DXO ProLab 4 has been given a shot. A more detailed analysis would be great, but time is pressing.

The advantage of ProLab is the one stop shop programme. This has turned out to be a bit of a double edged sword.

Not as intuitive as C1, but not horrible, it has lots to like and I am in the mood for a change.

The tools are deeper again than C1, each has their own “page” and some are much nicer to work with (the horizon tool is a favourite). Files imported with auto processing are good, almost perfect and the ability to off-set the processing time for Deep Prime or Prime noise reduction until export seems like a time saver, but I am struggling with Dropbox at the moment (very slow and consistently keeps doing things I have asked it not to, like “do not sync” if I miss a short window before it starts to).

Add slow processing to slow uploading and I might as well walk the files over to my employer (about 500m).

The reality is, C1 with a right click out to ON1 as needed, is faster to work with and fits my processes perfectly.

Results were interesting. Deep Prime seems to sometimes create slightly unnatural looking edges and textures, that ON1 either avoids naturally or the slightly less aggressive processing mitigates. Several times, hard pushed files showed nasty, artificial looking shadow to highlight transitions, that ON1 smoothed quite well, with similar noise and sharpness control. ON1 also has more fine controls at the NR level and allows C1 edits to be made before or after noise reduction.

Now here is an odd thing. I have recently switched from long term Lightroom use to C1 and had to adjust my eye to different colour and slider responses, but I feel my tastes have not altered drastically. See how the DXO files (right side) are all darker? Can’t explain that. They were processed at the same time, in the same place with the same screen. Maybe Deep Prime darkens the files?

The top one looks like a win to DP, but that is contrast. The issues show on closer inspection. The DXO file, when viewed way too close, is visibly more contrasty but “crunchier”, especially in the slightly out of focus areas. I can push the ON1 file a little and the files seem to respond, but I don’t see the need. The DXO files seem to need some backing off from even their own auto processing setttings to avoid this.

Shame really, as DXO promised a lot of benefits at the best overall price.