real editing work is done, using either preset effects or manual adjustment tools. DXO Photolab also supports most camera Raw formats. Lens correction profiles are applied automatically, so your corrected and optimized images are ready for export without you having to do a thing. You can also make manual adjustments, but Photolab quickly gets technical.
With the new gradient, brush and U-point adjustment tools, however, it’s now possible to enhance your photos within Photolab rather than needing an external editor, all the while using Dxo’s excellent Raw processing engine.
Performance
The image quality produced by Photolab is second to none. Noise levels are low, the optical corrections are superb (and even include compensation for edge softness) and the definition and micro-contrast around fine details will make you reassess what your camera can do.
On the downside, you’ll need the more expensive Elite edition to get the PRIME denoise and Clearview features, and to apply perspective corrections (once built into Optics Pro) you’ll need the DXO Viewpoint plug-in. Dxo’s Filmpack analogue effects plug-in also comes as an extra, so the cost of the full suite is significantly higher.