Dxo OPTICS PRO V6.2 User Manual

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Table of Contents

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Introduction to DxO Optics Pro 6

Your rst automatic processing session

”Select” tab

”Customize Settings” tab

”Process” tab

”View” tab

DxO Optics Pro menus and preferences

Keyboard shortcuts

DxO Optics Pro 6

User manual

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22 4.3 Virtual copies

23 4.4 Workspaces

Chapter 1 4 Introduction to DxO Optics Pro 6

4 1.1 The basic concept: automatic corrections

5 1.2 Basic principles of an image enhancement session

6 1.3 Additional post-processing:

DxO Optics Pro rst

Chapter 2 8 Your rst automatic processing session

8 2.1 Step 1: Selecting images

9 2.2 Step 2: Adjusting the correction settings

10 2.3 Step 3: Image processing

10 2.4 Step 4: Viewing results and

making adjustments

Chapter 3 12 “Select” tab

12 3.1 Creating a project

13 3.1.1 Selecting images using standard navigation

14 3.1.2 Selecting images from the database of previous

projects

14 3.1.3 Selecting images from a Lightroom catalog

14 3.1.4 Selecting images from multiple sources

14 3.2 “PROJECT” pane

15 3.2.1 Icon bar

16 3.2.2 Thumbnail icons

18 3.2.3 Commands accessed by right-clicking

18 3.2.4 Stack management

Chapter 4 20 “Customize Settings” tab

20 4.1 The “IMAGE” pane

21 4.2 Adjusting settings

23 4.4.1 The “DxO - First steps” workspace

24 4.4.2 “DxO - Essentials” workspace

25 4.4.3. “DxO - Advanced user” workspace

25 4.4.4 Creating your own workspace

25 4.5 Detailed information for all settings

26 4.5.1 Image checking palettes

28 4.5.2 Correction palettes

43 4.5.3 My Palette

43 4.6 Presets

43 4.6.1 What is a preset?

44 4.6.2. Presets supplied with the software

45 4.6.3 Applying presets

46 4.6.4 Creating presets

46 4.6.5 “Preset Editor” palette

Chapter 5 49 “Process” tab

50 5.1 “Process” tab commands

50 5.2 JPEG output formats

50 5.2.1 Quality

50 5.2.2 Destination

51 5.2.3 Sufx

51 5.2.4 Size

51 5.2.5 Interpolation

51 5.2.6. Resolution

51 5.2.7 ICC Prole

51 5.3 TIFF output formats

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51 5.3.1 Quality

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52 5.3.2 Destination

52 5.3.3 Sufx

52 5.3.4 Size

52 5.3.5 Interpolation

52 5.3.6. Resolution

52 5.3.7 ICC Prole

52 5.4 DNG output formats

52 5.5 Processing

Chapter 6 54 “View” tab

54 6.1 “View” tab commands

55 6.2 Next steps

55 6.2.1 Modify corrections on certain images:

55 6.2.2 Export images to Lightroom or Flickr:

55 6.2.3 Open the processed images with another application:

55 6.2.4 Process images that have not yet been processed:

55 6.2.5 Start a new project:

60 7.9 “Preferences”: Customizing the DxO Optics Pro

interface

60 7.9.1 General

60 7.9.2 Process

61 7.9.3 Display

55 6.2.6 Quit DxO Optics Pro:

Chapter 56 7 DxO Optics Pro menus and preferences

56 7.1 File menu

57 7.2 Edit menu

57 7.3 Project menu

58 7.4 View menu

58 7.5 Image menu

59 7.6 DxO Optics Modules menu

59 7.7 Help menu

60 7.8 Right-clicking on thumbnails in the “PROJECT” pane

The pictures of this manual are from Jean-Marie Sepulchre.

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Chapter 1

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Introduction to DxO Optics Pro 6

DxO Optics Pro software improves your photos in just a few clicks of a mouse, using powerful algorithms that automatically determine the settings required for optimal picture quality, image by image, based on a detailed understanding of the sensor and optics defects in over 2000 camera camera/lens combinations.

If your camera/lens combination is not included on the list of those supported by DxO Labs, you will still be able to make the same range of optical corrections, but you will have to adjust them manually.

Starting out from the basic corrections, you can add your personal touch to optimizing your images, combining the choice of automatic correction for certain images and giving free rein to your creative spirit by carrying out manual adjustments that go beyond simple correction.

The software can apply global and local optimization of highlights and shadows, brightness correction, white balance, color, sharpness and perspective, distortion correction, vignetting – and even correct purple fringing and chromatic aberration.

Note for users of DxO Optics Pro 5: a number of options available in version 5 have been deliberately hidden by default in version 6, but can be shown by changing your settings under ‘Preferences’.

1.1 The basic concept: automatic corrections

As everyone who has worked with photography knows, every image is unique, even images from the same batch. There are an almost unlimited number of factors that must be considered when taking a picture, such as type and model

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of camera and lens, image content, constantly changing weather and lighting

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conditions, manual and automatic settings, the photographer’s personal taste, and so on.

With lm-based photography, unless the photographer developed his or her own lm and prints, much of the workow was left to professional development

houses. Digital photography has changed this and has moved control over all aspects of the picture creation process into the hands of the photographer. As well as actually taking the picture, this involves saving, correcting, creative interpretation, archiving and much more... DxO Optics Pro offers you a range of incredibly powerful image enhancement tools that you can integrate easily into

your own workow.

DxO Optics Pro does not work in the same way as other post-production programs. Rather than presenting you with an uncorrected image and expecting you to make corrections and adjustments manually, DxO Optics Pro automatically determines the best combination of settings for each image you want to process.

In fact, DxO Labs has calibrated and measured the defects in over 80 camera bodies and in more than 2000 camera/lens combinations. The measurements for each camera/lens combination are stored in a DxO Optics Module, which is used by DxO Optics Pro to automatically correct the defects for this combination. There are therefore as many DxO Optics Modules as there are calibrated camera/ lens combinations.

Provided the type of camera body you use to take your pictures has been calibrated by DxO Labs, DxO Optics Pro can:

convert and reduce noise in RAW images (e.g. CR2, NEF, RAF, etc.)

•

reduce noise in JPEG images

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If, in addition, the DxO Optics Module for your camera/lens combination is available, you will have access to all DxO Optics Pro corrections, including automatic optical corrections. If there is no DxO Optics Module available, you will still have access to all of the DxO Optics Pro corrections but the optical corrections will be in manual mode (adjustment by user required).

If the type of camera body used to take your photos has not been calibrated by

DxO Labs, DxO Optics Pro will not be able to read its RAW les but will still be able to make corrections to its JPEG les, including manual optical corrections.

NOTE: If your workow involves using other software as well,

the DxO Optics Pro software must be used as the rst step in processing your images. See chapter 1.3 for further information.

1.2 Basic principles of an image enhancement

session

The way the DxO Optics Pro workow is organized deserves a few words of

explanation. Unlike traditional image editors, DxO Optics Pro works on projects, not directly on images.

A project is a logical group of images that you want to process. The rst stage

in any project is therefore to add your images to it. As you add your images, a combination of settings (a preset) that describes all the corrections that need to be made is automatically associated with each one. Managing a project involves four main steps, each of which has its own tab:

Select

•

Customize

•

Process

•

View.

•

Two steps are essential: adding images to the project (“Select” tab) and then the automatic processing of all the images in the project (“Process” tab). Note that processing can also be started by right-clicking on one of the thumbnails in the “PROJECT” pane (cf. chapter 3).

There is also an intermediate step, in the “Customize” tab, which allows you both to preview the corrections that will be applied to your images when they are processed, and to manually adjust certain settings on particular images. The new settings are saved and will be applied when the image is processed (in the “Process” tab). They can also be saved as presets and applied subsequently to other images. If you close the software before you have processed your images,

but after you have saved your project, you will nd the same settings for these images next time you open your project in DxO Optics Pro. Lastly, a nal step

(“View” tab) allows you to check the corrected images.

When you add an image to DxO Optics Pro, the program reads the information stored in the image’s EXIF data about the camera and lens you have used. This information is used to link the image to the appropriate DxO Optics Module and to automatically determine the optimal optical correction settings for one. Generally, you can then simply start the image processing without making any manual adjustments to the settings.

REMEMBER: The image data read by DxO Optics Pro must not

have been changed since they were generated by the camera. If the distortion, lens softness or vignetting corrections are not

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available in auto-mode, it means that the DxO Optics Module

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you need has not been loaded onto your system or that the le’s

EXIF data have been changed or corrupted.

Example of a wide-angle lens, with (above) and without (underneath) a DxO Optics Module.

Your original image remains unmodied throughout the process. It is only during

the processing stage (activated in the “Process” tab) that DxO Optics Pro creates a new image, which is still separate from your original image, and saves the corrections to be applied in its own project database and (if the user chooses

this option) in a small additional le, known as a “sidecar”.

The rst time you use the software, it will be congured to save corrected images as JPEG les, but you can choose from one of three output le formats, which are

described in more detail in the Processing chapter of this user guide, and even

generate several copies of the le in different formats (le type, compression

factor and image size) at the same time.

1.3 Additional post-processing:

DxO Optics Pro rst

DxO Optics Pro automatically identies the DxO Optics Module to use for your

images by reading the EXIF data from your pictures. These data are stored in

your image le and provide a wide range of information, such as the date the

shot was taken, the camera it was taken with, the focal length, aperture, aperture, speed and so on. Some cataloguing and retouching software can change or corrupt EXIF data, which means DxO Optics Pro will not be able to identify the appropriate DxO Optics Module or therefore automatically correct optical defects.

To make sure you can access the full range of DxO Optics Pro functionality, if

your workow involves using other software as well, the DxO Optics Pro software must be used rst and you must proceed as follows:

1. Copy the data from your camera or memory card using your computer’s

operating system rather than an upload program, even one provided by the manufacturer

2. Process the images in DxO Optics Pro and save the copies in a working

Chapter 2

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Your rst automatic processing session

DxO Optics Pro has been designed to be simple and efcient in every way. This is

particularly important for photographers who have to process a large number of

images. You can nd out how quick and easy DxO Optics Pro is to use in just a

few minutes before you go on to explore the settings explained in the rest of this document.

2.1 Step 1: Selecting images

Unlike traditional image editors, DxO Optics Pro works on projects, not directly on images. As chapter 1 explained, a project is a logical group of images that you want to process. You are therefore going to create a new project by adding images that are then processed individually based on the settings you have cho-

sen. To try this out for the rst time, select a few photos you know well!

To do this, add your images to the “PROJECT” pane in the lower part of the workspace in the “Select” tab. In the upper left-hand section of the “BROWSE” pane, click on the “File system” icon: a browser showing the contents of your hard disk will appear in the left-hand column. Select the folder where your images

are stored. You will see their thumbnails or le names appearing in the right-

hand pane of the main window: you can choose to view them in list mode or as thumbnails of various sizes.

To import one or more images, simply drag and drop your les into the “PROJECT”

pane. You can also select images with your mouse using Shift + Click or Ctrl + Click. When you add images, you are not creating additional copies of your

images, but merely recording references to them in a le that keeps track of all the details of your project. This helps make efcient use of the space available

on your hard disk.

Images in the top left pane and that have been added to the Project are labeled with a white check

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“Select” tab

At the top of the window on the “Select” tab, the dropdown menu to the right of the “Add to project” button is set to the “DxO Default v2” preset by default. When you add images to the project, each of the images you add is automatically linked to a combination of settings (a preset), which determines all the corrections to be applied to the image. If you do not want to use the default preset, you can select a different one, either one from DxO Labs or one that you have created

yourself. For your rst attempt, we recommend you use the default preset, which

applies all the software’s automatic corrections.

TIP: for expert or pro users working with RAW formats, you can

achieve a more natural color rendering by selecting the “DxO Default v2 - Neutral color (RAW only)” preset

2.2 Step 2: Adjusting the correction settings

Under the “Customize” tab, the project to which you have just added your images appears in the lower part of the screen in the “PROJECT” pane and shows the images you have added to the project. Above this pane, you will see the “IMAGE” pane, which allows you to preview image corrections. When you click on a thumb-

nail in the “PROJECT” pane, you will rst see an uncorrected version of your

image displayed, followed a few seconds later by a view of the corrected version (clicking on the image lets you toggle between ‘after’ and ‘before’ views). You can also choose to display two images side by side, “before” and “after” correction.

“Customize” tab: example of “before/after correction” display, in the “DxO – First steps“

If you are not satised with the default correction, the simplest thing is to try

a different preset from the dropdown menu. You can also, however, adjust the settings applied to your images manually, using the correction palettes. These palettes are organized in “workspaces”.

The “DxO - First steps” workspace

•

The “DxO – Essentials” workspace

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The “DxO – Advanced user workspace

•

Only the “DxO - Advanced user” workspace gives you access to all possible settings, however you can move instantly from one workspace to another.

For your rst attempt, we recommend that you concentrate on the “DxO - First

steps” workspace and explore how a simple action with a slider can change your photo. To evaluate sharpness and noise reduction, display the image at 75% or more. This “DxO - First steps” workspace lets you access the following rollups:

Exposure compensation, which can be used to lighten or darken the

•

image, but also to recover overly white highlight detail from a RAW le;

DxO Lighting, which can be used to balance the overall contrast of an

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image and lighten shadows;

workspace

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Vignetting, to compensate for the optical defect that darkens the cor-

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•

ners of the image1;

Distortion, to compensate rounded distortions of the image2;

•

Lens softness, to correct the inherent lack of sharpness of the lens3;

•

Unsharp Mask, to correct the photo’s overall sharpness3 (Essentially

•

useful when the “Lens softness” rollup is not available because the

appropriate DxO Optics Module is absent);

2.3 Step 3: Image processing

Once you are satised with the settings you have applied to your images, you

can process them to generate a corrected copy incorporating all of your settings.

The rst time you use the software, it is congured by default to generate highquality JPEG les and save them in the same directory as the original images.

After you have clicked on the “Start processing” button to start the process, the thumbnails selected for processing are displayed and a progress bar shows you how much of the process has been completed.

Noise, to automatically remove noise, depending on the ISO setting

•

used to take the picture4;

Chromatic aberration”, to remove chromatic aberrations and purple

•

fringing5.

Palettes and rollups available in the “DxO - First steps workspace”

You can try out the effects of these very powerful corrections on a few test ima-

ges: moving the sliders even slightly can have a signicant effect! Never forget,

though, that all these corrections are reversible, because they don’t affect your

original le: so when you rst try out the software you can play with going a bit

too far to learn how the software behaves.

A clock appears over images that are waiting to be processed and two cogs over those that are currently being processed. A green tick replaces the asterisk once processing is complete.

“Process” tab

2.4 Step 4: Viewing results and

making adjustments

Once processing has nished, you can check the nal images in the “View” tab.

1 Automatic or manual adjustment depending on whether or not you have the appropriate

DxO optics module

2 Automatic or manual adjustment depending on whether or not you have the appropriate

DxO optics module 3 To see the effect of this correction, the display must be set to at least 75% 4 To see the effect of this correction, the display must be set to at least 75% 5 To see the effect of this correction, the display must be set to at least 75%

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“View” tab

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If you are not completely satised with the results, you can go back to the

“Customize” tab and make the necessary adjustments. When you restart the process, only the images for which you have changed at least one setting will

be processed; the new versions will overwrite the previous corrected version.

To avoid overwriting the previous versions, use the “Virtual copy” functionality explained later on in this guide.

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Chapter 3

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“Select” tab

3.1 Creating a project

When you open DxO Optics Pro, the application opens at the rst tab, “Select”,

which you use to add images to your project. A project is a logical group of images that you want to process during your session.

The tab is split into three panes:

The left-hand pane, “BROWSE” is used to navigate through the direc-

•

tories on your hard disk, or the database of your previous projects, or your Lightroom catalogs if this program is installed on your system

The right-hand pane, shows the content of the directories or catalogs or

•

projects selected in the “BROWSE” pane

The “PROJECT” pane at the bottom is where you will place the images

•

you want to process

“Thumbnail mode” display. Grey blue thumbnails are selected thumbnails.

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“List mode” display

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TIP: If you can’t see all three panes, check that the vertical

and horizontal separation bars have not been moved to the very top or bottom or side of the screen. The separation bars can

be identied by the three dots in the middle of the separator.

Simply slide the bar from the edge of the screen to the centre to restore the invisible pane.

3.1.1 Selecting images using standard navigation

When you rst launch the application, the “BROWSE” pane is congured to navigate through the directories on your hard disk. Simply navigate to the directory where you have saved the images you want to add to your project. Once you have selected the directory you want, its contents will be displayed in the righthand pane, either in the form of a list or as thumbnails (select from the “View” menu or the icons in the icon bar of the “Select” tab). Your images can be sorted

or ltered to only show RAW or RGB les, etc.

You can adjust the size of the thumbnails in the right-hand pane using the slider in the icon bar in the same pane.

You will see some gures to the right of the “Selection” label on the icon bar of

the “Select” tab.

If you see a display such as 1/36, the 1 indicates the number of images selected, whilst the 41 refers to the total number of images in the selected directory. If you see a display such as 1/36 [41], the 1 indicates the number of images selected, 36 refers to the total number of visible images in the selected directory, and 41 indicates the total number of images in the selected directory. This means that

a lter has been activated to mask some of the images.

To add images to your project, select the appropriate lines or thumbnails in the right-hand pane and then click on the “Add to project” button (in the icon bar of the “Select“ tab) or drag and drop them into the “PROJECT” pane. In either case, the images you have selected will appear in the “PROJECT” pane (at the bottom) with a preset for the correction settings to be applied to your images. You can choose to link a different preset to your images when you are adding them to the project (from the dropdown menu in the icon bar of the “Select” tab). For your

rst few attempts, keep the default ‘DxO Default v2’ preset. You will be able to

change the preset for the images in your project later by right-clicking on the thumbnails in the project or in the “Customize” tab.

In chapter 4.6 of this guide, you will nd out how to create your own presets.

NOTE: when you close the software, the last preset selected

(from the dropdown menu on the icon bar of the “Select” tab) will be saved and used by default next time you add images.

Access to presets

Of course, if you need to apply different combinations of settings to different

images in a project, you can add the rst batch of images with a rst preset, and

then select and apply another set of parameters to the second batch. Remember that each image in your project is treated individually, which means that you

have practically unlimited exibility in terms of processing options: you can even

choose a different preset for each separate image, even though they are all in the same project. This very advanced level of customization within an overall batch-processing framework is one of the real strengths of DxO Optics Pro and distinguishes it from many other software programs that rely on a single “recipe” for each batch processed. Images in the top left pane and that have been added to the Project are labeled with a white check

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“File directory” browsing

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3.1.2 Selecting images from the database of previous projects

In the same way that you can browse your hard disk to nd images, as explained

in the previous section, you can also navigate through the DxO project database

to nd a previous project. To do this, select the “Database” icon from the group

of icons at the top of the “BROWSE” pane. When you click on the icon, the lefthand pane is updated to show a chronological list of the projects you have already

processed (it will be empty if you are using DxO Optics Pro for the rst time).

If you click on one of your previous projects, you will see the thumbnails for all the images that belong to this project appear in the right-hand pane. To upload this project, double-click on the project name (or select the project name and upload by right-clicking).

You can also access a project that has been saved in the project database from the “File” menu > “Open project”. These are listed in chronological order, with the most recent project processed at the top of the list.

NOTE: if you move your source images after you have run a

project, DxO Optics Pro may not be able to nd them to run it

again

3.1.3 Selecting images from a Lightroom catalog

If you have Lightroom catalogs stored on your hard disk, you can browse them directly to select your images. To do this, select the “Adobe Lightroom catalogs” icon from the group of icons in the upper right-hand corner of the “BROWSE” pane. When you click on the icon, the left-hand pane is updated to show the list of Lightroom catalogs stored on your computer.

NOTE: if your images have been transformed or converted from

RAW to JPEG by Lightroom, DxO Optics Pro will not be able to apply optical corrections in auto-mode.

3.1.4 Selecting images from multiple sources

You can create projects in DxO Optics Pro using content from a single or multiple folders. However, you can only display the content of one folder at a time in the right-hand pane. If you create a project with content from several folders, select

the images in stages, starting with your rst folder and then your second folder

or a Lightroom database: this will ensure that all your images will remain in their proper folders but will be combined in a single project.

3.2 “PROJECT” pane

Once you nished selecting your images, the “PROJECT” pane will show all the

images you want to process. You will be using this pane at every stage in the process: “Customize”, “Process” and “View”. You can go back and add more images to your project at any time.

The “PROJECT” pane is positioned by default at the bottom of the screen but you can use the “View” menu > “Unlock PROJECT window” (shortcut Ctrl + Shift +

F) to make it oating, including positioning it in full-screen mode at the top of

the screen in whichever DxO Optics Pro tab is active, for example if you have a large number of images to sort.

“DxO Optics Pro project database” browsing

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Floating “PROJECT” pane

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The “PROJECT” pane can be resized as you want by moving the separation bar with your mouse. There is a scroll-bar on the far right-hand side so that you can display all of the images in the project in turn when you use a height equal to one or two rows of thumbnails.

Simply click on “To next step” to the right of the separation bar to change tabs from “Select” to “Customize”, “Customize” to “Process” and “Process” to “View”.

Most of the commands in the “PROJECT” pane are also accessible from the menus or from the optional icons shown on the thumbnails. A context menu accessible by right-clicking with your mouse (Ctrl + click on a Mac) also gives you access to a range of different options, including creating stacks if this function has been activated in your preferences.

an information button you can use to show the project properties in

•

a separate window;

a button that takes you back to the “Select” tab so that you can add

•

more images;

a button for sorting the images in the project;

•

a button for ltering the images in the project;

•

a display such as 1/36, where the 1 indicates the number of images

•

selected, whilst the 41 refers to the total number of images in the selected directory. If you see a display such as 1/36 [41], the 1 indicates the number of images selected, 36 refers to the total number of visible images in the selected directory, and 41 indicates the total number of images in the selected directory. This means that a lter has been activated to mask some of the images.

a button for showing the properties of the selected image: this opens

•

a new window displaying the properties of this particular image;

arrows for rotating the image if it is not automatically displayed the

•

right way up;

a button for creating a virtual copy, i.e. a duplicate copy of the image

•

to which you can apply different corrections than those used for the rst image you selected;

the “recycle bin” button to remove the selected image from the pro-

•

ject (this does not delete the original le);

the processing button to start image processing;

•

a slider for changing the size of the thumbnails displayed in

•

the “PROJECT” pane;

the buttons that are only visible in the in the « Customize »

3.2.1 Icon bar

The icon bar sits at the top of the “PROJECT” pane. A tool tip appears for each icon when you hover over it with your mouse:

Reading from left to right, you have:

•

and « View » tabs in case of a multiple selection. They will allow browsing within the multiple selection without loosing it.

a button for sending images to Flickr photo galleries (only available

•

in the “View” tab);

a button for sending images to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software

•

if you have this installed on your computer (only available in the “View”

tab);

a button that takes you on to the next step.

•

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TIP: Sorting and ltering images.

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Sorting and ltering images work in exactly the same way in the right-hand pane

and in the “PROJECT” pane. Sorting consists of ordering your images based on criteria selected from a dialogue box that you access from the Sort button.

NOTE: Images that are not displayed cannot be selected for the

customization or processing stages.

Sort menu

The options available for the Sort button are as follows:

Insertion order in the project

•

Image format

•

Name – alphanumeric by lename

•

Name – by le name in alphanumeric order

•

Extension – used to separate different types of RAW, JPG and TIFF

•

images

Size – by size of le

•

Dimensions – by size of le dimensions (denition)

•

Date – by le modication date. This option is useful for doing a quick

•

search of the most recent image les in a folder

Camera – by type of device

•

Lens – by type of lens

•

Ranking – by star rating (only visible if this option has been enabled in

•

preferences).

Filtering affects which thumbnails are displayed in the “PROJECT” pane: if you uncheck an item on the list the images with these characteristics will be invisible.

Filter menu

Show RAW images – When this option is checked, RAW image les are displayed in the “PROJECT” pane. If it is unchecked, RAW les are not displayed.

Show RGB images – When this option is checked, RGB image les (usually JPG or TIFF) are displayed in the “PROJECT” pane. If it is unchecked, RGB les

are not displayed.

3.2.2 Thumbnail icons

The thumbnails shown in the project “PROJECT” pane include information and icons you can activate to access certain functions. From the “Edit” menu > “Preferences...” (see chapter 7) you can select which icons are always shown in the edges of thumbnails, never shown or shown when you mouseover the thumbnail.

The default icons are shown on thumbnails the rst time you run DxO Optics

Pro.

3.2.2.1 Default icons:

File name, processing status and the DxO Optics Module status are shown by default.

Processing status is indicated by:

waiting for processing

•

processed

•

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processing error

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•

not to be processed

•

cannot be processed

•

Images that are too small cannot be processed by DxO Optics Pro. Similarly, the program cannot reprocess images already generated by DxO Optics Pro (output images).

Module status is indicated by the following icons:

DxO Optics Module ready

•

no DxO Optics Module available for this image

•

DxO Optics Module available for download

•

By combining virtual copies and output options (see chapter 5) you can access an almost unlimited number of processing combinations.

Virtual copy creation window

DxO Optics Module ambiguity.

•

Click on the red arrow icon to download the specied module. The icon will go

back to green once the download is complete. If you click on the red question mark, a dialogue box will appear so that you can choose the right optics module (e.g. between a Nikkor 12-24 f/4 and a Tokina 12-24 f/4, which have identical EXIF data) either for a particular image or for the whole project.

Other symbols will appear if you hover over the thumbnail with your mouse:

for rotating the image: these function in the same way as the

•

icons on the command bar in the “PROJECT” pane:

can be used to remove an image from the project;

•

indicates that this image is a virtual copy;

•

indicates that images are presented in the form of a stack.

•

TIP: Creating a virtual copy (see chapter 4.3 for more details)

allows you to apply different settings to the same image at the same time, rather than going backwards and forwards between customizing settings and processing images. When you activate the “Create a virtual copy” command, a dialogue box will ask you to select the settings to be associated to the virtual copy,

and the sufx you want to add to the name of the copy. For

example, if you want to process the same image in color and black and white at the same time, create a virtual copy called “BW” by applying an ad hoc preset.

3.2.2.2 Additional icons

From the “Edit” menu > “Preferences...” > “Display” you can select other icons to appear next to your thumbnails in the “PROJECT” pane:

indicates that the focal length and/or focusing distance haven’t been

•

properly written by the camera body in the image’s EXIF. This lack of information may slightly affect the precision of the automatic distortion correction. These data can be manually entered in the rollups under the geometry palette. By default, DxO Optics Pro sets the focusing distance

to innity, and the focal length to the value written in the EXIF data;

can be used to score your images and rank them by quality; they

•

can then be sorted on the basis of their ranking;

the ‘trafc light’ indicators are used to show you which images are

•

to be processed (green light), must not be processed (red light) or where no decision has been made (yellow light: this is the default value when an image is added to a project). When processing begins, images with green and yellow lights will be processed, whereas images with red lights will not be processed.

Thumbnail inThumbnail in the “PROJECT” pane (all icons enabled)

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3.2.3 Commands accessed by right-clicking

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Right-clicking on a thumbnail opens up a context menu, whose commands may change depending on the preferences selected when customizing the software (see chapter 7) or on the properties of the image selected.

When all options are turned on, the following commands can be accessed by right-clicking (Ctrl + click on a Mac):

Image properties;

•

Apply preset to image;

•

Create a preset from current settings;

•

Copy correction settings to paste them onto another image;

•

Paste the correction settings from another image via the clipboard;

•

Start processing

•

Rotate image to right or left;

•

Remove image from project;

•

Show input le in Windows Explorer;

•

Show output les in Windows Explorer;

•

Open input image using…;

•

Open output images using…;

•

Create a virtual copy;

•

Stack: stack images, set a stack master, add items to stack, remove

•

items from stack;

Allow processing: Flag: managing trafc lights, if this option has been

•

activated under “Preferences”.

Ranking: managing stars, if this option has been activated under

•

“Preferences”.

Many of these commands are also accessible by using the icons in the top bar of the “PROJECT” pane or the thumbnail icons, but the quickest way of applying a preset is to right-click.

3.2.4 Stack management

If image stacking is activated in “Preferences” (see chapter 7) and you have

grouped your images into stacks, the corresponding icon will appear on the rst

image in each stack.

A “stack” of images is used to organize your images into groups, not only to reduce cluttering in the “PROJECT” pane but also so that you can apply different settings to a whole group of images at the same time (without having to select multiple images each time). In this sense, a stack is equivalent to a permanent multiple selection.

It is worth thinking about making a stack whenever you have images that may need the same processing parameters for one reason or another. It may be a series of linked images on the same subject or a series of images taken in the same lighting conditions, for example. The possibilities are endless.

A stack always has a “Master” image, the one which appears on the top of a collapsed stack. This is the image shown on the “Customize” tab when you select a collapsed stack.

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4 left-hand thumbnails are 4 stacks (see their stack icon)

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Creating a stack. Creating a stack is easy: simply select a number of images and then right-click on one of the images. A menu window appears and the Stacking option is shown with an arrow pointing right. Click on this menu option and a sub-menu will appear to the right.

TIP: To select a series of adjacent thumbnails to include in a

stack, hold the Shift key down and click on the rst and last

images you want to form the stack. To select images that are not adjacent to each other, hold down the Ctrl key and click once on the thumbnails to include in the stack.

Stack images. The Stack images option allows you to create a stack in

•

which the images to the left of the last image selected are stacked under the last image.

Expand the stack by clicking on the stack icon to check each of the ima-

•

ges without having to unstack them. You can also expand the stack for all the images in the stack in the “PROJECT” pane by right-clicking on the stack and selecting Stacking and Expand stack.

Once a stack has been created, it stays as a group and can be managed and manipulated in the same way as a single image.

Recreate the stack by clicking on the stack icon.

•

Change the “Master” image by using the wheel on your mouse, or a right

•

click.

Add other images. You can now add other images to the stack by right-

•

clicking on the stack and selecting Stacking > Add items to stack.

Remove items from stack. If you expand a stack and click on an image

•

to select it in the stack, you can then right-click and click Remove items from stack in the Stacking sub-menu. This will remove the image from the stack, but not from the project.

Unstack items using the context menu that appears by selecting Stacking

•

and then Unstack images.

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Chapter 4

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“Customize Settings” tab

Using the “Customize Settings” tab is optional, but it allows you to preview the corrections made by DxO Optics Pro and make any adjustments to the settings you want.

4.1 The “IMAGE” pane

The “Customize Settings” tab workspace is divided into two primary panes. The top pane is the “IMAGE” pane, whilst the Project “PROJECT” pane continues to occupy the lower part of your screen. To work on an image, simply click on an image thumbnail in the “PROJECT” pane: the image will appear in the “IMAGE” pane with a preview of the corrections made.

In fact, the rst image to appear will be the ‘before’ image (the original image

you imported into DxO Optics Pro). Then, after a few seconds, this will be replaced by a preview of the ‘after’ image. A message will remind you that you need to view the image at a zoom of at least 75% to see the effect of corrections on sharpness, noise and chromatic aberrations. Click on the information symbol to avoid seeing this message again

Several icons appear from left to right beneath the menu and tab bars:

“Single image display”: displays a preview of the image as it will be

•

corrected. The keyboard shortcut CTRL + D for Windows or CMD + E for Mac lets you toggle the display between “Corrected image” / “Reference image”, which by default is the uncorrected image, but can be changed as explained in the “Reference Image” section below.

“Dual image display”: displays the reference image – by default, the

•

uncorrected image – and a preview of the image as it will be corrected by DxO Optics Pro. You can zoom in if necessary to compare the detail in the same area of each image.

“Reference image” dropdown menu: you can compare the current

•

image with various reference images. By default, the uncorrected image is used as the Reference Image, but the dropdown menu lets you choose another image. This feature is particularly handy when you have created Virtual Copies. In this way, once these Virtual Copies have been processed, you can compare an image with the various Virtual Copies of it and see the different corrections applied.

Information about the image: click on this button to show or hide the

•

captions “before correction”, “correction preview” and the information

screen about the image’s zoom factor;

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Grid overlay: Show a grid overlay over the image: this is particularly

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•

useful for correcting distortion and keystoning;

Pointer tool – when this tool is active, and when the “Single image

•

display” mode is enabled, clicking on the corrected image will display the reference image (see above) so that you can compare it with the

corrected version. Release the mouse button to return to the nal image

corrected by DxO Optics Pro. The keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + D” can also be used to toggle between the “before” and “after” images.

Hand tool – The hand tool can be used to move the visible area of

•

the image.

Zoom tool – Click on this icon to zoom into the image in full-frame

•

view (using the thumbwheel on your mouse if it has one) up to a magnication factor of 1600%. It’s important to remember that when displaying at zoom factors below 75%, this preview image does not show some of the corrections to be applied.

Zoom slider to adjust the size of the image

•

displayed up to a magni¬cation of 1600%. Two quick commands can

be used to adjust the image to the size of the pane and zoom to 100%, which is ideal for checking sharpness and noise.

Selection box for existing presets:

•

To the far right of the window you will see the dropdown menus for selecting workspaces, correction and image checking palettes.

4.2 Adjusting settings

If you were satised with the results of the preset chosen in the “Select” tab, you

can go straight to the “Process” tab and start processing your images.

Otherwise, you can try out the various presets accessible from the icon bar with just a click of your mouse to explore a wide variety of color rendering and saturation options, and much more. (There is more information about these presets in chapter 4.5.2). If you want to make your own adjustments rather than use the software’s automatic settings, you have three workspaces available to you, each of which will give you access to a larger number of settings:

The “First Steps” workspace

•

The “Essentials” workspace

•

The “Advanced user” workspace

•

For a quick taste of how manual settings work, select the “Essentials” workspace, open the “Color Essentials” palette and then the “Color modes” sub-palette: click on the “B&W” style and see how your image is instantly transformed. Uncheck

the “Color Modes” box and it will revert to its original colors!

A palette is a logical group of sub-palettes. The “Light” palette, for example, combines all the sub-palettes used for lighting corrections (Exposure compensation, DxO Lighting, Vignetting, Tone curve). A sub-palette combines all the settings for the relevant correction.

A sub-palette is active when there is a tick in front of its name. The word “Auto” to the right of the sub-palette bar means that corrections for this sub-palette are automatically optimized for the image by DxO Optics Pro.

If you change a setting on a sub-palette and want to revert to the optimal value recommended by DxO Optics Pro, simply click the small magic wand icon to the right of the setting concerned.

A correction can be enabled (or disabled) by checking (or unchecking) the box to the left of the subpalette name.

Open the correction palettes you want and change a few of the settings to see the effect on the screen, for example to adjust the horizon in a landscape image or correct a color balance.

To return to full auto-mode, simply click on the small magic wand icon to the right of most of the sliders.

Note that in all the workspaces, even the simplest, you can use the “Tools” palette to correct a sloping horizon or adjust keystoning. Your image will be

automatically reset!

Conversion to black and white using the “Color modes” sub-palette

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Keystoning correction

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For your rst attempts, try to limit how many personal corrections you make so

that you can get an idea of how DxO Optics Pro automatically processes your images. Later, if you want to, you will learn how to make more and more detailed corrections to suit your preferences.

Tools palette

Workspace with oating palettes

If all palettes are displayed, DxO Optics Pro automatically positions them to either side of the screen and keeps the image you are working on in the centre. You can also move them around to wherever suits you best above or below your image. To return a palette to its place, just click the small icon in the menu bar to dock it to the right or left. This same icon also lets you hide the palette to save space on the screen.

All the workspaces have a toolbar which you can use (from left to right) to crop the photo, remove dust, adjust the horizon, correct keystoning, change the color balance on selected parts of the image and correct the image’s white balance with the color picker tool.

NOTE: Tools can be displayed directly in the “IMAGE” pane icon

bar by setting the relevant preference in the ‘Edit / Preferences / Display’ menu.

4.3 Virtual copies

When you are adjusting the settings on an image, you may nd that you want

to try out different settings on the same image at the same time. Virtual copies are the perfect solution, as explained below.

You can create a virtual copy of the image by right-clicking on the thumbnail in the

Workspace with palettes anchored to the right of the image

“PROJECT” pane. A dialogue box will open and ask you to enter various settings to associate with this image (a preset is automatically associated with it, just as it is when you add an image to a project): these can either be the same settings as the image you are making the virtual copy of, or a preset you can select from the list.

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You will also be asked to enter a sufx to add to the name of the virtual copy to

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distinguish it from the original image.

vents you from applying a more complex correction to an image where necessary. This workspace includes the following sub-palettes:

Once the virtual copy has been created it will appear in the “PROJECT” pane and will be shown with a special icon ( ) in front of its name. A virtual copy behaves in exactly the same way as a normal image. It can therefore be viewed in the “IMAGE” pane, where its settings can be adjusted. When you process your images, an output image will be generated for each virtual copy.

You can make as many virtual copies as you need.

DxO Optics Pro’s virtual copy functionality goes even further, because you can compare virtual copies with each other quickly and simply: in the icon bar of the “IMAGE” pane there is a dropdown menu with a default option of “Before correction”. Using the dropdown menu you can specify which image to use as a reference when comparing the corrections to the current image. By default, the reference image is the uncorrected version. You can replace the reference image with any virtual copy of the same image, provided that the virtual copy has already been processed. You can access this functionality from the “Customize Settings” and “View” tabs.

4.4 Workspaces

4.4.1 The “DxO - First steps” workspace

Exposure compensation: this allows you to recover over-exposed highli-

•

ghts in the photo almost miraculously when you are working with RAW

les.

DxO Lighting, which adjusts the contrast in the photo by lightening sha-

•

dows; if the overall image has had to be darkened to recover highlights,

shadows can be compensated to lighten dark areas.

Vignetting, which is used to compensate dark areas in the corners of the

•

image. This must be adjusted manually if you do not have a DxO Optics Module.

Distortion, which corrects distortions to the image, particularly where a

•

wide-angle lens has been used. This must be adjusted manually if you do not have a DxO Optics Module and it is helpful to display the grid overlay over the photo (the icon in the bar above the images you are working on) to give yourself some visual markers.

Lens softness, to correct inherent lens softness according to the data

•

in the DxO Optics Module, depending on aperture, focal length, and the

position of the pixel in the image eld. This correction is not the same

over the whole of the image, as DxO Optics Pro takes account of the fact that a lens will be sharper in the centre than at the edges, and so

central pixels need less correction than ones near the edge of the eld.

This is one of DxO Optics Pro’s great strengths. An average setting has been dened by DxO Labs, which corresponds to the “−0.5” slider position. You may want to change the basic setting, however: a portrait, for example, can be made slightly softer than the default setting. To reduce overall sharpness correction, move the “Global” slider to the left (note that for negative values of the “Global” slider, the corrected image will always be at least as sharp as the original image, unless you disable this

correction); to increase it, move the slider to the right. If you are using a

lens for which there is no Optics Module available, this subpalette will not be visible, but you can adjust the sharpness manually in the “Unsharp mask” subpalette, which will give a less satisfactory result because, unlike the “Lens softness” subpalette correction, the same correction is applied to all the pixels

Unsharp Mask: this correction can be used in addition to the “Lens

•

softness” subpalette. It affects all the pixels in the image to the same

extent. Because you can add any palette to a workspace temporarily and even create your own, deciding to work in the simplest space, “DxO - First steps”, never pre-

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Checking and correcting lens softness with a display 75% (zoom = 75%)

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Noise, to remove the spurious colors that appear at high ISO values. DxO

•

Optics Pro is extremely effective on RAW les, with additional settings

for correcting luminance noise (too high a level of correction reduces detail sharpness), chrominance (to remove spurious colored lines), and noise in grey shades, whilst a key to remove dead pixels eliminates the tiny points of light that appear with some cameras.

Chromatic aberrations, to automatically remove the color defects caused

•

by a lack of precision in the lens and, by checking the appropriate box, the purple fringing that can appear in starkly back-lit photographs.

4.4.2 “DxO - Essentials” workspace

If you select the “DxO - Essentials” workspace, you will nd the correction options

grouped into the following palettes

“Detail” which includes three of the sub-palettes from the DxO - First

•

steps workspace (sharpness, noise and chromatic aberration)

“Light”, which combines the three sub-palettes described above (expo-

•

sure compensation, DxO Lighting and vignetting)

“Geometry”, which in addition to distortion correction gives you a crop-

•

ping option and more detailed commands for correcting keystoning

“Color”, which you can use to rene white balance and correct vibrancy

•

(different saturation levels for neutral and bright tones), color modes

and color rendering.

Finally, the “Histogram” palette can be used to show areas of the image that are too dark or too light (burnt-out whites) and the RGB values of the pixel at which

Noise correcting with 75% display

the mouse is pointing.

If you have the DxO FilmPack optional module, you can select the type of lm

in the “color rendering” sub-palette, but you will also need to open the “Detail” sub-palette to make adjustments to grain.

For detailed color mode and style settings you can change the color rendering for your camera (your Nikon can take Canon-style photos, and vice versa) and you can choose a portrait or landscape style for a photo or batch of photos.

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4.4.3. “DxO - Advanced user” workspace

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All palettes and sub-palettes are available in the “DxO - Advanced user” workspace, where you can access the most sophisticated and most complex settings. Some settings are effectively duplicated, as you can adjust contrast either with DxO Lighting (black point, white point, gamma), with the tone curve or with the color-mode sub-palette: be careful not to make cumulative or contradictory corrections. The same applies to saturation, which can be changed by using the tone curve for each layer of color, the HSL sub-palette or the vibrancy sub-palette.

4.4.4 Creating your own workspace

DxO Optics Pro offers you a wide range of options for creating a working environment that’s personal to you, for example by creating your own workspace from a combination of existing palettes or customized palettes with the sub-palettes you use most frequently. Please note that the standard workspaces available in DxO Optics Pro cannot be changed.

If you want to create a customized palette (My Palette, chapter 4.5.3), you must save it in a workspace.

create a new customized palette using the “Palettes” dialogue box >

•

“Create user palette” and then name it, for example “RAW palette” ins-

tead of the default “My Palette”.

A RAW workspace, for example, might combine a Histogram, the Preset Editor and the sub-palettes that are useful for processing RAW images in a single palette.

Customized workspace

You can also start the customization process by creating your own personal

palette rst. Once you have created your personal palette, it can only be saved by clicking on “Save workspace”; the workspace can have the same name as

the palette.

NOTE: full palettes can be combined in a workspace, however a

personal palette can only consist of sub-palettes, not of another

full palette.

You can create as many workspaces and personal palettes as you need, however increasing the number of possible settings in this way is not always the best solution: presets can provide multiple correction options completely automatically.

To create a workspace, you can:

click on the “Save workspace” command in the “Workspace” dialogue

•

box and name it (for example, “RAW workspace”),

decide which existing palettes to include in your workspace, by clicking

•

on the “Palettes” dialogue box or by removing open palettes from the DxO Advanced user workspace,

4.5 Detailed information for all settings

You can access the settings palettes from all workspaces using the “Palettes” dialogue box to the top right of the “Customize” tab.

Four palettes allow you to move and enlarge the image (“Move/Zoom”), check the color values in the image and identify any areas that are too dark or too light

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(“Histogram”), view information about the shoot (“EXIF”), and give you access

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to shortcuts for a number of quick settings (“Tools”).

Four other palettes are used for making corrections to your images:

The Light palette includes exposure compensation, which allows you to adjust the exposure after you have taken your shot and eventually restore highlight

details in some RAW images; DxO Lighting, which corrects image contrast intelligently, using local intensity adjustments; vignetting compensation, which corrects the dark areas seen in the corners of some images; and nally tone curve,

which offers very precise control over all luminance levels and for each of the color layers in the image.

The Color palette includes white balance, which allows you to alter the lighting color temperature and tint, with different adjustments for RAW or RGB originals.

You will also nd DxO Optics Pro’s exclusive “Multi-point color balance”, handy for ne adjustments when a scene contains different colored light sources. The

Vibrancy function, on the other hand, brings out the more vivid colors in an image while preserving medium tones, for example for portraits with a vivid background but realistic skin tones. Another important tool gives you a choice of “color ren-

dering” proles. These proles let you apply a specic ‘look’ to your images, from different cameras to traditional lm rendering using the optional DxO FilmPack module, and importing external proles. The palette also includes sliders that

make it simple to adjust hue, saturation and lightness (HSL) and other controls that you can use to assign styles to your images (landscape, as shot, etc.)

The Geometry palette is where you will nd controls for distortion, volume anamorphosis and keystoning/horizon correction. Distortion correction is applied automatically by DxO Optics Pro according to the type of lens used for the pic¬ture and the photographic settings (zoom, aperture, etc.) as long as you

have the appropriate module; otherwise the distortion correction has to be

manually adjusted. Volume anamorphosis correction takes care of the geometric distortion that stretches objects in the corners of wide-angle images. Being subject-matter dependent, this adjustment requires you to set the type and amount of correc¬tion manually whilst viewing the result on the screen. The remaining corrections provide adjustments to compensate for keystoning in both horizontal and ver¬tical planes, image rotation (horizon correction), scaling (image sizing) and HV ratio (stretching/squeezing of horizontal/vertical proportions). Finally,

you can crop your image (if necessary, constraining the proportions to specic

formats). An “auto-crop” process can do the job for you automatically after keystoning adjustments.

The Detail palette brings together all the parameters involved at pixel level. Lens softness correction is applied according to the lens module available and

can be ne-adjusted to suit the subject (a portrait, for example, often needs to

be “softer” than a landscape). The sharpness calculation takes into account the

specic parameters of the lens used. This tool is complemented by a conventional

unsharp mask, essential for images where no lens module exists. The de-noising tool makes it possible to suppress excessive granularity (luminance) and unwanted color artifacts in neutral areas (chrominance). These controls can be adjusted for each image. Chromatic aberrations are eliminated automatically, with the option of suppressing the “purple fringing” introduced by some lenses. Finally, a “dust removal” system lets you specify the position of dust and blemishes on one image and then remove them automatically from a whole batch of pictures.

It is also possible to create your own palette (“My Palette”) by combining the

rollups you use most often in your day-to-day workow. The Preset Editor, which

lets you create or edit presets, is covered in chapter 4.6 of this user guide.

4.5.1 Image checking palettes

4.5.1.1 Move/Zoom palette

The “Move/Zoom” palette displays a small thumbnail of the image displayed in the “IMAGE” pane. A green box on this thumbnail indicates the section of the image currently being displayed. At either end of the zoom slider is a small icon. Clicking on either of these icons respectively decrements or increments

the zoom factor by 1%. The maximum enlargement is 1600%! To the left of the

slider there are also:

A “Fit” button that sets the zoom factor so that the entire image ts in

•

the “IMAGE” pane. It’s important to remember that when displaying at zoom factors below 75%, this preview image does not show some of the corrections to be applied, such as noise reduction, lateral chromatic aberration, dust removal and sharpness processing. When editing the settings for these types of correction, you must zoom in to at least 75% to check the effects and then zoom out to control the image as a whole.

A 100% button that quickly zooms the image to a factor of 100%.

•

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A dropdown arrow that allows you to choose from the predened zoom

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•

factors or directly type in your own factor. To close the dropdown, simply click again on the arrow.

Note that these commands are duplicated in the icon bar of the “IMAGE” pane

TIP: If you have a mouse with a thumbwheel, it will act as a

zoom in/out control, within the same limits as the standard zoom controls. As you turn the thumbwheel you will see the

level of magnication increase on the scale. If you are planning

on producing an A3 enlargement (printout), then view at 75% to get an accurate idea of the result. To see all details in full, zoom in to 100%

4.5.1.2 Histogram palette

The histogram display is a graph showing the number of pixels for each tonal value in the three color channels, with black on the left-hand side and white on

the right. You will nd it very helpful to keep the Histogram palette open while you

are working with the other tools, since it will give you a good idea of exactly how each adjustment is affecting your image. Generally, we may consider that for a properly exposed image – except for subjects that are naturally very dark or very light – the values ought to be distributed across the full width of the histogram.

When adjusting exposure compensation or color balance, it can be helpful to display the clipped areas (i.e. whites that are too transparent or blacks that are totally opaque) directly in the image itself, using the buttons beneath the histogram display.

Representation of highlight areas

These displays are intended to give a temporary pictorial indication of those parts of an image that are “clipped” (i.e. dark areas that have reached minimum black level or light areas that have reached maximum white level). Clicking on the “Highlight clipping” button will display an image where small areas show up black (= highlights where all three color channels are at maximum) or in other colors (= only one or two of the color channels are at maximum).

The reverse happens for the “Shadow clipping” button: in this case, the picture displayed has small white or colored areas that indicate clipping. The middle button (“No clipping”) restores the normal display.

Using the highlight clipping display allows you to make very ne adjustments when performing highlight recovery on a RAW le (see chapter 4.5.2.1): all you

have to do is move the manual slider slowly until there are no more clipped areas visible.

Top, moderate highlight recovery. Below, stronger highlight recovery.

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you if any EXIF data is missing, which might mean that some optical defects

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are only partially corrected. It shows the size of the image, exposure, the date

the shot was taken, focal length, ISO speed rating, whether ash was used, the

aperture, and the lens used.

The EXIF Editor allows you to add Author and Copyright information to the image metadata section.

For lowlights, the display lets you see the exact effect of DxO Lighting, tone curve

or the brightness and contrast controls on any type of le.

To the right of these three icons there is a control line that only appears when you move your mouse pointer over your image: this shows the color at the cursor and its Red, Green and Blue (RGB) values in a small box.

Display of RGB values

4.5.1.3 EXIF palette

4.5.2 Correction palettes

All the correction options available in DxO Optics in the “Advanced user” works-

pace are controlled via ve palettes; the rst of these, “Tools”, provides shortcuts

to certain tools on other palettes. Each of the other palettes considers the image in a “photographic” way. “Light” covers everything about lighting and contrast

in the scene; “Color” allows every possible chromatic modication. “Geometry”

is all about the global structure of the image, whilst “Detail” goes right down to pixel level to deal with sharpness and digital noise control.

NOTE: Certain functions will only be enabled if the correction

module for the lens concerned is available. When this is not

the case, certain corrections will appear disabled and others

will only be congurable for manual adjustment. By the same

token, highlight recovery correction and precise white balance

to °K accuracy can only be applied to RAW les, in which case

additional controls appear.

Lastly, certain silver halide-type grain and color rendering options are only available if you have installed the optional “DxO FilmPack” module. Hence certain screenshots in this chapter illustrate the most complete version of DxO 6, including these optional features.

4.5.2.1 Light palette

The EXIF information palette consists of two parts:

Image properties

•

EXIF Editor

•

The rst shows certain EXIF information written by your camera into the header

of the current image. This information cannot be altered and is saved when you create a corrected copy of your image. It is an important reference and can tell

Natural scenes rarely exhibit ideal lighting conditions. Light sources are often directional and sometimes quite harsh. What’s more, when shooting, we often

tend to concentrate rst and foremost on capturing just the right moment,

without always paying great attention to potential lighting problems. To compound the issue, the dynamic range of camera sensors is simply unable to

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compete with what our eyes can see. All this can result in some shots exhibiting

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under-exposed, dark or shadowed regions with missing or muddied details.

ble via the three buttons beneath the Histogram display (see

chapter 4.5.1).

To a certain extent, such as when the wanted image signal is sufciently above

the noise level of the sensor, lighting problems can be corrected in post-production as long as appropriate image processing is available.

The “Light” palette gives access to all the controls relating to these issues. It has been organized into four rollups:

Exposure Compensation

•

DxO Lighting

•

Vignetting

•

Tone Curve

•

Exposure Compensation

This involves overall control of the image exposure level (note that RAW images offer much greater scope for correction).

The “Correction” menu is only active when a RAW le is being processed and offers you a list of predened automatic exposures prioritizing either the main

subject or highlights.

Centered average measurement optimizes the measurement for the cen-

•

tral subject of the image

Auto-priority highlights offers slight, medium and strong options for

•

highlight recovery

In these exposure modes the exposure slider is positioned automatically. It can also be positioned manually:

moving the slider to the right (or entering a positive Ev number in the

•

edit box) increases the image exposure,

Choosing one of the automatic exposure options can speed up your workow by

providing additional custom settings for this type of shooting situation: usually, “slight” correction is enough for a normally contrasted image. Note that shadows will be automatically compensated when adjusting highlights, as long as the DxO Lighting control (see below) is active at the same time.

Highlight recovery is thus not activated by default, but it is exceptionally efcient at nding average values in skies that appear too white; sometimes the

ground may then appear too dark, at which point DxO Lighting must be adjusted manually beyond its default value.

DxO Lighting

DxO Lighting is a “pixel-precise” image segmentation algorithm that provides automatic local contrast adjustment, thereby revealing hidden detail in dark

areas. Simply put, DxO Lighting rst breaks down the image into a number of

zones in which luminance values have a certain range. It then processes each of these areas in the most effective manner possible to reveal lost detail. In general terms, brightness and tone curve slope are increased slightly in dark areas to bring out detail, while avoiding the signal clipping that can occur if the overall gamma level of the image is adjusted.

The main parameter involves choosing one of the three adjustment options:

Slight (standard choice in default conguration)

•

Medium

•

Strong

•

Then the intensity slider makes it possible to modulate how the chosen correction is applied, by a factor between 0 and 150%. A text box lets you type correction

values in directly. You’ll nd a “magic wand” check-box to the right of the slider:

if you check this, an automatic value is applied by the program. Checking this box also lets you revert to the initial values if you have gone a bit too far with your corrections.

To see the actual effect, look at the four pictures below:

moving the slider to the left (or entering a negative Ev number) reduces

•

it. The range is from + 4.00 Ev to - 4.00 Ev.

TIP: When you are making exposure adjustments, you will nd

it helpful to use the highlight / shadow clipping display availa-

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DxO Lighting advanced settings

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As shot DxO Lighting “Slight”

DxO Lighting “Medium” DxO Lighting “Strong”

In the above examples, you can see that a certain amount of detail has been revealed in shadows, but the highlight areas have been preserved.

Below the Auto Mode dropdown menu there is a dialogue box called “+ Advanced settings +”. If you click on this, an additional correction panel is displayed. Click on “– Advanced settings –” to hide this panel.

The “Black point” and “White point” sliders operate in a complementary fashion. Each has a range from 0 to 255, or you can enter a whole number in the edit boxes instead. These controls have the effect of stretching the image’s lower tonal range up towards white or stretching the upper range down towards black. This is similar in many ways to what might be achieved using a tone curve adjustment and is probably easiest to visualize in conjunction with the Histogram display. The “Magic wand” button activates the automatic settings.

The Brightness adjustment basically acts like an overall gamma control, with the slider and entry box having a range from 0.10 to 10.00. The “Preserve Shadows” feature (checked by default) operates at high positive gamma settings, to avoid

“washed-out” shadows; the program decides to what extent the darker tones

should be “held back” as shadows.

The “Shadow radius” slider / edit box affects the way DxO Lighting makes its decisions about which areas represent shadow or not, and how to apply the gamma locally in the image. This slider has a range from 0 (entirely global) to 15 (fully localized): these arbitrary levels act differently according to the size of the image. By default, the “Preserve Shadows” control is checked to avoid unnatural effects such as a shaded area being lighter than a semi-tinted area. As with other controls, there is a check box to the right of the adjustments that allows you to enable auto-mode or revert to your initial settings after over-zealous correction.

Lastly comes the pair of sliders / edit boxes for Local Contrast (range from 0 to 200%) and Global Contrast (range from +50 to −50%). The Global Contrast control uses a tonal S-curve to affect the overall contrast of the image, with a

useful level adjustment to enhance contrast in slightly at images and reduce

it in more highly contrasting ones – but be careful not to use this control at the same time as the tone curve (chapter 4.5.2.1). The Local Contrast control, on the other hand, is more subtle in its effect, altering the contrast in a spatially

determined way that takes into account the area around each pixel; this gives

a similar result to sharpening but in a subtler way, bringing out detail without

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inserting additional black or white pixels. Take care, however, not to use a large

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increase in local contrast with too much Unsharp Mask (chapter 4.5.2.4). To see the effect of the correction for yourself, zoom in to 100% on a part of the picture

with some signicant small details.

Vignetting

Vignetting correction functions differently and uses separate commands depending on whether or not you have a DxO Optics Module installed on your system.

In the case of automatic correction the DxO correction module type appears

by default when you open the dialogue box; but it is also possible to operate in

manual mode.

Vignetting correction takes place in two steps, both of which can be ne-

tuned.

First, from the lens data, focal length and aperture setting, the DxO

•

correction module computes the attenuation factor for every pixel in the image, and each pixel’s RGB value is multiplied by the inverse of this factor. The “Correction Intensity” slider (range 0 to 100%) allows you to decide how much of the vignetting should be removed from the image.

Second, a lter is applied to avoid clipping in bright areas and noise

•

increase in dark areas. This is achieved by limiting the value by which a pixel can be multiplied, according to its luminance. The effect of this

lter will vary according to image content.

The range of this slider is 0 to 100%. The magic wand button allows you to revert to the automatic setting.

Note: We recommend you do not depart from the default 100%, as the shadow preservation slider is often more effective than the intensity slider in preventing undesirable vignetting correction side-effects. Also, only vignetting caused by the lens or sensor is corrected. Mechanical vignetting, caused for example by too narrow a lens shade, cannot be corrected. In the case of mechanical vignetting, you will want to use the crop tool to remove the unwanted parts of your picture.

If you do not have a DxO Optics Module, you will see the manual correction dialogue box appear. You can also opt for manual correction even if do have an Optics Module but do not want to use the automatic settings.

Intensity is then graduated from zero and allows you to adjust by eye the level of lightening you want in the corners of the image. From “+ Advanced settings

+” “Mid-eld amplication” you can select the area to which the correction will

be applied from the centre of the image. Be careful not to apply over-zealous

correction: the corners of the image should not be lighter than the centre!

Tone Curve

Clicking the “+ Advanced settings +” box gives you access to Shadow / Highlight preservation, which restricts the amount of exposure correction applied by the vignetting corrector at each end of the tonal range, so as to avoid either crushing the shadows or clipping the highlights. For example: if you want to limit the luminance increase (which may reveal unwanted noise) in dark image corners because you shot at a high ISO, shadow preservation limits the degree of correction applied. Likewise, because of vignetting, the camera may have incorrectly

exposed a cloud in the sky. The highlight preservation lter allows you to apply

as much vignetting correction as you want, while still retaining wanted highlight detail.

The tone curve is a very standard and very powerful tool, available in many image processing applications, but it is not easy to master at rst. We recommend you do some tests, to see if you prefer working with the curves, or can

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achieve similar results using DxO Lighting (chapter 4.5.2.1) or the HSL dialogue

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box (chapter 4.5.2.1).

The tone curve shows the relationship between tonal values into the tool (across the x axis) and out of it (up the y axis). The tone curve represents the transfer characteristic, or the way in which input tones are mapped onto output tones:

for example, a mid gray in the original le might appear lighter or darker in the

output after processing, as might colors, since each Red, Green and Blue layer can be corrected independently. Conversely, the initial straight line indicates that the output tonal values are exactly the same as the input values over the entire tonal range.

The input and output black and white points can likewise be set, either by dragging and dropping the relevant points with your mouse, or entering numerical values in the four entry boxes, from 0 (black) to 255 (white).

In order to adjust tone mapping for correction or creative purposes, the straight line is manipulated so as to alter this input/output relationship. In traditional photographic terms, this means altering the gamma of the image, and this gra-

phical approach allows for a great deal of exibility.

Note that the combo box at the top lets you choose to adjust either the Master channel – i.e. all three colors together – or any of the three channels individually. The buttons to the right enable you to reset either the single curve you are working on, or reset all three of them together back to the default straight line.

To control the various zones of the image (light, medium or dark tones), all you have to do is left-click on the line to add points to it.

Note: it may take a bit of practice to click exactly on the point on the line you want to adjust.

As soon as a point is created, it is “locked”. By holding your mouse button down and moving the point you can drag the line around, creating a curve as you do so. You can watch the results of your adjustments in real time on the preview image. One very simple processing option involves moving a point located at the top of the curve (in the highlights) above the diagonal and moving a point located at the bottom of the curve (in the shadows) below the curve: this creates an S-curve, hence the name given to it in all the post-processing literature, and allows you to achieve more marked contrasts.

You can create as many points as you need in order to generate the curve you want. To move a point, simply click on it and drag it to a new location. The active

point is shown lled in black, and inactive ones as hollow white. Likewise, you

can delete the active point using the Delete key.

An alternative to drawing a made-to-measure line is to make a numerical entry of the gamma value. The box at the bottom center is set by default to a gamma

of 1.00, but you can enter any gure between 0.05 and 6.00. A gamma value

higher than 1 tends to bring detail up out of the shadows, whilst a value lower than 1 pushes detail down into the blacks.

An S-curve, so called because of its shape, makes the image contrasty and ‘punchy’

4.5.2.2 Color Palette

White Balance

The light that is used to take a shot seems white to us, but it’s often yellowish (domestic incandescent) or bluish (twilight shadows): the human eye corrects the balance, and digital cameras try to do so automatically. But if the correction isn’t perfect, it’s possible to correct the image so that an area we know is white or neutral regains its natural appearance.

It’s worth noting that the corrections will be more accurate from a photo in RAW format,

though the so-called “color picker” method usually yields good results on all types of les.

Note that the color picker is available from the White Balance control on the Color palette, and also from the “Tools” palette with the same basic functions.

White Balance using the color picker

The color picker lets you dene a color on the image to be reproduced as neutral

gray, with no predominant color.

NOTE: The point chosen as the white reference should be a fairly

light gray tone. Avoid very bright highlights that seem transpa-

rent on the screen, because the results can be unpredictable!

Clicking on the color picker will display two preview images side-by-side, the left-hand image being the original and the right-hand image showing the effect of adjusting the white balance according to the reference point chosen. If you

Page 33

have already chosen to have a side-by-side display for all your corrections, the

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original image will be active for clicking a point with the color picker. A message will appear in the upper left section of the original image instructing you to “Click a point in the image to neutralize its color.”

Simply position your mouse pointer over the required area (you can zoom in to make it easier to select the point precisely) and left-click to balance the whites at this point. At any time, you can re-select “As Shot” (in the dropdown menu of the “White Balance” rollup) in order to cancel the changes and go back to the original white balance setting.

Tip: The ‘Radius’ slider at the bottom of the “IMAGE” pane lets you set the size of the sample zone to be neutralized. In the case of images at high ISO settings, we recommend increasing the ‘radius’ slider setting to 10, to reduce pointing errors.

White Balance using the dialogue box for a RAW le

In the “Settings” dropdown menu there is a list of settings corresponding to those that are most frequently found on digital cameras: daylight, cloudy, sha-

dow, tungsten, uorescent, etc. The “As Shot” line corresponds to the settings in the le’s EXIF data.

If you click on “+Advanced settings+” you can also select a precise level of color

temperature and then ne-time the image’s dominant tint. You can select a

base value in °K (used for measuring color temperature), for example 3,200 for

articial lighting, 2,800 for warm domestic lighting, 5,400 for sunlight or ash,

6,500 for cloudy daylight, etc. Select “As Shot” again from the “Settings” menu to revert to the automatic settings.

White Balance using the dialogue box for a JPEG or TIFF le

A single temperature slider appears when the advanced settings are activated

so that you can make ne adjustments to the average color temperature on the

blue-yellow axis.

EXAMPLE: Imagine that a picture has been taken under tungsten articial light, but with

the camera accidentally set to “daylight”. The resulting image will appear too orange. Moving the slider to the left, towards a lower K value, will be more appropriate for the

articial light actually used and will cool the image, therefore correcting the orange cast.

EXAMPLE: Here in the middle is the picture as shot, and to the left and right, the effects of shifting the color temperature slider left and right respectively.

Vibrancy

The Vibrancy tool is a “smart” color saturation slider.

When the slider has a positive value, Vibrancy acts to:

saturate all colors

•

saturate esh tones less

•

saturate sky tones more, and darken them slightly, to give them greater

•

depth

preserve areas that are already close to gray so as not to provoke a

•

change of color balance.

Vibrancy is adjusted using a single slider, which can also take negative values, producing different effects on the image:

overall desaturation of colors, but never total (unlike the HSL control,

•

where a saturation of zero makes the image B&W)

more rapid desaturation in the reds, which is useful for ‘rescuing’ photos

•

where the faces are too red and making esh tones more natural.

Be careful not to combine excessive vibrancy correction with too high a level of saturation in the “Color rendering” dialogue box.

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Color rendering

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The Color rendering rollup lets you vary the colors compared with the original image. The rendering is different depending on whether the image was shot in RGB or RAW:

in RGB (camera original JPEG or TIFF), the rendering is that produced by

•

the camera and its own specic settings; this rendering may be different

depending on whether you have shot in a style such as “landscape”, “portrait” or even “B&W”, for example.

The color rendering dialogue box also gives you access to silver halide-

type lms and all traditional-style lm modules if you have loaded the optional DxO FilmPack module into DxO Optics Pro; otherwise, simply

leave this unchecked.

in RAW, the basic rendering is the one measured by DxO for a “standard”

•

or “normal” camera setting – we’ll refer to this as the “factory” setting as it’s the one preselected on the camera as supplied.

TIP: The default rendering in DxO Optics Pro tries to replicate

the color rendering that the camera would have generated on a JPEG image, which in general is quite saturated and contrasty. The “Camera” / “Color neutral, tonality neutral” color rendering will produce a more neutral image with a lower level of contrast. (This color rendering is also accessible via the “Natural Color” preset).

In RAW, it is also possible to apply the color rendering of

– another camera: e.g. for a reportage shot using both a Canon and a

Nikon, where you want the images to match, or to give your images

a specic “look” based on the styles specic to certain cameras

– silver halide-type lms This functionality will give you access to a wide

range of lm proles if you have activated DxO FilmPack.

– a particular ICC prole (see below for more detail)

The intensity slider lets you dene the mix between the original prole and custom prole; the normal value is 100.

NOTE: For a RAW le, the intensity slider lets you mix between

the neutral color rendering and the selected color rendering pro-

le (another camera, a silver-halide prole or an ICC prole):

• at 100, this slider gives the selected color rendering

• at 0, this slider gives a neutral rendering, which is not the

same as the “As Shot” rendering; this provides a base for more

personal renderings

• from 0 to 100, you move gradually from the neutral color

rendering to the color rendering selected

• above 100, a color rendering is applied that exaggerates the

tendencies of the selected color rendering. Take care not to go

too far with this slider!

• mixing is not possible when an ICC prole is used.

For an RGB input image (JPEG or TIFF) the slider mixes between the original image and the rendering selected.

The “ICC prole” option allows you to load a specic prole created from a test

image in order to provide a fully customized color rendering.

All you have to do to import an ICC prole is to open the dialogue box by clicking on “ICC prole” and then click the les you want. You can download this type of prole from the Internet or have one created (after exporting a test image: see the “File” menu). Once a prole is loaded it will appear directly in the list of

available settings.

NOTE: This function and that of choosing the color rendering from another digital camera

are not compatible with JPEG les

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Color modes

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This rollup gives you access to basic quick global contrast and saturation settings, which may remain at 0 if, for example, you have already optimized these values with DxO Lighting, the Tone Curve or Vibrancy and to styles you can apply to your photos immediately:

As Shot (default value)

•

Landscape

•

Portrait

•

B&W

•

Sepia toning

•

If the optional DxO FilmPack module has been activated, you can also select

effects lters for B&W and toning styles that reproduce the effects of chemical

treatments on paper prints.

The “Contrast” slider lets you adjust the overall contrast of the image.

The “Saturation” slider lets you move from black and white (−100) to highly saturated colors (+100).

HSL (Hue / Saturation / Lightness)

This rollup gives you very ne adjustment of hue, saturation and lightness, either

for the master channel, or independently for each of the three primary (Red, Green, Blue) and three secondary (Yellow, Cyan, Magenta) color axes.

These settings allow you to make very ne adjustments, because the Hue slider can be moved to the left or right, or a positive or negative gure can be entered

in the edit box. The exact effect of this slider is naturally affected by which color channel(s) you have selected to adjust. The slider and box values range from

+180 to −180. This is a very powerful correction, because you can move the red hues in an image towards green or blue without the grays being affected!

Example of HSL on red

For Saturation, the slider can be moved to the right to increase, or to the left to decrease, the color saturation (overall or on any one or more of the six color

axes), or a positive or negative gure can be entered. The slider and box values range from +100 to −100.

The same goes for the Lightness slider. Move the slider to the right (or enter a

positive gure) to lighten and to the left (or enter a negative gure) to darken. The slider and box values range from +100 to −100.

The action of the Lightness slider is interesting and easy to understand if you look at the results of the changes on the Histogram display. Moving the slider to the right or entering a positive gure lifts the black level towards white, compressing the tonal range into the upper half of the scale. Conversely, moving the slider to the left or entering a negative number brings the white level down towards black, compressing the tonal range into the lower half of the scale. The “As Shot” button cancels any HSL correction. The same applies if you uncheck the correction on the Color palette.

NOTE: If you want to correct several colors at the same time,

we suggest you have something to hand with which you can

take notes on the correction values used for each color layer so

that you can ne-tune a particular correction without having to

start over again: moving a color just a few points can have a

signicant effect!

Multi-point color balance (MPCB)

Multi-point color balance is a hybrid tool that makes it possible to make ne

adjustments to an image’s neutrality following an initial color balance, or to modify one color for creative purposes whilst preserving the variations of the other colors. It can also be used to radically change four different colors in the image – but in that case the results risk departing a long way from a natural look.

To transform a color, you click on the multi-point balance icon, which will display two thumbnails. In the left-hand image you select a colored area of the image and a color wheel is superimposed on it, with a radial line across it that controls

Page 36

the saturation. The hue is changed by turning the wheel, adjusting the saturation

chap10-exif

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of the selected color.

You can temporarily lock the hue by holding down the Ctrl key as you drag the pointer with the mouse, or the saturation by holding down the Shift key. Hue or saturation can also be locked by right-clicking on the color wheel and selecting one of these two options.

4.5.2.3 Geometry Palette

This control can be applied to up to four colors in the image, but if you only want to change one color, it can be effective to click on adjacent colors to protect them from being affected.

TIP: You might want to zoom in to a specic part of your image

to make choosing the exact color point easier. You can zoom after you have clicked on the MPCB icon. Use the “hand” tool to move around and display different portions of the image. One good way to try out this tool and learn how to use it is on blue sky.

The dialogue box displays the original color and the substitution color, whilst the color to be retained for processing can be checked by using the Xs below the two color swatches (“before” at the top and “after” at the bottom). A color can be re-adjusted at any time by clicking in the centre of the selection point in the left-hand image.

The “Radius” slider alters the size of the zone used to calculate the color associated with the color wheel center position (to avoid highly local color variations, such as noise). The “Intensity” slider lets you moderate the transformation applied to the image (a blend between the “identity” correction and the calculated correction). The “Preserve White Balance” command makes it possible to preserve gray tones (checked by default, as it helps to stabilize the result slightly).

NOTE: if the correction module for the lens you used to shoot

the current image is not loaded onto your system, some or

all of these corrections will be disabled or have to be made

manually.

The Geometry palette has been organized into ve rollups, the rst of which only

appears where needed to clarify the information in the EXIF data:

Focal length (only shown where this information is incomplete in the

•

EXIF data)

Distortion

•

Volume anamorphosis

•

Keystoning / horizon

•

Crop

•

Focal length

The focal length of a shot is recorded in the images EXIF data. However, it can happen that this information is not recorded accurately enough (several positions of the focal length ring giving the same value in the EXIF). In this event,

if you are not satised with the default distortion correction proposed, a slider is available that lets you set the focal length exactly, so you can ne-tune the

distortion correction manually.

Distortion

The geometric distortion introduced by a lens may be pincushion, barrel – or even sometimes a mixture of the two. In each case, the analytical measurements carried out by DxO Labs make it possible to correct the distortion in such a way that the straight lines in the original scene are correctly reproduced as straight lines in the photo. The Distortion tool has just one slider for the degree of distortion correction, with a range from 0 to 100%. The default setting is 100%, and you

Page 37

should only depart from this in special circumstances – either to avoid cropping

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of important detail near edges, or for creative reasons.

The “Correction” dropdown menu allows you to select automatic correction based on a DxO Optics Module or manual correction. Only the manual option will be active if you do not have a DxO Optics Module.

If you are working with manual correction, you will need to select the type of distortion:

Fisheye, for lenses that produce a rounding effect on the whole image

•

eld

Barrel, when the distortion at the top or bottom of the image is rounded,

•

and the curve is higher at the centre of the image than at the edges

Pincushion, when the distortion is the other way round

•

the aspect ratio, so the cropping is just the bare minimum required to straighten out the edges of the image. You are then free to crop the image manually to suit your needs.

Volume Anamorphosis correction

There is a fundamental problem when capturing a picture of our three-dimensional (3D) world onto a two-dimensional (2D) image, which is governed by the

basic laws of optics. When converted into a at image, the shapes of certain 3D

objects appear distorted, so they do not correspond to what our eyes and brain expect to see. This is referred to as “volume anamorphosis” and is most noticeable and objectionable when using wide-angle lenses or when it affects foreground objects close to the camera and near the edges of the image.

One of the biggest problems when trying to correct for this distortion is that it is entirely picture-content dependent. And because of the trade-offs involved, how much correction needs to be made is of necessity a subjective, artistic decision that must be made by the user.

Barrel (left) and pincushion (right) distortion

If you are correcting an image with no DxO Optics module by eye, or you want

to ne-tune the results of automatic processing by making manual adjustments,

it is very helpful to display a grid overlay over the image by clicking the grid overlay button to the left of the hand and magnifying glass icons in the icon bar of the “IMAGE” pane.

There is a check box to enable or disable Keep Aspect Ratio. Normally, during distortion correction, the corrected image is re-cropped back to the original aspect ratio. However, in certain cases, this may means that the image is cropped tighter than is strictly necessary. Disabling this option releases this constraint on

This deformation is most evident with 3D objects near the camera, and the correction required depends on their underlying shape. Basically cylindrical objects

(for example, columns or full-length human gures) need correction along one

axis more than another, which we refer to as cylindrical correction (in one direction only, either horizontal or vertical). Spherical objects (e.g. a human head) need correction on both axes at once. We refer to this as spherical correction and it is actually calculated along a radius from the center of the picture. Both of these corrections are dependent on the focal length of the lens used to take the particular picture.

The volume anamorphosis correction rollup contains a dropdown menu to select either spherical or cylindrical correction and a Radial Intensity correction slider. The slider takes values from 0 to 200% and allows you to control how much of the selected correction is applied to this image.

To adjust this setting, you rst need to examine the image and decide what

sort of correction is required. Choose the appropriate type of correction for the picture content that needs correcting, and then apply as little correction as possible to render the residual distortion acceptable. Over-correction will start to introduce unwanted geometric distortion and you may have to settle for the best compromise. Using a grid overlay over the image to make your corrections is also very helpful.

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Keystoning / Horizon

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Selecting the Horizon option (the line button above the slider for the Horizon

tool) lets you dene a line in the picture that you want to correct so as to be horizontal (or vertical). To do this, you rst create one end point by clicking with

the mouse in the left-hand (preview) image, then hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor to the other edge of the image. As soon as you release

the mouse button, a second point is set and denes your horizon line, which is

shown in bright green on the preview image.

The right-hand (“after”) image will rotate in such a way as to make your chosen line horizontal (or vertical). If you make a mistake, you can click on Undo [Ctrl + Z] and then reset your second end-point. A slider and numeric entry box allow you to make corrections to 1/100 of a degree.

The Horizon slider has a range from −180° to +180°, enabling the image to be rotated completely upside-down at either extremity of the scale. This tool is also useful for correcting leaning verticals.

At the top of the expanded rollup are buttons to control keystoning using either parallels or a rectangle.

If you select Force Parallel, you will see two images displayed side-by-side; then

simply draw two lines (which you know were parallel in the original scene) on the image to realign and reset the picture. The Rectangle tool can be used in the same way to draw a box where you want each side to be parallel to the one opposite.

Note: these commands can also be accessed via the shortcuts on the Tools menu

The pair of “Up/Down” and “Left/Right” sliders give you additional ne control for

adjusting vertical or horizontal keystoning correction, with both sliders having a

range of −125 to +125. Also note that you can type in a value instead of using

the sliders for even more precise control of these functions.

TIP: Using the “Toggle Grid Overlay” button in the middle of

the toolbar can help make it easier to adjust the squareness of the shot.

Correcting horizontality

If you click on “+ Advanced Settings +”, the “Keystoning / Horizon” correction rollup will expand to display additional button and slider controls.

The “Scale” slider lets you resize the image while maintaining all the proportions associated with it. The default value is 100%, and you can reduce the size to 50% or increase it to 200%.

The “Horizontal / Vertical ratio” slider lets you stretch or squeeze the height of

your image while keeping the width unchanged. The scale runs from −100 to

+100, which represents from 50% to 200% of normal height. Using this tool will change the visual proportions of the subjects in your picture.

Crop

Complex keystoning correction

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An image whose keystoning has been altered generally loses some information

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at the edges – a great deal more if the correction is very signicant. By default,

the “Crop” box is set to “Auto” mode, and cropping is performed based on the corrections under “Keystoning / Horizon”, and the aspect ratio defaults to “Unconstrained”, so as to retain as much information as possible, though at the expense of image proportions compared with the original image.

If you select the “Preserve aspect ratio” option the image will be resized so as to retain its original aspect ratio, for example 3/2 or 4/3 (indicating the relationship between the long and short sides).

You can add a custom ratio to the list of available ratios, for example 5/4 to replicate the American 10” × 8” (25 × 20 cm) format or the classic 5 × 4 inch results from traditional large-format cameras. A 1/1 ratio naturally implies a square crop. Custom ratios can only consist of whole numbers separated by a fraction bar.

If you select manual cropping, you will see a dotted crop box appear on the image that you can move and resize using your mouse. The box will be in the shape of the ratio you have chosen, e.g. square for a 1/1 ratio, or a rectangle of different proportions for a 3/2, 2/3 ratio, etc. You can change the size of the crop box by clicking on the squares in the corners with your mouse.

To adjust a crop you can also click on the Crop tool button. Once Crop has been enabled, you can select a point in the image, hold down the left mouse button and drag to create a resized crop box that appears as a black rectangular frame within the image. By clicking on and dragging the corners of the rectangle you can adjust the size of the crop. Clicking on the borders of the crop will allow you to move the crop box and clicking on an area outside of the crop will remove the crop box and allow you to create a new rectangle.

4.5.2.4 Detail palette

Lens softness

DxO Optics Pro can only correct for certain kinds of lens softness (lack of shar-

pness) – the inherent inability of the lens/camera combination to reproduce ne

detail (commonly referred to as “optical blur”). Other kinds of softness, caused

by inaccurate focusing, insufcient depth of eld or motion blur, for example,

cannot be corrected.

This forms part of the DxO Optics Pro optical corrections, and as such, is lensand-body dependent. As a result, this rollup will only be enabled for images for which the appropriate DxO correction module is installed. There is a check box to disable this correction.

NOTE: if you use RAW formats for your photos, the automatic

system is generally the best option, because it takes account of

the characteristics of both your lens and your sensor. For JPEG

images, however, it is important not to increase the sharpness

of a shot that has already been sharpened by the camera. Get

into the habit of not over-crispening your JPEG photos when you

intend to post-process them – for example by using a neutral

mode when shooting.

The “Global” slider allows you to manually set the overall level of sharpness required for a particular image. Remember that this tool tries to achieve a uniform level of sharpness over the whole image, so it will automatically apply heavier correction to the areas of your image where lens measurements are poorer. The sharpness level you choose to apply will of course depend on your personal taste,

nal resolution and type of output (print, web, etc.)

The slider / edit box range is in units from −2.0 to +2.0 (from “Softer” to

“Sharper”), with a default setting of 0, which is the lens softness setting that has been determined by DxO Optics Pro as the best setting for this particular image.

Moving the slider to the left or entering a negative value will reduce the sharpening (but the image will never become softer than the original image). Moving

Note: The corrections in this palette will not be visible in the “Customize” tab below 75%, so when performing advanced corrections you may need to zoom in (the quickest solution being to select the 100% option).

the slider to the right or entering a positive value will give a sharper image than the correction obtained at the 0 position. The sharpening applied in DxO Optics Pro is intelligent in that it depends on the image content. Areas with noise are sharpened less than areas containing detail.

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For each area in the image, the amount of sharpening will also depend, for

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example, on the ISO settings used to take the picture. Less sharpening is automatically applied at a higher ISO than a lower ISO, to avoid increasing the noise in the image.

Automatic lens softness optimization in a corner of the image (displayed at 100%)

The “Detail” slider is set at 0 by default and is used to make signicant adjustments to bring out the micro-contrast of ne details in the image, taking account of the fact that it is often very rewarding to bring out ne detail in a landscape,

whilst emphasizing skin defects in a portrait is less desirable. Note that enhancing details in this way does not create white edges around the areas treated, unlike the “Unsharp Mask” option.

The “Unsharp Mask” rollup is disabled by default. It is usually only needed on

RAW les (where no DxO Optics Module is available), as JPEG les have been crispened in the camera itself. For a RAW le with no DxO Optics module avai-

lable, it is often necessary to adjust it by eye (zooming in to view the image at 75% or 100%), using the following values as a starting point: intensity 100, radius 0.5, threshold 4.

The Intensity slider / edit box sets the degree of sharpening correction applied,

with a range from −100 to 500 (negative values make the image softer whilst

positive values make it sharper). In practice, a value of 200 gives a very good level of sharpness on a photo taken with a good lens. The Radius slider / edit

box has a range of units from 0.10 to 5.00. This control affects the neness of

the width of the correction zone surrounding image detail. Low values (lower than

1) will give very subtle correction, whilst over-use of high values can lead to the formation of haloes. In practice it is unusual to have to go above 2.

The Threshold sets the amplitude (in terms of gray levels) of the transitions in the image above which correction will occur. With the threshold set to 0, sharpening is applied to all transitions in the image, even the lower contrast ones (but digital noise in particular is also emphasized). With a threshold of 255, there would not be any sharpening. In practice, the threshold can be adjusted between 5 and 10 on a slightly burnt-out image.

It is therefore recommended that you perform as much of your sharpening as possible using the Lens Softness correction before using the Unsharp Mask (USM) which, although it is a sophisticated and adaptive tool, is a more generalized process. Of course, for images where the appropriate DxO Optics Module is not installed, all sharpening will have to be done using the USM.

TIP: if you often use lenses – for example, older models – for

which no DxO module exists, you can create a preset for yourself named after these lenses using the Unsharp Mask settings described below.

Unsharp Mask

Manual crispening (displayed at 100%) for an older lens (1970) for which there is no DxO

Optics Module

Grain

This rollup only appears if the optional DxO FilmPack module has been installed.

When the Grain box is checked and DxO FilmPack is installed, you can apply

the lm grain characteristics of several types of lm to your image. By clicking on the dropdown box, you can choose to stay with the current color prole or

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one of the lm proles provided. The slider below the dropdown box allows you

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to adjust the intensity of this effect. There is also a direct entry box so you can specify the intensity you want, from 0 to 100. The intensity slider allows you to increase or reduce the level of graininess in the processed image. Do note that in order to preview the effect of this tool on your image, you must display it with a zoom factor of at least 75%.

By clicking on the dropdown menu, you can specify predened and custom

output format sizes for your image. You can also adjust the output size of the

processed image to automatically t the size of the current crop settings. An

“Adjust Size to Current Crop” box automatically adjusts the size of the grain to suit the current crop settings.

Noise

DxO noise suppression is a calibrated correction – in other words, the correction

algorithm is specically tailored for each camera, and therefore this correction

will only be performed for images from cameras that have been calibrated by DxO Labs. In the case of a shot taken with a camera that is not supported by DxO Optics Pro, the “Noise” rollup will not appear in the “Detail” palette.

Noise suppression is more effective on a RAW le than on a JPEG le that

has already been processed with the noise reduction level used at the time of shoo¬ting. Excessive noise reduction when shooting in JPEG will remove detail that it will not then be possible to recover subsequently.

Both the Luminance and Chrominance settings are accessible via a slider and entry box, which means you can alter the default values: these vary depending

on whether the le is RAW or JPEG, the camera model, and the ISO speed rating

used when shooting.

To see the corrections and appreciate the effects of the adjustments you can make using the sliders, remember that it is essential to display the image with a

zoom factor of at least 75%; a 100% zoom will bring out more of the ne details

but may lead you to make over-zealous corrections, as a tiny defect that is visible at 100% is generally barely discernible when enlarged on paper. Simply click the magic wand icon to revert to the default values.

Example of automatic setting for a RAW le at 6,400 ISO

Example of manual setting for a RAW le at 25,600 ISO

The degree of Luminance noise correction can be set using the slider / edit box, with a range from 0 to 100%. Luminance noise shows up as a graininess that blurs image details, and the automatic correction is programmed to remove this grain almost completely. On the other hand, certain surfaces that might exhibit a pleasing natural graininess might appear too “smooth”. Reducing the

luminance correction by adjusting by eye on the screen (100% magnication) can be a good way of nding the best compromise. A certain minimum level of

grain increases the subjective perception of sharpness.

The degree of Chrominance noise correction can be set by using the slider / edit box, with a range from 0 to 100%. This is useful for reducing or eliminating

color noise (speckles of spurious color, e.g. yellow on esh tones or blues on

gray tones) to which the eye is particularly sensitive, and you can use higher settings with little risk of unwanted side effects, though lower levels of correction are available.

If you open “+ Advanced settings +”, you will have access to gray correction (enabled by default) and removal of dead pixels (disabled by default).

The “Gray Correction” slider / entry box has a range from 0 to 100%. This makes it possible to “clean up” unwanted color from mid-tones and has the effect of

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slightly de-saturating neutral tones around mid-gray, to minimize spurious color

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effects in these sensitive areas.

TIP: You will probably be able to leave this correction at the

default setting unless you notice the effect it can have of de-saturating certain pastel tones.

Finally, a checkbox enables a special “Remove dead pixels” algorithm to eliminate “dead pixels” – sensor elements that, for whatever reason, fail to record the incident light correctly, showing up as bright spots on the image. You can leave this box checked all the time, as this phenomenon can occur on many cameras at a very high ISO setting, even though it is invisible at lower speed ratings.

If you click on “+ Advanced settings +”, you will see a further panel with additional settings. Click on “- Advanced settings -” to hide this panel.

Dust

This anti-dust tool allows you to “paint” a line (whose thickness can be adjusted) or to position a dot (of variable diameter) over a dust shadow or blemish detail you want to erase. Of course, once you erase dust and blemishes on one image, you can make a preset from these settings and reuse it on other images.

To use the Dust tool, follow these steps:

Open the “Dust” rollup and click on the tool. Two copies of the image

•

appear side-by-side; the tool is enabled at a zoom of 75% or more.

Using the blue circle cursor, position a dot or line or draw a mask where

•

the dust or blemish is located. Don’t forget to zoom in to the image to

make masking of the dust or blemish easier. The width of the dust pen

can be adjusted with a slider that appears beneath the left-hand image.

The dust is removed on the “after” image.

If you wish to remove a correction, simply select the blue mask with the

•

Dust tool enabled. The mask will turn dark blue: remove it by pressing

the “Del” key..

To delete all masks, use the “Reset” button

•

Chromatic Aberration

When you rst click on the dust tool, two images will be displayed in the “IMAGE”

pane. The left-hand one is the “before” image and the right-hand one the “after”.

Each blue dot on the original image will be corrected in the processed image.

Lateral chromatic aberration (e.g. magenta or green fringes alongside a straight line) is only corrected if the appropriate DxO Optics Module is available.

Whether or not the appropriate DxO module is loaded, there are two manual adjustments available for correcting chromatic aberration. To the right of them are magic wand icons so that you can revert immediately to the automatic or recommended value settings.

The rst “Intensity” slider / edit box, with a range from 0 to 200, adjusts

•

the correction intensity for all types of chromatic aberration: this basically

affects tiny colored transitions, which may generally be assumed to be

the result of chromatic aberration rather than actual picture content.

The second “Size” slider / edit box, with a range from 0 to 12 arbitrary

•

units, adjusts the width of the colored fringe that will be suppressed: this

basically affects the way DxO Optics Pro decides what is considered to

be chromatic aberration that needs to be corrected and what is wanted

picture content.

The Purple fringing correction just has a checkbox to enable or disable it and is particularly useful when this defect is visible on edges in backlit images (e.g. tree branches).

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For all of these corrections, you are advised to select a 100% display or larger in

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order to see the effect of the corrections in detail. However, even if you do not change the default values, it is useful to check the “Purple fringing” checkbox for all backlit shots taken with lenses that commonly display these defects, or even create a preset for systematically correcting it.

Note: Overall chromatic aberration correction must be enabled for this function to become available.

Before After

4.5.2.4 Tools Palette

4.5.3 My Palette

My Palette is the generic name for an extra palette that you can freely create or customize in addition to or in place of the palettes available in the DxO Optics Pro workspaces. Once you have worked with the program for a while you will probably notice that there are some controls that you use more often than others.

Instead of opening a whole series of palettes, you can create your own custom one. In the “Palettes” dropdown menu to the right of the “Customize” tab and underneath the “Workspace” dialogue box, simply select “Create user palette”. A “My Palette” palette is created by default but can easily be renamed. Remember

that to access all available commands you rst need to select the “DxO Advanced

user” workspace.

Simply drag the rollup you need from any correction palette: a duplicate of this rollup will appear in My Palette, which you can then use in exactly the same way as the original. The original has not disappeared, it’s just that an alias has been installed in My Palette.

You can repeat this operation with more rollups to build the perfect set of tools for your needs. Conversely, you can clear My Palette of rollups you don’t need any more by dragging them away from it. From this point on, it’s perfectly possible, for work that follows a pattern you are used to, to normally use just one correction palette... that you’ve put together to suit yourself.

NOTE: To save your custom palette(s), you need to save them in

a personal workspace (see Chapter 4.4.4) as it is not possible to

alter DxO Optics Pro workspaces by adding palettes to them.

4.6 Presets

The “Tools” palette consists solely of a number of icons that provide a shortcut to several rollups included in the correction palettes. They have exactly the same function:

the Crop icon equates to the “Crop” rollup in the “Geometry” palette

•

the Dust Removal Tool icon equates to the “Dust” rollup in the “Detail”

•

palette

the Horizon, Force parallel and Rectangle icons equate to the “Keystoning

•

/ Horizon” rollup in the “Geometry” palette

The Multi-point color balance tool equates to the “Multi-point color

•

balance” rollup in the “Color” menu

the color picker icon equates to the “White balance” rollup in the “Color”

•

palette.

4.6.1 What is a preset?

A preset describes the correction settings to be applied to images in the Project when they are displayed in the “Customize” tab or during processing. A preset is automatically applied to each image added to a Project.

DxO Optics Pro is supplied by default with a number of presets (described below) but you can also create custom presets for yourself. The “preset” function is a powerful tool that allows you to quickly apply a combination of settings (supplied with DxO Optics Pro or ones you have created yourself) to one or more images, without getting into the detail of the correction rollups.

By using presets, you can apply your preferred settings to achieve the kind of

result you want and then work on each image individually to ne-tune corrections

and adjustments that perhaps need to be done on an image-by-image basis.

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Some settings are only available for RAW images: presets that affect these

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settings are agged “(RAW only)” to warn you that they will not produce the

expected effect on input images that have not been shot as RAW images.

Finally, a preset can include all or just some of the correction settings available in DxO Optics Pro. This principle is illustrated below with the presets supplied with the software.

4.6.2. Presets supplied with the software

Around 20 presets are supplied with DxO Optics Pro. These are accessible from the dropdown menu to the right of the “Add to Project” button in the “Select” tab, or by right-clicking on the thumbnails in the “PROJECT” pane, or via the “presets” dropdown menu in the “Customize” tab. These are described below:

4.6.2.1 Direct-access presets:

DxO Default v2 preset – This basic preset is applied by default to all

•

images imported into DxO Optics Pro, unless you select another preset during the photo-selection stage. It contains all the basic corrections, as long as you have the necessary DxO Optics Modules:

LIGHT: Lighting set to Slight auto; Vignetting set to auto.

COLOUR: Color rendering unchanged for processing JPG images, and default camera color rendering set by manufacturer for processing RAW images.

GEOMETRY: Distortion set to auto.

DETAIL: Lens Softness activated and ‘Global’ slider set to –0.5 (i.e.

average correction) with ‘Detail’ slider set to 50; Chromatic Aberration

set to auto (with lateral chromatic aberration acti¬vated) and DxO Noise set to auto.

All other corrections are disabled in this preset.

NOTE: In the “Select” tab, it is always the most recent preset

selected that appears when you start a session, not the DxO Default v2 preset.

DxO Default v2 – Neutral Color (RAW only) – This preset is identi-

•

cal to ‘DxO Default v2’ except for the color rendering, which has lower saturation and contrast in order to reproduce the scene more faithfully. This is only relevant for RAW images, and is particularly suitable for professional photographers.

DxO Default – Original (v1) – This preset used to be the default preset

•

up to DxO Optics Pro version 6.2. It differs from ‘DxO Default v2’ in that

the Lens Softness ‘Global’ and ‘Detail’ sliders are both set to 0.

No correction – This preset disables all DxO Optics Pro corrections. Of

•

course, when applied to a RAW image, DxO Optics Pro still takes care of

RAW conversion (with the basic settings for the camera).

Note: the “DxO default v2”, DxO Default v2 – Neutral Color (RAW only), DxO Default

– Original (v1) and “No correction” presets are the only settings in the software that affect all the settings for a particular image.

4.6.2.2 Presets in folders

DxO Optics Pro includes three sub-directories containing specic presets:

“color and contrast adjustment”, which contains presets that only affect

•

settings for image color and light corrections

“noise adjustment”, which contains presets that only affect settings for

•

correcting image detail

“geometry adjustment”, which contains presets that only affect settings

•

for correcting image geometry

These presets therefore only affect a certain number of settings. When the user uses these when importing images into a project, the settings that are not affec¬ted by the presets are set to the DxO Default v2 preset value (to continue

to benet from all the automatic corrections offered by the software).

The “Color and contrast” folder includes 12 different presets:

•

Natural colors (RAW only): Produces natural colors to render the

colors in a scene as faithfully as possible. Suitable for most RAW photos

if you prefer a fairly natural color rendering.

Realistic color variation 1, 2, and 3 (RAW only): These three presets

offer three other color rendering variations to produce colors to your

taste.

Highlight recovery – slight (RAW only): Recovers the detail availa-

ble in large burnt-out areas and maintains a generally pleasing level of

contrast. Suitable for high-dynamic-range scenes with highlights that

are burnt out but contain useful detail (cloudy sky, snow elds, wedding

dress, candles, an open re, etc.)

Highlight recovery – medium (RAW only): Recovers more detail

available in large burnt-out areas and maintains a generally pleasing

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level of contrast. Suitable for high-dynamic-range scenes with highlights

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that are burnt out but contain useful detail (cloudy sky, snow elds, wedding dress, candles, an open re, etc.)

dows. Suitable for all photos taken in low light or at high speed or a

combination of the two. Night and action shots and indoor photos without

ash.

Highlight recovery – strong (RAW only): Recovers all the detail available in large burnt-out areas and maintains a generally pleasing level of contrast. Suitable for high-dynamic-range scenes with highlights

that are burnt out but contain useful detail (cloudy sky, snow elds, wedding dress, candles, an open re, etc.)

General – Vivid colors: A “creative” preset for vivid colors and high contrast. Suitable for landscapes, architecture, still life compositions and nature photos if you prefer marked contrasts and saturated colors.

General – Negative colors: Reverses the colors in a photo to give it the appearance of a negative

Landscape – Postcard: Increases color saturation and contrast. For landscape and travel photos if you want to boost colors and contours, as on postcards.

Landscape – Lowkey: Reduces the overall level of exposure while increasing contrast. Very effective for urban landscapes, industrial buildings or “distorted” nature photos.

Landscape – Highkey: Drastically reduces the density of a photo whilst preserving detail and highlights. Useful for misty landscapes, photos of the sea in the morning, or romantic portraits.

The “Geometry adjustment” folder offers two different presets:

•

Group portrait – restore face proportions: Restores the proportions

of faces that appear distorted away from the image centre. For group

photos taken using a wide-angle lens with multiple faces right across

the image.

Group portrait – restore body proportions: Restores the proportions

of bodies that look distorted and fatter at the edges of the image. For

group photos taken using a wide-angle lens with several people standing

next to each other in a line.

4.6.3 Applying presets

There are several ways of applying a preset to an image:

when you add an image to the project (from the dropdown menu to the

•

right of the “Add to project” button in the “Select” tab)

by right-clicking on a thumbnail in the “PROJECT” pane at any time

•

from the “Presets” dropdown menu on the icon bar in the “Customize”

•

tab

from the “Preset Editor” palette

•

When you add images to the project, any settings not affected by the chosen preset are set to the DxO default v2 preset value.

When you apply a preset to an image already in the project, a dialogue box opens to ask you whether the selected preset should be applied:

in addition to the image’s current settings (handy if you want to preserve

•

Preset Landscape Postcard

The “Noise adjustment” folder offers two different presets:

•

Color anti-aliasing (RAW only): Eliminates areas of colored moiré. Very appropriate for photos of clothing with regular patterns or any other

objects with a ne, regular structure. Also ideal for photos of hair, fur or

feathers.

High ISO – noise reduction: At very high ISO settings, the best compromise between noise reduction and preserving detail and dark sha-

the effects of your previous settings on the image: for example, you

may have adjusted the image’s white balance manually and now want

to apply the High ISO – noise reduction preset)

in addition to the DxO Default v2 preset (useful if you want to reset all

•

settings to their “DxO Default v2 preset” default values and then apply

the preset you have selected)

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4.6.5 “Preset Editor” palette

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This section describes how the “Preset Editor” works: this palette is available in the “Advanced user” workspace.

4.6.5.1 Creating a new preset

TIP: The shortcut Ctrl + Z in Windows or CMD + Z on a Mac

lets you undo the immediately-preceding preset application and revert to the previous setting.

4.6.4 Creating presets

There are several ways of creating presets:

Via the “Create preset based on current settings” function, accessible

•

by right-clicking on a thumbnail in the “PROJECT” pane or from the “Presets” dropdown menu in the “Customize” tab: all the settings associated with the image will be saved in a preset that you can then name and save in a directory or sub-directory of the “Presets” directory. The preset you have created will affect all setting values.

Via the “Preset Editor” palette, cf. section 4.6.5.

•

If you are a new user, we recommend you use the rst of these options for

creating your presets.

To create your own preset, rst click on the “Preview / Edit” command and then

the “New preset” icon in the command bar at the top of the editor. Name your preset by right-clicking on the name “New preset” in the list that appears in the directory tree.

At the moment this preset does not contain any settings, so you need to go into “Edit” mode.

You can also create a preset based on the settings for the current image by clicking on the icon in the upper right-hand corner of the “Preset Editor” palette. In this case, editing the preset is optional.

4.6.5.2 Editing

This involves deciding which corrections you want to include in your preset and the value for each setting.

Select a preset from the list in the “Preset Editor” palette and then click on the “Preview / Edit” button. A vertical bar of orange boxes is displayed to the left of each rollup. If you click the orange box next to a particular rollup, the settings for that rollup will be included in your preset. Don’t forget to check whether the rollup in question is active (the checkbox in front of the name of the palette must be checked).

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Settings for any rollups that are not checked will not be active (in the following

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example, which is designed for sunny landscapes, noise reduction would not be of any use, so you would not click the orange box for this rollup). For each setting included in your preset, you can either retain its automatic values or assign a

predened value of your own.

You can create as many presets as you want, le them in folders and then import

them into other versions of DxO Optics Pro and export them to share with other users of the software.

4.6.5.3 Applying a preset

When you select a preset you can see how it will change the current image by clicking on the “Preview / Edit” button. To apply it to the current images you are processing (a single image, a stack, or a selection), click on the “Apply” button. Remember that you can call up a preset (but not change it) by right-clicking on a thumbnail.

4.6.5.4 Canceling the application of a preset

If after checking you decide you have applied a preset wrongly and you want to undo its effects, whether this preset was called up from the main dialogue box in the “Customize” tab or by right-clicking on an image or stack, all you have to do is open the “Edit” menu and click on “Cancel” to delete the preset from your selection. The ‘Redo’ command has the reverse effect and will re-apply the preset to your image.

TIP: The shortcut Ctrl + Z in Windows or CMD + Z on a Mac

lets you undo the immediately-preceding preset application and

revert to the previous setting.

4.6.5.5 Details of commands in the Preset Editor palette

The following icons appear in the top section of the “Preset Editor” palette. From left to right, these are:

New Folder – allows you to create folders in which you can group

•

similar types of presets. By doing this, you can create custom groupings

Once you have nished editing, save your preset by clicking “Save” and click on

“Preview / Edit” to exit the edit mode and remove the bar of orange boxes.

Don’t forget to click on the “Apply” button to associate this preset with your image. Otherwise, you will have edited and saved a preset but not applied it to your image.

The commands you checked in the orange boxes will be included in the preset. Commands that were not checked will remain unchanged when you apply your preset.

of presets to suit the way you work, for example, by type of camera

used, high speed rating, landscape rendering, portrait, etc.

Note: You can move a preset to a different folder using drag-and-drop.

New Preset – allows you to create an “empty” preset, i.e. one that

•

does not contain any settings. You will then need to edit your new preset.

If you select a folder before you create your preset, it will be created in

this folder.

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Copy – this lets you start off from an existing preset to create a

toc12

•

variant, which you can rename and modify. You will need to use this method if you want to create variants of a locked DxO preset.

Delete – the selected preset or folder will be deleted.

•

Import – this button lets you import presets created previously in

•

other versions of the software, or available on another computer, in order to use them in DxO Optics Pro 6. Clicking on the Import icon will open a

directory tree that will allow you to nd the le(s) you want to import.

Export – you can export the preset to a directory for copying onto

•

another computer or sending to a friend via e-mail.

creates a new preset with the settings of the currently previewed

•

image.

In the main list, you’ll see that in front of each folder is a “+” (a triangle on the Mac version). By clicking on the “+”, the sub-folders will expand just like a tree directory in Windows Explorer.

If you click on the New Folder icon, a new presets folder will be created. By clicking on the new folder’s name you can rename or delete it. Depending on how you name your new folder, it will be automatically placed above or below the default preset folder. We would recommend that you give your folders meaningful names so you can remember how you have your presets grouped. Your folder can be renamed, just like any system folder, but don’t forget that if you delete it to reorganize your presets, you will also be deleting the presets it contains: as a precaution, it is a good idea to export all your presets to a back-up directory

on an external hard drive or USB key!

If you rst select a folder and click on the New Preset icon, a “+” will appear to the left of the folder name if this is the rst le you have created in this folder.

Otherwise, a new preset with a default name will be created in the folder.

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Chapter 5

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“Process” tab

The rst time you process your images with the program, it will automatically

generate copies in a high-quality JPEG format in the same directory where the

original shots were saved; if your photos were saved in a number of different

directories, you can opt to have a “DxO Optics Pro 6” folder created in each one. Later on you will learn to create a number of output formats depending on the use you want to make of them: images for the web, high-quality TIFF

enlargements, digital archives for later nishing with Photoshop in the Adobe

DNG format, etc.

To start processing, simply click on the “Start processing” button. A progress bar shows how you how far the process has progressed and the icons on the thumbnails on the photos switch in turn from “To be processed” (blue star) to “Processed” (green tick).

The choices to be made in terms of processing involve deciding on output formats and the folders where the images will be saved. To access this command click on the “Show output settings panel” button or the vertical separation bar to the left of the image: the various output settings will appear to the left of the main pane.

“Process” tab

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5.1 “Process” tab commands

toc12

The top part of the “Process” tab is divided into two areas as soon as you click on the “Show output settings panel” button or on the left-hand vertical separation bar, whilst the “PROJECT” pane remains in the bottom section of your screen

(unless you have made it oating). In the “Output settings” pane you can dene

how the corrected versions of your images are generated and into which directory

they will be copied; unlike many other batch-processing operations, DxO Optics

Pro lets you generate several copies of your images in a single pass, e.g. a DNG or 16-bit TIFF output for subsequent highly sophisticated retouching, a JPEG for quick prints on an ink-jet or photographic printer and another JPEG already res¬caled for the web or an image-hosting site such as Flickr.

You can create as many output settings as you want, provided you give them all different names (for example, JPEG HQ, JPEG medium, JPEG web, etc.) Note that saving to DNG (Digital Negative Format, © Adobe) is only possible for RAW

les.

5.2 JPEG output formats

The JPEG format is designed for les that will be printed in photo processing labs

and photos that will be printed online or sent by e-mail.

Input le formats Output le formats

JPEG JPEG, TIFF (8-bit)

TIFF

RAW JPEG, TIFF (8 ou 16-bit), DNG

A copy of the corrected image will be generated for each output setting, for every image in the batch. A summary of all the available output settings is shown, and you can check the ones you want to enable for this processing session. You must have at least one output format active for processing to begin.

If you change any of the output settings after you have already started processing the images in your project, DxO Optics Pro will ask you whether you want to re-process the images that have already been completed.

To create a new output setting, click on the “Create a new output setting” icon to

the right of the heading on the “Output settings” palette. The rst time you use

the software there will only be one JPG output setting available, called “Untitled 1”. Every time you click on the icon to create a new output setting, a new dialo-

gue box will be generated: you can open this by clicking on the arrow to the left;

this must be checked for the box to be active. First of all, give your new output setting a name. Then select the basic settings and any advanced settings you want by expanding the “Advanced options”.

The rst thing you must do is to select an output format (JPEG, TIFF or DNG)

to show the settings available, as these vary depending on the format you choose.

JPEG, TIFF (8 or 16-bit depending on input)

5.2.1 Quality

Now select the degree of compression and hence the quality of the output format.

(The size of the image les depends on this option: the higher the quality, the larger the output les). As JPEG is a destructive format, it is better to opt for high

quality (e.g. 90) and a smaller image size than applying a very high compression rate (e.g. 30) on a maximum-size image.

5.2.2 Destination

Images are sent to their source directory by default, but you can also specify a

destination folder. You can choose to place the output les in the same folder as the input les or browse to a specic folder you have created for your processed

images (e.g. DxO outputs).

Note that the directory le path can be absolute (for example, “C:\Photos\Output

DxO Optics Pro”) or relative (“Output DxO Optics Pro”). In the case of an absolute path, all the corrected images will be saved in a single directory even if the source images were split across several different directories. In the case of a relative path, the corrected versions of the images will be found in a sub-directory of the input directory, which helps to keep the corrected images “close” to the source images: the same number of sub-directories will be created as there are source directories (i.e. the directories in which the source images are saved).

If you do not specify an output directory, the corrected images will be saved in the same directory as the source images.

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5.2.3 Sufx

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5.2.7 ICC Prole

DxO Optics Pro adds a sufx to the original le name, by default “DxO” or any other character string you choose. This sufx is essential in the case of JPEG les

if you are going to place the corrected images in the same folder as the originals of the same format, to ensure you don’t delete them in error. If your images

come from a RAW le, the software will automatically add a “_raw” sufx to the le name unless you have changed your preferences in the program.

5.2.4 Size

You can select the output image dimensions by clicking on the “Allow image

resampling” command. If you ll in the box for the largest dimension (length

or width, in pixels or centimeters), the software will recalculate each image so that it retains the same aspect ratio as the original. For images intended for subse¬quent retouching, the best solution is to keep the original size and

only resize once you have nished all your post-processing operations. For the

web, you can choose widths of approximately 800 to 1500 pixels and heights of between 500 and 1000 pixels, depending on the site.

It is possible to select an output ICC color space prole (including sRGB, AdobeRGB or a custom prole). In practice, the sRGB prole is suitable for web uses and output on photographic or ink-jet printers. Choose the AdobeRGB prole

for images that will need to be retouched, e.g. for publication, but in this case

TIFF or DNG outputs are denitely recommended in preference to JPEG. The custom prole is suitable if you have a printer with its own ICC prole.

5.3 TIFF output formats

The TIFF format is designed for les you intend to archive or which will be further

post-processed with almost any of the programs on the market.

5.3.1 Quality

For TIFF les you have the option of a compressed (for lighter les) or noncomFor TIFF les you have the option of a compressed (for lighter les) or

non-com¬pressed format (with the latter there is less risk of incompatibility

with older or less common programs). If you are starting out with a RAW le or a TIFF le that has been coded to the same standard, you can select a 16-bit

option for more nuanced colors (65,536 shades possible for each color layer,

compared with 256 for 8-bit); some non-specialist software, however, is unable to process 16-bit TIFF les and very few printers can take advantage of it as yet, but you will be archiving the most precise possible les for the future. However,

as cameras only code JPEGs in 8-bit, you can only use 8-bit TIFF as the output

setting for source les in this format.

5.2.5 Interpolation

Several resizing options are available if you decide to change the size of the output le: you can generally leave the command set at “Auto”, but many photographers are loyal supporters of bicubic interpolation, for optimum precision.

5.2.6. Resolution

You can select the resolution you want in dots-per-inch (dpi) if you have chosen a custom screen or paper format. For example, 72 dpi for screen display, 254 dpi for a photographic printer to Kodak standards or 300 dpi for certain printers or publication. If you are not changing the original size, don’t alter the resolution either: it only makes sense to adjust this if you have selected an image size in centimeters or images in setting 5.2.4

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5.3.2 Destination

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See “JPEG output formats/Destination”.

5.3.3 Sufx

See “JPEG output formats/Sufx”.

5.3.4 Size

See “JPEG output formats/Size”.

5.3.5 Interpolation

See “JPEG output formats/Interpolation”.

any interpolation, even if it is as excellent as in DxO Optics Pro, can cause a deterioration in the quality of the original.

5.5 Processing

Once you have made changes to an output setting, click on “Save” to save your setting or “Cancel” to cancel your changes. If you want to delete an output setting, click on the “recycle bin” to the right of each button. Once you have saved your output setting, you can click on the “Change” button in the list to make changes to it. For an output setting to be active in the current processing session, it must be checked.

Several output settings can be checked at the same time: this is one of the main advantages of DxO Optics Pro compared with many other programs, which

require you to process one batch of images as JPEG les, another as TIFF les

and even more variants if there are several different output sizes.

5.3.6. Resolution

See “JPEG output formats/Resolution”.

5.3.7 ICC Prole

See “JPEG output formats/ICC Prole”.

5.4 DNG output formats

The DNG format is designed for les you intend to archive or which will go

The DNG generated by DxO Optics Pro is a 16-bit linear DNG format. This format is only available for original images in RAW format. No quality option is offered. Linear DNG means that the three color channels have been interpolated and

therefore that the le “weighs” three times more than the original RAW le.

Interpolation was necessary to perform a number of optical corrections. This

format offers the same level of color and exposure control as with a RAW le

generated by the camera.

For the other options you can treat DNG les in the same way as TIFF les, except for image size, as a le intended for archiving and/or further post-processing should not be resized in order to maintain its maximum potential in the future;

TIP: Creating several output formats can be used to automa-

tically back up every image on several hard disks or servers.

All you have to do is dene several output formats that are

identical, except for the save directory for the nal images, for

example a removable disk or a server that is separate from the

machine you work on.

Note: At least one output format must be enabled for processing to be able to start. If you try to start processing with no output format enabled, you’ll get an error message.

Start processing by clicking on the icon. A dialogue box will open to check whether you want to process the whole of the project or just the images whose settings have been adjusted. You can also start processing by dragging and dropping the images you want to process into the “PROCESSING” pane.

If images that have already been corrected by DxO Optics Pro (e.g. in an earlier project) are in the same directory with the same name, the program will ask you

Page 53

if you want to overwrite the previous versions. If you answer no, the image will

toc12

not be processed. If you want to process images with the same name without overwriting, you will need to choose a different output directory.

You can see processing is in progress by checking that the two cogs are turning over the thumbnails of the images you are processing.

Once processing is completed, the ‘blue star’ icon turns into a green tick, indicating that processing has been successful for that image. If an error has occurred,

you will see a “!” on the image.

If you have the impression that DxO Optics Pro is not using all your system resources, you can adjust the number of images the program processes at once under “Preferences” (chapter 7.9.2)

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Chapter 6

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“View” tab

Once processing is complete you can open the “View” tab to assess the quality

of the corrected image by viewing the nished copy rather than just the simulated version you saw in the “Customize” tab. This verication step may be very

quick or alternatively very detailed... or you can miss it out altogether if you are

condent of your abilities and your software settings. The advantage of working

through this step is that if you need to make an adjustment you can simply return to the “Customize” tab to make changes just to the images that need it. Next time you start a processing session a window will open and ask you if you want to overwrite the previous corrected copies. If you click on “No”, DxO Optics Pro will not re-process images that have already been processed. If, however, you want to re-process them without overwriting the images you have already processed, you will need to create virtual copies for these images (cf. chapter 4.3).

In the “PROJECT” pane at the bottom of the screen, you can select images to be viewed (they must have been processed). You can scroll through them using your

mouse or the keyboard arrow keys; they can also be shown in “before and after”

mode, as in the “Customize” tab. You are now no longer looking at a simulation, but the copy generated by the processing. If several outputs have been generated

for a single image (i.e. there are several active output settings), you can nd

JPEG, TIFF and DNG images in turn by using the “up” and “down” arrows to the right of the name of the image in the icon bar in the “IMAGES” pane.

The other buttons on this bar can be used to view the original and corrected ver-

sions one behind the other or side-by-side, select a magnication factor, enlarge

a portion of the image (using the “magnifying glass” icon) or navigate around the image (using the “hand” icon).

6.1 “View” tab commands

“Single image display”: the processed (corrected) image is displayed

•

in the pane. This is the nal image that has been saved to your hard

disk.

“Dual image display”: displays the reference image – by default, the

•

uncorrected image – and the nal image processed by DxO Optics Pro.

You can zoom in if necessary to compare the detail in the same area of

each image.

“Before correction” drop down menu: lets you specify which image

•

to use as a reference when comparing the corrections of the current

image. By default you compare it to the “Before correction” image, but

you can replace it by any virtual copy of the same image, provided that

the virtual copy has already been processed. DxO Optics Pro’s virtual

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copy function lets you compare virtual copies with each other quickly

toc12

and simply.

Pointer tool – when this tool is active, clicking on the corrected image

•

will display the reference image (see above) so that you can compare it with the corrected version. Release the mouse button to return to

the nal image corrected by DxO Optics Pro. The keyboard shortcut

“Ctrl + D” can also be used to toggle between the “before” and “after” images.

Hand tool – The hand tool can be used to move the visible area of the

•

image.

Zoom tool – Click on this icon to zoom into the image in full-frame view

•

(using the thumbwheel on your mouse if it has one) up to a magnication

factor of 1600%.

Zoom slider to adjust the size of the image displayed up to a magni-

•

cation of 1600%. Two quick commands can be used to adjust the image to the size of the pane and zoom to 100%, which is ideal for checking sharpness and noise.

TIP: If your mouse has a thumbwheel for scrolling you can use

it to vary the magnication level.

6.2 Next steps

you want of a single image. You can create a virtual copy by right-clic-

king on the thumbnail of the image concerned in the “PROJECT” pane.

6.2.2 Export images to Lightroom or Flickr:

Select the images to export in the “PROJECT” pane. Click on the

•

Lightroom (Lr) or Flickr icons in the icon bar of this pane and follow the

instructions.

6.2.3 Open the processed images with another application:

In the “PROJECT” pane, select the images you want to export, then click

•

on “Open with” in the “View” menu and select the application you want

to use. You can add applications by selecting them with the “Browse”

button and choosing a program name to run from your list of photo

editing applications or from a shortcut on your desktop.

6.2.4 Process images that have not yet been processed:

If you have images that have not yet been processed, for example if

•

you wanted to check the results of applying a preset before deciding to

apply it to a whole batch, simply go back to the “Process” tab and click

on “Start processing”, which will launch processing for all unprocessed

images.

Once you have viewed the results of your images, you can perform a number of actions without quitting DxO Optics Pro, such as opening one or more images in another application, exporting them to your a Photoshop Lightroom catalog

or an external Flickr gallery or nally, altering one or more settings to adjust

the corrections. To the right of the icon bar in the “PROJECT” pane there is a command called “What next?” which opens up a help screen that describes the various possible options.

6.2.1 Modify corrections on certain images:

Make further corrections to images by clicking at the top of the window

•

in the “Customize” tab. When reprocessing these images later on, the new output images will overwrite the previous corrected versions. A dialogue box in the “Process” tab will then ask you if you are sure you want to overwrite the previous copies

To avoid overwriting previous corrected image, virtual copies will let you

•

generate as many outputs as the number of different corrected versions

6.2.5 Start a new project:

Go back to the “Select” tab. Click on “New Project” in the “File” menu.

•

The current project will be automatically saved in the DxO Optics Pro

database, and a new project will be created.

6.2.6 Quit DxO Optics Pro:

Click on “Exit” in the “File” menu to quit DxO Optics Pro. The current

•

project will be automatically saved in the DxO Optics Pro database.

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Chapter 7

toc12

DxO Optics Pro menus and preferences

When you open DxO Optics Pro, the top-most set of menus available to you is the menu bar. This contains the dropdown menus File, Edit, Project, View, Image, DxO Optics Modules, Workspace and Help.

7.1 File menu

The File menu includes the following commands:

New project – create a new DxO Optics Pro project

•

Open project…– open a project from the database of DxO Optics Pro

•

projects

Save project – saves the project to the DxO Optics project database

•

Recent projects – direct access to recently created projects

•

Project Database – allows you to create a backup, restore a backup

•

and import a v5 project database. The save function lets you copy the

project database to another disk.

Delete all projects – will remove all previous projects from the DxO

•

Project database• Export image for ICC prole – saves images which

can be used by professional calibration programs to create ICC proles

(linear RAW or realistic color rendering options available).

Sidecars – exports and imports the current project “sidecar” (the indi-

•

vidual settings le for each image) in .dxo format. Sidecars allow you to

switch original images and their settings from one computer to another

and share them with other users.

Exit – to leave DxO Optics Pro. The current project is saved automati-

•

cally when you exit the program.

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7.2 Edit menu

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7.3 Project menu

The Edit Menu contains several useful pairs of commands to assist you in your work.

Undo [Ctrl + Z] and Redo [Ctrl + Y] apply to the last action you

•

performed.

Cut [Ctrl + X] – lets you cut out selected text or objects from their

•

current location and places them on the Windows clipboard.

Copy [Ctrl + C] – lets you copy selected text or objects from their cur-

•

rent location and places them on the Windows clipboard. The original text or objects remain at their current location (e.g. EXIF data).

Paste [Ctrl + V] – lets you copy the content of the Windows clipboard

•

to the current cursor position (for example, personal details to be added

into the image EXIF eld).

Select all (Ctrl + A) – lets you select all the images in a folder in the

•

“Select” tab to add them to the Project.

Refresh (F5) updates the contents of all visible folders.

•

Preferences (Ctrl >+ Shift + P) lets you make adjustments to certain

•

overall program working parameters. Full details for all the Preferences options are listed later in this chapter.

TIP: When you rst open DxO Optics Pro the program is con-

gured by default with the simplest command options so that you can process your images straightaway without getting bogged down in too many complex settings. However, you can access a range of customization options from the Edit menu >

Preferences to ne-tune the program to suit your needs.

The Project menu helps you to manage your project as effectively as possible; with some commands are also accessible by clicking on an icon.

Project properties – displays the various characteristics (number of

•

images, date, star ranking) of the current open project.

Start Processing – starts processing the project immediately.

•

Create virtual copy – lets you create one or more virtual copies in the

•

project.

Remove from project has the same effect as the “recycle bin” icon

•

that can be displayed on the thumbnail. Removing an image from the

project has no effect on the original le.

Sort – lets you sort the images in the project in the order you want (le

•

name is the basic default criterion): other options include RAW format

images, processed images, name, size, date, dimensions, etc.

Filter – customizes how images are displayed in the “PROJECT” pane if,

•

for example, you only want to process RAW or RGB images

Stack – controls how images are stacked if this option has been checked

•

under your general preferences. Options include stacking images after

they have been selected, choosing the stack master whose settings will

be added to the rest of the stack and adding and removing items from

the stack.

Full details for the custom commands for your set-up can be found later on in this chapter.

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7.4 View menu

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7.5 Image menu

The View menu lets you navigate between tabs and controls how images are displayed in the “Select” tab.

The top-most dialogue box lets you choose between the four tabs: Select (Ctrl + F1), Customize (Ctrl + F2), Process (Ctrl + F3) and View (Ctrl + F4).

The lower dialogue box controls the “Select” tab and is disabled if you are working in another tab:

Image browser – lets you choose whether images are selected from

•

the computer’s le system, the DxO project database or the Lightroom

database if this program is installed on your computer.

Display as list or as thumbnails functions in the same way as the

•

corresponding icon.

Sort – lets you select criteria for categorizing images in the “Select”

•

tab.

Filter – lets you choose the type of images to show in the “Select”

•

tab.

• Unlock PROJECT window or Dock PROJECT window determines

•

whether the “PROJECT” pane is docked at the bottom of the screen or

oating.

The Image menu lets you apply various commands to a selected photo and gives you access to the following options:

Apply preset – select a preset from the dropdown menu (this can either

•

be applied in addition to current settings or in addition to the DxO Default

v2 preset: see chapter 4.6.3)

Create preset – creates a preset based on the current settings for the

•

selected image

Copy correction settings for the current image to apply them to ano-

•

ther image or stack

Paste correction settings once you have selected a new image

•

Rotation – to rotate the image if it is not automatically displayed the

•

right way up

Flag – to use the system of red, yellow and green lights that can be

•

shown on a thumbnail (a red light prevents the image from being pro-

cessed). Only visible if the “Red/yellow/green lights” option has been

activated in preferences

Ranking – allows you to rank images by quality using a star-rating

•

system. Only visible if the “Ranking stars” option has been activated in

preferences

Show input le in Windows Explorer – lets you view the location of

•

the le where the active image is saved

Show output le(s) in Windows Explorer – enables the same func-

•

tion once processing has been completed

Open with – allow you to open an image in another post-processing

•

tool, for example to print it for checking. The rst time you use the

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program you will see a “Browse” command and can then choose the

toc12

shortcut for the post-processing program you want to use.

Image properties – shows the EXIF data for the current image

•

7.6 DxO Optics Modules menu

You can use this menu to manage the DxO Optics Modules required for fully automated processing of your images:

Install new DxO Optics Modules – connects you to the Internet to

•

choose a new module. This will be operational as soon as it has nished

DxO Optics Modules – displays the list of modules already installed

•

and lets you uninstall them (provided the Optics Module concerned is not currently being used by the images in the project).

DxO Optics Module ambiguity – if the EXIF data for the image don’t

•

enable DxO Optics Pro determine which module to use for lenses that have the same characteristics (but are not the same brand, for example), a dialogue box opens so you can choose which module to use either just for the current image or more generally.

Modules RoadMap – connects you to the DxO Labs website so you can

•

see which modules are due to be released soon

7.7 Help menu

The Help menu offers a number of aids to help you use DxO Optics Pro more effectively. The options are:

First steps wizard – shows an introductory screen for each tab

•

Welcome screen – displays the program’s welcome screen

•

Check for update… – [active Internet connection required] When you

•

click on this menu item, the program will connect to the DxO Labs ser-

ver to determine if you have the most current version of the program

installed on your system. If this is not the case, you can download and

install the latest update.

Software license – (administrator authorization required with some

•

operating systems) allows you to activate the software and activate the

optional DxO FilmPack module. An active Internet connection is recom-

mended at this point, so that you can enter your activation code when

the system asks for it. Note: Though activation can be done without an

Internet connection, it is highly recommended that you have your com-

puter connected to an active Internet connection to simplify and speed

up program activation.

Suggest a Module to DxO Labs – connects you to the DxO Labs

•

website so you can suggest a DxO Optics Module you would like to be produced.

Online help – [active Internet connection required] Clicking on this

•

menu option launches your default web browser and connects you to

the online help page on the DxO Labs web site, where you will nd links

to customer services, technical assistance, downloads and frequently

asked questions (FAQ).

Shortcuts – displays a list of keyboard shortcuts (see appendix)

•

Visit web site – [active Internet connection required] Clicking on this

•

menu option launches your default web browser and connects you to

the home page of the DxO Labs web site.

About DxO Optics Pro… – Select this menu option to view the About

•

DxO Optics Pro window where you will nd information about the version

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you are using and any add-ons currently installed. This information is

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especially useful if you need to contact DxO Labs technical support.

7.8 Right-clicking on thumbnails in the

“PROJECT” pane

Right-clicking on an image or stack in the “PROJECT” pane brings up a context menu that gives you quick access to a range of menu functions, such as applying a preset immediately, copying correction settings to use them on another image, starting processing or managing a stack of images. The commands are the same as those in the dropdown menu.

7.9 “Preferences”: Customizing the DxO Optics

Pro interface

The “Preferences” sub-menu in the Edit menu gives you access to a whole range of options you can use to customize some of the program’s functions to give you an optimal environment for working on your images.

The Preferences window is divided into three tabs: General, Process and Display.

select the application language (English, French, German or

•

Japanese);

enable or disable the “Play sound at startup” command;

•

show or hide the welcome screen;

•

save image settings in a “sidecar” le automatically: automatically saves

•

a sidecar le for every image in the project.

load image settings from a “sidecar” le automatically: loads the “side-

•

car” le and associates it with the image when it is added to a project.

limit the number of images per project (500 by default);

•

choose a location for the project database

•

About sidecars: the project database automatically contains all the settings for the ima-

ges in saved projects. These settings can be exported in the form of “sidecars” that can then be shared with other users so that the exact settings for the image in question can be reused on another computer. Automatically saving a sidecar therefore allows you to

create a le “image 1.dxo” for the corresponding image (“image1.JPG”) that contains all the settings for this image. The image and its corresponding .dxo le can then be copied onto another computer. If the “Load settings from sidecar le automatically” option has

been enabled in the version of DxO Optics Pro installed on that computer, the sidecar will be automatically associated with this image when it is added to a project.

7.9.1 General

In this tab you can:

7.9.2 Process

In certain cases, it is possible to have two Source images with the same lename

but different extensions (e.g. Img34.jpg and Img34.CR2) This will be the case if

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you have shot in RAW+JPEG, which you can do with most cameras. During pro-

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cessing, the application will generate output images with the same name which

will overwrite each other. To avoid this, you should either add a lename sufx for the RAW images (e.g. “_raw”, or a sufx for the JPEG images. This sufx will only be appended in the event of the conict described above. This can be set

in the “Edit / Preferences / processing” menu.

Tab browsing during processing can be checked or unchecked (it is recommended you leave this unchecked, as it can slow down processing).

Number of images processed simultaneously: the more memory you have available, the more images you can process at the same time. Whatever number of processors you have, DxO Optics Pro uses all those available. It is recommended that you do not change the default setting.

7.9.3 Display

the “Display DxO Optics Module download window” lets you see the DxO

•

Optics Module download window as soon as you add an image to the

project for which a module exists but has not yet been installed on your

computer

display the presets dialogue box: when you apply a preset to an image

•

(see above chapter 4.6.3) you can choose to add the preset in addition to

the settings already associated with the image or in addition to the DxO

Default v2 preset. The dialogue box that appears at this point allows you

to make this choice and it is recommended that you leave it showing.

7.9.3.2 Settings Customization tab

There are ve custom settings you can use:

the color of the background in the “IMAGES” pane in the “Customize”

•

and “Views” tab can be adjusted to a lighter or darker gray (the scale

runs from black to white);

the size of the grid overlay positioned over the image to check for dis-

•

tortion or keystoning can be ne-tuned to suit your needs;

the display can be accelerated by the GPU (this control should be disa-

•

bled if it causes the display to jump);

tools in the “Tools” palette can be shown permanently in the “IMAGES”

•

pane icon bar in the “Customize” tab (this means you can close the

“Tools” palette in the workspaces).

Note: Under Windows, the “Display” tab also includes another useful function, which

allows you to dene the ICC prole used when you display your images in DxO Optics Pro

(this function cannot be used on a Mac because it is the operating system that manages

the on-screen display prole). The options are:

Screen prole – lets you use the specic ICC prole for your monitor if

•

The Display preferences are more wide-ranging: some are very important to ensure that your image processing sessions run smoothly.

7.9.3.1 Common

Three lines let you enable or disable some very important settings:

the rst determines whether the image is displayed blinking front/back in

•

the “IMAGE” pane when you move from the “Select” to the “Customize”

tab. Unchecking the box removes the blinking;

you have calibrated it (e.g. with a Spyder colorimeter)

sRGB – lets you use the sRGB color prole (use this if in doubt). If your

•

screen has not been calibrated, this is probably the best prole to use

as most monitors leave the factory congured close to sRGB.

Adobe RGB – lets you use this Adobe color prole. You only use this pro-

•

le with a top-of-the-range monitor with a specic Adobe RGB gamut.

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7.9.3.3 “PROJECT” pane

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The display options here are extremely comprehensive and may at rst seem

rather complex, so it’s helpful to break it down into the various sections that can be customized:

Two sections affect the overall processing interface:

you can enable or disable the image stacking option, which allows you

•

to apply the same processing to a batch of images. The photo on the top of the stack (when the stack is collapsed) is the one on which you

adjust your settings;

you can also enable or disable the “Next step” assistant, which lets you

•

move to the next step by simply clicking on the command to the top right of the top-most bar in the “PROJECT” pane.

The warning messages that can be displayed when you open an image are disabled by default:

focusing distance ambiguity (this information may not be included in the

•

EXIF data, depending on your camera model) can be resolved by entering it manually in the “Focusing distance” rollup (“Geometry” palette)

(more info in chapter 3.2.2.2);

focal length ambiguity involves opening a rollup in the “Geometry”

•

palette; the application alerts you to the option of ne-tuning the focal length shown in the EXIF data (more info in chapter 3.2.2.2);

You can display up to eight types of icon on the thumbnails in the PROJECT pane and these can be “Always ON”, “Always OFF” or appear “On mouseover”.

red/yellow/green lights to show which images are to be processed or not

•

(see chapter 3.2.2 for a more detailed explanation of these icons).

NOTE: the ‘trafc lights’ are used to show you which images

are to be processed (green light), must not be processed (red

light) or where no decision has been made (yellow light: this is

the default value). When processing begins, images with green

and yellow lights will be processed, whereas images with red

lights will not.

At the bottom of the thumbnail:

the le name, showing whether the image is a RAW or JPEG le

•

buttons for rotating the photo to the left or right.

•

At the top of the thumbnail:

the “recycle bin” icon can be used to remove the current image from the

•

project; this never deletes the image from the source directory;

a colored icon tells you the image’s processing status: processed or not

•

(see chapter 3.2.2 for what each of these icons means).

an icon that indicates whether a DxO Optics Module is available or not

•

(see chapter 3.2.2 for what each of these icons means).

To the left and right of the thumbnail:

stars to rate your images so that you can rank them by quality (see

•

chapter 3.2.2 for a more detailed explanation of these icons).

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Appendix Keyboard

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Function

Scope Action

General

New project Cmd-N CTRL + N

Open project Cmd-O CTRL + O

Rename project - SHIFT + F2

Save project Cmd-S CTRL + S

Quit cmd-Q ALT+F4

Copy (text elds) Cmd-C CTRL + C

Cut (text elds) Cmd-X CTRL + X

Paste (text elds) Cmd-V CTRL + V

Select all Cmd-A CTRL + A

Undo Cmd-Z CTRL + Z

Redo Cmd-Shift-Z CTRL + Y

Dock/Undock the ‘PROJECT’ pane

Go to « Select » tab Cmd-1 CTRL + F1

Go to « Customize » tab Cmd-2 CTRL + F2

Go to « Process » tab Cmd-2 CTRL + F3

Go to « View » tab Cmd-3 CTRL + F4

Display preferences window Cmd-, CTRL + SHIFT

Full screen mode - CTRL + ALT + F –

Hide/Unhide the ‘PROJECT’ pane

Next tab Ctrl-Tab -

Previous tab Ctrl-Shift-Tab -

Close window Ctrl-W -

Help Ctrl-? -

« PROJECT » pane

Copy correction settings Cmd-Shift-C CTRL + SHIFT

shortcuts

Shortcuts

Mac

Cmd-U CTRL + SHIFT +

Shift-Tab CTRL + F9

Shortcuts

Windows

F – CTRL + U

+ P

ALT + ENT

+ C

Function

Scope Action

Paste correction settings Cmd-Shift-V CTRL + SHIFT

Go to previous image

Go to next image

Rotate image selection by 90° left

Rotate image selection by 90° right

Create Virtual Copy Cmd-D CTRL + I

Ranking 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 CTRL + (0, 1, 2,

Add to stack (or create stack)

Start processing Cmd-K (pro-

Image properties - CTRL + J

Project properties - CTRL + E

Remove image from project Cmd-Del Del

« Select » tab

Hide / Unhide "BROWSE" pane

Display le system Cmd-Shift-7 SHIFT + F9

Display Project database Cmd-Shift-8 SHIFT + F10

Display Lightroom catalogs Cmd-Shift-9 SHIFT + F11

List mode/Thumbnail Toggle Cmd-J CTRL + M

« Customize » tab

Display the reference image (hold key)

Hand Tool (hold key) Space SpaceBar

Display corrected and original image side by side or front/back

Shortcuts

Mac

ß ß

à à

Cmd-L CTRL + L – CTRL

Cmd-R CTRL + R – CTRL

- drag & drop

ject) CmdS h i f t - K (selection)

Tab CTRL + F10

D - click CTRL + D - click

C CTRL + ALT + B

Shortcuts

Windows

+ V

+ à

+ ß

3, 4, 5)

CTRL + ALT + P – CTRL + K

- CTRL + T

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Function

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Scope Action

Hide/Unhide all palettes Tab (1st hit =

Fit on screen Cmd-0 F2

Zoom to 100% Cmd-1 F3

Zoom out Cmd- - CTRL + Add

Zoom in Cmd- = CTRL + Substract

Toggle Grid overlay G CTRL + G

Toggle Information overlay I CTRL + H

Overlay Clip to white A CTRL + W

Overlay Clip to black B CTRL + B

« View » tab

Display corrected and original image side by side or front/back

Fit on screen M F2

Zoom to 100% Z F3

Zoom out Cmd- - CTRL + Add

Zoom in Cmd- = CTRL + Substract

Tools

Move active slider -

Pointer tool J -

Hand tool SpaceBar SpaceBar

Zoom/move Y -

Crop R -

Dust N -

Horizon E -

Shortcuts

Mac

hide all docked palettes, 2nd hit = hide all docked palettes

+ oating palettes ; 3rd

hit = show all palettes)

C CTRL + ALT + B

Shortcuts

Windows

- CTRL + T

ß and à (left and right arrows)

Function

Scope Action

Force Parallel U -

Rectangle V -

Multipoint WB * -

WB W -

Palettes

Navigation T -

Histogram H -

Preset editor P -

EXIF X -

Light L -

Color K -

Geometry O -

Detail S -

Shortcuts

Mac

Shortcuts

Windows