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User Manual - DxO Optics Pro v5.1

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1. Image Science Chapter 1 A typical image enhancement session The Photographic Workflow The entire DxO Optics Pro system has been designed to be straightforward and efficient This is particularly important for any photographer with a lot of pictures to process In this chapter we go through a typical photo correction session Further information regarding each of these steps can be found in the corresponding chapter located later in this document Step 1 Select your images to create a project For further information please see Chapter 2 regarding the Select tab In order to make it easy to process large numbers of images DxO Optics Pro is designed around the concept of projects The first step of the workflow consists in loading a batch of images as many or as few as you wish into a project that will be processed You do this by adding images to the Project window in the lower part of your Select tab workspace Click on the System icon on the top right of the main window the left column will show you a browser of your hard disk Select the folder containing your images and you will see their thumbnails or file names appearing in the right pane of the main window To import one or many images simply drag and drop your files to the Project Windows When you add images you are not creating additional copies of your images but merely recording references to them in a file that keeps track of all
2. Filter When checked images processed by DxO Optics Pro will be shown in the file list or among the thumbnail images displayed If unchecked corrected images will be filtered out not displayed Remember previously processed Optics Pro images cannot be reprocessed by the program You will need to reprocess the original images NOTE Active sort options will be checked on the menu list The Project Window The lower window is the Project window It is the one window that you will see through three of the four workspace tabs in DxO Optics Pro It is in the Project window that you build your batches by adding the images you want to process to a project You can add your images in one of two ways 1 You can drag and drop one or more images from the folder contents window to the Project window This is the fastest and most convenient way to add images to a project 2 You can also add images to the Project window by selecting them and clicking on the Import button on the central bar In all cases a preset a group of correction and adjustment settings is applied to your images By default the preset applied to images will be limited to the standard automatic corrections Of course these corrections are precisely adapted to every image Using the DxO Default preset for different photos does not mean all images will undergo the same corrections DxO Optics Pro when processing your images reads the EXIF data available in the
3. tab As soon as you are satisfied with the settings you have applied to your images you can move on to process them In the Process tab check the proposed output formats and eventually add or remove some of them After clicking the Start button feedback from the program will keep you continually informed as to your project s progress Once underway this processing stage is self directed and hands off Step 4 Review the results For further information please see Chapter 5 regarding the Review tab When processing is finished you may want to control your final images which you can do in the Review tab If you think one or more of your images needs additional work you can easily re process your original images to apply additional or different settings as needed Ultimate flexibility and ease of use Thus far we have briefly described a logical workflow for a typical image enhancement session But DxO Optics Pro has been designed so that in actual practice you can move around more or less at will between workflow steps in any order you like Let s take a look at each of these steps in more detail Image Science Chapter 2 Select Add Your Photos from Various Sources Documents and Settings mattal My Documents tures OS LE lth upira yoru VIFVOSS1 Jog Ale Pas ren iF ee agil ES Bel 9 Dr 12000 5 O30 Optics Pro vso E ID When you first launch the application the
4. Select tab is the active highlighted tab Make sure the System icon on the top right of the main window is selected When this is done your workspace will display a familiar Explorer style browser where the top two panes which are resizable allow you to navigate around the files on your hard drive or external media Adding images This initial Select stage involves adding the photos you want to process to the Project window which will remain in the lower part of your screen throughout all four stages from Select to Review In DxO Optics Pro v5 a preset is always applied to the imported image but you can choose to go beyond the DxO Default and choose another preset from the list We will see later how you can create your own fine tuned presets As you drag thumbnails from the Content folder to your project or click on the Import button after selecting them the two actions are identical the selected preset is applied to the images and they appear in the Project window which you can resize to fit a useful number of images Besides using the mouse to drag the dividers to resize these panes each window pane has a eee button to regain mouse control and make custom sizing adjustments Image Science Of course if you have a different set of corrections and adjustments to be applied to various images in a project you can import your first set of pictures with one set of adjustments and then highlight and a
5. 7683 CR2 MG 7692 CR2 MG 7694 CR2 DxO Default Preset ne Add Project Untitled10 A o e a Process Now Snapshot 6 image s i i Select Tab Screen When you start DxO Optics Pro you will see the first main screen of the program The Select tab workspace is your key to building projects to be processed in DxO Optics Pro Projects are the basic building units of the program A project is a container for images that are grouped into batches and processed All images even a single image need to be part of a project to be processed The Select workspace screen is divided into three windows Two of the windows are in the upper part of the screen while the lower window the Project window occupies the lower portion of the screen On the top of the main window additional icons are visible on the right hand side Each of them allows you to choose a different way to select the images you want to import The File System icon is the most popular It gives you access to images via your hard drive s folders and subfolders The second icon is the Project Database icon This allows you to search previous projects in case you would like to create a new version of an image already processed Both icons work similarly You designate a folder in the first case a project in the second one and display their content in the content window 25 Image Science Other icons may be available They allow access to image databases managed by
6. Apple s Aperture Adobe s Lightroom view Media Pro etc When you click on a plug in icon a list of libraries collections associated with the corresponding program will be displayed in the left hand pane Click on a collection and you will be able to access your original images in those collections Please check on www dxo com for future availability of these plug ins The Project window This is the place where all your images are referenced the path to the original and corrected images is recorded in the Project along with all specific settings applied to the corrected image The header strip for the project pane has two buttons at the far right These two buttons let you change between viewing your image files as thumbnails or as a classic details file list The same buttons appear at the top right of the right hand files pane where they perform the same functions On the left of the Project window title bar you can see buttons for managing your project The project name is displayed just to the left of them The CI button lets you create a new project After processing the images every project is automatically saved in the internal DxO Optics Pro database but you can save a project before completion for instance if you want to start a new one while keeping the current project to finish it later Star ranking and Stacking Also on the content pane at the bottom right is a small slider with a button at each end
7. Process Workspace The DxO Optics Pro Process workspace is divided into three windows The upper left window is the Output Format window the upper right is the Process Status window and the Project window again occupies the lower window on the screen Output Format window One of DxO Optics Pro s great timesaving features is the ability to save images in more than one format at a time So for example you might want to archive processed images in a high quality format like DNG only available when originating from RAW images while at the same time saving a JPEG copy for web based publication including destructive compression What s more this feature enables you to create multiple output format settings within each format For example you might have one JPEG format configured for images destined for website use and also want to create another for making prints This is all possible with Optics Pro s processing flexibility All of these configurations will be listed under the respective output formats So in a Image Science single processing batch you can produce multiple versions of the same image with different output format settings Creating a new output You create a new output by clicking on the New output button at the top of the Output Format window This will open an output format window that allows you to specify certain details regard ing the file format There is a specific window that opens with each format to
8. The left image will be the unprocessed As shot image The right image will be the DxO Optics Pro processed image This will give you a side by side light table view of both images You can even zoom in to the same area of both pictures to compare results Force parallel horizontal Force parallel vertical Force rectangle The first two keystoning correction options Force parallel horizontal Force Parallel vertical act in similar ways except that in these cases you are asked to define a pair of vertical or Image Science horizontal lines that you wish to be parallel When clicked you will be asked to draw two paral lel lines on the left image that should be parallel You can move the end points of both drawn lines to set your parallel lines within the image It doesn t matter if you reset the lines in the same or reverse way the end result does not change Only the relative angles of the lines count their lengths add nothing to the correction If you change a pair of horizontal lines to vertical correction or vice versa your image will be rotated to reflect the lines you have drawn If your picture contains both vertical and horizontal keystoning you will need to use the third option Force rectangle This lets you draw a parallel box on the left hand image and define four points that form corners of a quadrilateral that you wish to correct to be rectangular Note however that this is more powerful than a simple manual c
9. White Balance Exposure rough Demosaicing Distortion Vignetting Tone Curve Lighting Hue Saturation Luminance while other key corrections like noise reduction lateral chromatic aber ration true de mosaicing and sharpness processing are not always previewed This is especially true when displaying at zoom factors below 75 While editing these settings you will probably want to frequently zoom in to check the effects of your corrections and zoom out to control the global image A 100 button that quickly zooms the image to a factor of 100 Note The dropdown arrow and zoom slider work exactly like the slider and arrow button imme diately above the Correction Palettes TIP ff 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 D Histogram Palette You are probably familiar with a histogram display It is a graph showing the number of pixels for each tonal value in the three color channels with black on the left side and white on the right You will find it very helpful to keep the Histogram palette open while you re working with the other tools since it will very often give you a good idea of exactly how each adjustment is affecting your image This is particularly useful if you are making manual adjustments to lighting highlights colors and recovering details During exposure adjustments you may find helpful to use the highlight shadow clipping d
10. connection required Clicking on this menu item will start your default browser and take you directly to the DxO Technical Support web page Visit Web site Active Internet connection required Clicking on this menu item will start your default browser and take you to the DxO Labs home page About DxO Optics Pro Clicking on this menu item will open the About DxO Optics Pro win dow where you can find information on the Add ins that are currently installed This information is particularly useful if you need to contact DxO Technical Support The Workspace Tabs ae ae OS At the top left of your window will be the four workspace tabs that you can use fo correct process and check you images The four tabs are Select Prepare Process e Review Each of these tabs will be covered by a chapter of this Manual devoted to explaining the work spaces and the buttons and adjustment tools available in each workspace 24 DXO Chapter 9 The Select Tab DxO Optics Pro v5 0 File Edit Workspace Help ees on Prepare C Documents and Settings Adiministrateur Bureau S lection mes photos Zion 33 images n ES al Us a gt 3 Sra De A _MG_7474 CR2 _MG_7481 CR2 _MG_7494 CR2 _MG_7512 CR2 _MG_7519 CR2 _MG_7521 CR2 _MG_7523 CR2 ssl sde q i aA _MG_7539 CR2 _MG_7542 CR2 _MG_7546 CR2 _MG_7551 CR2 _MG_7553 CR2 _MG_7586 CR2 _MG_7604 CR2 he d ee a i d i MG 7651 CR2 MG 7668 CR2 MG 7677 CR2 MG
11. current color profile or one of the film profiles provided The slider bar below the drop box allows you to adjust the strength of this effect There is also a direct entry box so you can specify the amount of intensity you want from O to 200 Please note that in order to see the effect this tool has on your image you must be zoomed on the Preview pane to at least 75 An intensity slider allows you to increase or decrease the amount of grain in the processed image By clicking on the size drop box you can specify predefined and custom output format sizes for your image You can also adjust the output size of the processed image to automatically fit the size of the current crop settings A size slider is also provided with a direct entry box for values of from 0 to 10 48 DXO box labeled Adjust size to current crop automatically adjusts the size of the image to match the proportions of the current crop settings DxO Noise DxO Noise is a calibrated correction in other words the correction algorithm is specifically tailored for each camera and therefore this correction will only be performed for images from cameras that have been calibrated by DxO Note These corrections will not be visible in the main preview image but only by using the Zoom tool to a value of at least 75 Both the Luminance and Chrominance controls under this tab have individual automatic boxes to the right of their sliders that must be unchecked in orde
12. default set ting unless you notice the effect it can have of de saturating certain pastel tones Look at the pictures below that illustrate the effect of this noise reduction particularly visible in the shadow areas Y Detail Palette Original image Lighting activated DxO Noise activated Fine details adjustment made Dust A new feature to version 5 of DxO Optics Pro is Dust This anti dust tool allows you to paint a line whose thickness can be adjusted over a dust shadow or a blemish detail you want to erase After you draw point or a line it becomes selectable if you click again on it with this anti dust tool You can then remove the item of concern Of course once you erase dust and blemishes on one image you can make a preset out of it and reuse it on other images When you first click on the dust tool two picture images will be displayed in the Preview window The left hand image is the before image and the right picture is the after image To use the Dust tool follow these steps Open the Dust panel and click on the dust tool which looks like an eraser This will open the double image 49 Image Science With the blue circle cursor draw a mask where the dust or blemish is located Don t forget to zoom into to the image to make masking the dust or blemish easier The dust is removed on the after image f you wish to remove a correction simply select the ble mask wit
13. exposure correction applied by the vignetting corrector at both ends of the tonal range so as to avoid either crushing the shadows or clipping the highlights 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 being applied Likewise because of the vignetting the camera may have incorrectly exposed a cloud in the sky The highlight preservation filter allows you to apply as much vignetting cor rection as possible while still retaining wanted highlight detail YV Light Palette The range of this slider is O 100 As usual the normally checked Auto box must be unchecked in order to enable the manual control If you want full manual correction of vignett ing you can set the value to O Off Note We recommend you do not depart from the default 100 as the shadows preservation slider is often more effective than the correction intensity slider in preventing the undesirable effects of vignetting correction 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 Tone curve The tone curve is a very powerful tool but is not at first easy to comprehend The tone curve shows th
14. other soft ware programs you may have installed on your system To see these icons you will need to install the corresponding Import plug in for each program Details and availability of plug in modules can be found on DxO s web site www dxo com TIP lf you do not see all three windows make sure that either the hori zontal or vertical divider bars have not been dragged all the way up or down or to either side of your screen The bars can be identified by three dots eee appearing in the middle of the divider Simply dragging the bar from the edge of the monitor screen towards the middle will reveal the missing window File System icon Windows version The upper left window File system window is the main folder tree display This display is very similar to the system trees displayed by Windows Explorer Clicking on a will reveal the next level of the folder structure When you navigate to the folder containing the images you want to process and click on the folder name the contents of the folder will be displayed in the upper right hand window Folder contents window Macintosh version The Macintosh version of the File System reproduces the various folder displays available in Mac OS X s Finder You can search folder content either in column view list view or in thumbnail view With the last two options a local menu at the top of the display windows gives you the active folder path Note You can build your projects wit
15. preview window LA displays only the after processed image in preview window Note When you click on the after image with the left mouse button it will be replaced with the before image 11 Image Science The Correction Palettes We have briefly mentioned the Correction Palettes earlier in this Guide but now let s take a closer look at what these powerful tools can do to help you get the most from DxO Optics Pro Here is a quick list of correction palettes for your use Zoom has a small window that indicates the visible part of the image a green box represents the assigned size of the preview area The more you zoom in the smaller the green box appears because you are looking more closely at a smaller part of the image You can also grab the box with the mouse pointer and drag it around the screen in order to examine specific parts of an image The EJ button on the left hand end of the header bar lets you grab the main preview image to move it around when zoomed in There is the same zoom slider as before together with small zoom in out buttons at either end Maximum zoom in all cases is 200 The minimum zoom size still depends on the size you have set for the preview pane The button in the header bar is another way of zooming in and out Histogram gives you a graphical representation of the distribution of the relative brightness levels in the image across the red green and blue color channels This i
16. side by side view of both images You can even zoom in to the same area of both pictures to compare results Zoom Slider Note the zoom slider in the upper right hand corner of the Review window By moving the slider to the left you can reduce the magnification of the selected image in the window Move the slider to the right and the magnification of the image is increased There is also a down arrow to the right of the slider that when clicked will present a drop down selec tion of predefined magnification amounts TIP f 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 96 DXO Chapter 13 DxO Optics Pro plug in for Adobe Photoshop Installation DxO Optics Pro external module for Photoshop is installed with the help of the DxO Download Manager You can install it at the same time as the application or later for example after having installed Photoshop on your computer The Download Manager automatically places a folder called DxO with the Import 8ba file inside in the Plug ins folder of Photoshop It is pos sible that the installer may not place the plug in in the correct folder if you have several versions of Photoshop i e the full version as well as Photoshop Elements In this case you can manually move the DxO folder in the Plug ins directory of Photoshop where needed Activation and Use To activ
17. take advantage of the formats capabilities JPEG 1 Output Name name the output format 2 Format select an output format in this case JPEG 3 Quality select the quality of the output This allows you to select the degree of JPEG destructive compression and therefore the file size you wish to use Note You should use as high a setting as possible for maximum quality unless file size considerations take precedence i e website use or e mail attachments 4 Destination specify a destination folder You can choose to place the output files in the same folder as the input files not recommended or browse and specify a separate output folder recommended TIP Create an output folder that is easy to remember i e DxO Output This way you will always be able to easily find your output files after pro cessing is complete 5 File name suffix select a file name suffix This is useful if you are going to place the output files into the source folder 6 Size select the output image dimension size from pre determined selections includ ing the ability to specify a custom output size enter the width of the image 7 Resolution select the resolution in dots per inch dpi including the ability to select a custom dpi If you select the Custom option the next combo box is activated which lets you specify an image size in dpi TIP Use an output dpi that is compatible with the target output For instance
18. the details of your project In this way valuable hard disk space is not wasted and is used efficiently Above the Project window you will see a drop down box labeled Preset applied to images The default choice is DxO Default settings If left at this selection each of your images added to the project pane will have the default correction settings applied to them as determined by the program but taking into account the embedded information inside each of them However if you click on the down arrow additional options will give you the ability to choose any standard or custom preset and will adjust your images based on specific presets that come with the program or are created by you You can then either click the Process Now button that takes you to the Process Tab where the processing of your images will start immediately or go through the optional Prepare Tab to control and adjust the specific settings of some or all of your images Step 2 Prepare your project For further information please see Chapter 3 regarding the Prepare stage In the Prepare tab you can see in the lower part of the screen the same Project window you just filled with images but above it a preview pane allows you to visualize any image you DXO select in the Project When you click on a thumbnail you will see first a non corrected version of your image then after a few seconds the preview o
19. the image file Althrough some value appears in the corresponding EXIF field the camera didn t recorded it with a precision that match DXO Optics Pro requirements To cor rect the focusing distance click on the Geometry header in the Correction Palette One of the options displayed will be Focusing Distance You can either move the slider to the left away from the infinity default symbol or click on the drop down arrow and select a focusing distance range Hint In most cases the next lowest range setting located just above the infinity symbol on the list will work well Similarly ambiguous rotation can be corrected by using the Camera Orientation tool Note that under normal circumstances neither of these tools will be displayed since no correction is necessary A module ambiguity exists for this image That is there are two modules currently loaded on your computer that could be used in the processing of this image This occasionally hap pens when two lenses have almost identical characteristics and the program cannot correctly determine the best module to use In this case you will be need to choose the best module manually by clicking on this icon The module ambiguity has been resolved EM The correction module needed to process this image was not found installed on your computer You will need to use the program installer to download and install the module needed You can find the installer under Help and DxO Mod
20. will notice that the selection of operating modes is no longer available In version 5 each correction setting is always available The interface has been designed to allow for easy access to the adjustment palettes that can be hidden for a less cluttered screen Program Preferences Ihe Module ambiguity tab Under certain circumstances it may happen that an images EXIF data doesn t contain enough lens information for DxO Optics Pro to properly determine the right Correction Module to use for this image This will normally be detected at the time of adding images to your project When this happens you will be asked to pick the correct lens from a list of installed Correction Modules You can also resolve these ambiguities via this tab under Preferences Where ambiguities exist the conflicting modules will be listed and you can choose the lens model you are actually using Of course your choice will depend on the specific combinations of bodies and lenses that you regularly use and Optics Pro correction modules you have installed on your computer Workspace Menu This menu presents you with a list of correction Palettes used on the Prepare tab workspace 22 DXO Your choices are Move Zoom Histogram Edit EXIF Preset Editor Lights Geometry Colors Details My Palette By checking and un checking each of these menu items you can easily display and hide palettes you need and don t need for any specific project TI
21. Dragging the slider to the right or clicking the right hand button increases the thumbnail size displayed Dragging the slider to the left or clicking the left hand button reduces the size of the thumbnails To the right of each thumbnail image you can also choose to rank your images with a one five star system on the contrary of DxO Optics Pro v4 these stars have no effect on the status of the images in the Process tab see below the Red Orange Green light system The thumbnails and their buttons On the top left of every thumbnail imported in your project you see a three spots group which show by default an orange middle light This group describes the Process status of the image Green light means that you do want to process the concerned image Red light that you reject it but since it remains in your project you can change your mind later and Orange light that you don t have decided yet This system is designed to make more easy the selection of your best pictures among a huge number of images When you come back from a shoot simply drag the whole content of your images folder inside the project window place a red light on the discarded images and a green one to the one you need to process When no more orange lights are visible it means you made your choice but since the rejected photos are still inside the project window with a red light you can still change your mind To remove one or more images from you
22. E DNG 1 Output Name name the output folder 2 Format select an output format in this case DNG 3 Destination specify a destination folder You can choose to place the output files in the same folder as the input files not recommended or browse and specify a separate output folder recommended TIP Create an output folder that is easy to remember i e DxO Output This way you will always be able to easily find your output files after pro cessing is complete 4 File name suffix select a file name suffix This is useful if you are going to place the output files into the source folder 5 Size select the output image dimension size from pre determined selections includ ing the ability to specify a custom output size 6 Resolution select the resolution in dots per inch dpi including the ability to select a custom dpi If you select the Custom option the next combo box is activated which lets you specify an image size in dpi TIP You can also create multiple versions of the same output format This is particularly useful if you want to place a specific type of output file in multiple locations on your system For instance you find that you need to place finished JPEG files in three different folders Two of the folders will be designated for use by different organizations and the third folder will be for archiving the finished product You can create three instances of JPEG output formats and sele
23. O Labs will regularly update this Manual as needed Suggested DxO Optics Pro Workflows A common question that is often asked is How do best use DxO Optics Pro There are many answers to this question too varied in number to offer any one specific rec ommendation here The suggestions and recommendations below are not meant to be a comprehensive list of all options but instead offer you ideas on how to build your own set of workflows Always make DxO Optics Pro the first program in your post production workflow since DxO Optics Pro s correction modules are built on original images taken with the camera and lenses you use if an image Is pre processed by another program so that either its EXIF or image data is changed DxO Optics Pro will not be able to return the results you expect from the program 18 DXO This requirement includes reader and cataloguing programs commonly available in stores or on the Internet The best first step in your workflow is to use your operating system s copy command and copy paste your images directly from the camera storage card to your hard drive Again do not use reader or cataloguing programs to move your pictures from the storage card to your computer Recommended workflow diagrams Here are some high level workflow diagrams to consider based on past feedback from DxO Optics Pro customers and recommendations from the DxO experts 1 Standard stand alone workflow Camera Stora
24. P You can also get the same effect by clicking on each of the palette icons that appear in the upper right part of your monitor while in the Prepare tab workspace Help menu The Help menu offers a number of aids for assisting in your better use of DxO Optics Pro Your choices are Check for updates Active Internet connection required By clicking on this menu item the program will contact the DxO server to determine if you have the most current version of the program installed on your system If you do not you will be given the option to download and install the latest update DxO Modules This is one of the most helpful menu items available Clicking on this item displays a window showing you all Correction Modules currently installed on your computer By default the Valid DxO Modules window is displayed Modules contained in this window are properly installed and working Notice that modules are listed by camera model AND lens model If you have any modules listed when you click on the Update required radio button this means that there is a later version of these Correction Modules available that you should consider installing Note If the module you currently have installed is functioning to your satisfaction you may not want to update the module at this time The final window is Not supported by this edition Correction modules that appear in this list are not compatible with the currently installed version of
25. PEG TIFF or Linear DNG file formats you should be able to successfully use these programs after DxO Optics Pro If you want to maintain an all RAW post production workflow then either options 2 4 or 6 above should meet your needs The DNG file format produced by DxO Optics Pro is known as Linear DNG This is a DNG format fully supported by Adobe and is readable by Adobe Camera Raw Lightroom and Photoshop TIP There are two forms of DNG RAW DNG and Linear DNG In order to pro cess de mosaic information and include all of the data that is produced by Optics Pro DxO utilizes the Linear DNG format Please note that this format produces significantly larger output files than the RAW DNG format 19 DXO Output file formats According to the file format of the images imported into DxO Optics Pro the Output file formats available are JPEG JPEG TIFF 8 bits only TIFF JPEG TIFF 8 or 16 bits according to Input RAW Camera RAW JPEG TIFF 8 or 16 bits DNG DNG Samsung GX20 Pentax K10D only JPEG TIFF 8 or 16 bits DNG Over the years DxO Optics Pro customers have customized their workflows to successfully meet their continually changing needs With a little time and experimentation you too will be able to craft your own custom workflows 20 DXO Chapter 8 File Edit Workspace Help Menus File Edit Workspace Help 21 When you open DxO Optics Pro the top most set of menus available to you i
26. PIDPUDIS G Old SOUAO A Dx0 Of c Advanced automatic it enhancement for Digit e Unrivalled optics amp geometry col e Unique exposure amp dynamic ran e Advanced color control e Outstanding noise amp dust remov e New generation RAW converter Also includes an Adobe Photoshop plug in an Adobe Lightroom plug in Windows amp Mac www dxo com E ReRe ESS tee Gran a DxO Optics Pro 5 Am lioration automatique de la qualit d image pour les bo tiers reflex Qu e Corrections in gal es des d fauts optiques et g om triques 4 e Optimisation de l exposition et de la dynamique e Contr le couleur avanc e Suppression du bruit et des poussi res e Convertisseur RAW de nouvelle g n ration Elite Comprend galement un plug in Adobe Photoshop un plug in Adobe Lightroom a gt alee Boostez votre reflex Avant DXO Optics Pro numerique avec Optics Pro Windows amp Mac www dxo com Image Science TA TEA et Fe neu aan 2006 images b aa ACHA KK 0 e DxO Optics Pro v5 Reference Manual Table of content Introduction to DXO Optics Pro v5 A typical image enhancement session Select Prepare Review How to go further The Main Program Overview amp Preferences File Edit Workspace Help Menus The Select Tab The Prepare Tab The Process Tab The Review Tab DxO Opt
27. ail All correction engines that perform the magic of DxO Optics Pro are controllable via four pal ettes Each of them adopts a photographic way to consider the image Light will concern everything about lighting and contrast in the scene Color allows every possible chromatic change Geometry is all about global structure of the image while Detail goes right to the pixel level Ys Light Palette Auto exposure compensation Off kd Intensity Auto Mode Slight More Options T Intensity More Options ver Y Light Palette Natural scenes rarely exhibit ideal lighting conditions Light sources are often directional and sometimes quite harsh To compound the issue the dynamic range of camera sensors can simply not compete with what our eyes can see All this can result in some shots exhibiting under exposed dark or shadowed regions with missing or muddied details To a certain extent such as when the wanted image signal is sufficiently above the noise level of the sensor lighting problems can be corrected in post production given appropriate image processing is available i gt mii y be Lost detail in shadows has been recovered in addition to optical corrections The Lights Palette has been organized into to four major adjustment groups Exposure compensation DXO Lighting Vignetting ToneCurve Exposure compensation The slider works just as y
28. an also manually adapt for creative effect A quick session overview The way the DxO Optics Pro workflow is organized deserves a few words of explanation The first point to understand is that contrary to traditional image editors DxO Optics Pro works on projects not directly on images This means that any setting you modify in the Prepare tab is applied to the preview of the image But your original image remains unmodified it s only during the final process activated in the Process tab that DxO Optics Pro will apply corrections in order to create a new file your corrected image So a session with DxO Optics Pro means two steps first import the images in the Project window second automatically process the images In between there may be a third one manually modifiy the settings of one or more images And another last optional step comes finally review the processed images When opening DxO Optics Pro you notice four tabs on the top left of the main window labeled Select Prepare Process and Review You start in the Select tab where you load the photos you want to process in the current project If you would like to immediately process your images without making any changes to the default settings you can click on the Process Now button to start the automatic routine Alternatively you can check the preview images in the Prepare tab and eventually define your own corrections or adjus
29. ast offers High Contrast Med High Contrast Med Low Contrast and Low Contrast settings Saturation offers High Saturation Med High Saturation Med Low Saturation and Low Saturation settings HSL Hue Saturation Lightnes Hue saturation and lightness can all be adjusted for the master channel and also separately for each of the three primary Red Green Blue and three secondary Yellow Cyan Magenta color axis as selected in the combo box a F 4 s Image Science The Hue slider can be moved to the right or left to change the hue or a positive or negative figure can be entered in the edit box The exact operation of this slider is affected by which color channel you have selected to adjust The slider and box values range from 180 to 180 Likewise for Saturation the slider can be moved to the right to increase or to the left to decrease the color saturation overall or any of the six color axis or a positive or negative figure can be entered The slider and box values range from 100 to 100 The same goes for the Luminance slider Move the slider to the right or enter a positive figure to lighten and to the left or enter a negative figure to darken These slider and box values can be from 100 to 100 HSL Sample Saturation Adjustment The action of the Luminance slider is interesting and you will probably find it easiest to under stand if you look at the result of changes made with it on the His
30. at is preferred for use whenever possible The Tone curve adjustment is probably the hardest to master but is certainly one of the most useful features in terms of tonal control of your images It is well worth your time to practice using the Tone curve to have more precise control over the Lighting adjustments being made to your image VW Color Palette ou r gt O Color Palette Preset Manual or Custom As Shat Pick Color Pal More Options Intensity Camera Film ICC Profiles As Shot As Shot Style As Shot Contrast As Shot Saturation As Shot Y OO HSL Channel Master Hue Saturation Luminance Intensity Preserve White Balance 40 Image Science RAW RGB White Balance To set the white balance of an image go up to the eyedropper icon in the upper left group of correction icons on the RGB White Balance palette If you hover your mouse pointer over either of these icons it will display White balance color picker Clicking this button displays two preview images side by side the left hand image being the original before image and the right hand image showing the effect of adjusting the white balance according to the reference point chosen A message will also appear in the upper left of the before picture instructing you to Click a point in the image to neutralize its color TIP The point chosen as the white reference should be a fairly ligh
31. ate the plug in launch Photoshop and scroll down the File menu under the command Import and choose DxO Optics Pro The usual program window of DxO Optics Pro will appear with one important difference only the three tabs Select Preview and Process are available Under Select place images in a project just as you would in the standalone version of the DxO Optics Pro version of the program Prepare your images with the necessary enhancements and then in the Process tab define the output formats you need With one click on the Start button you will launch image processing Once processing is completed the images will be automatically passed back to Photoshop and opened in the Photoshop workspace one workspace window for each image 97 DXO Chapter 14 DxO Optics Pro plug in for Adobe Lightroom DxO Optics Pro version 5 has been developped to work seamlessly with Adobe Lightroom If you use Lightroom to organize your photographs you can send them to DXO Optics Pro v5 that will process them You may also access the images from Lightroom s from inside DxO Optics Pro thanks to its optional Lightroom plug in Setting up Adobe Lightroom preferences The first step is to choose the DxO Optics Pro v5 as the secondary editor in Lightroom To do this open the Preferences of Lightroom and choose the External Editors tab In the lower section Additional External Editor clicki
32. being processed its image is dis played in the lower portion of the Process window as well as a progress bar for each image Utilizing Multiple Cores DxO Optics Pro will automatically determine the best processing mode to use each time it is run The best processing mode is determined by many factors including the number of cores you have in your computer system how much memory is installed and available how much disk space is available and what other programs and processes are running 53 WD Image Science Based on these factors Optics Pro may or may not fully utilize every core in your system When multiple cores are in use multiple threads images will be processed simultaneously This will vary from one processing run to the next and this is normal If you find that the program is not utilizing all of your system s resources on a routine basis please review the configuration operating system settings and total processing load on your system Optics Pro tries to utilize as many resources as necessary to complete its tasks The more resources that are available the more efficiently image processing will be done on your system When processing has been completed the program will notify you in the Status line as well as change the indicator buttons 04 Image Science Chapter 12 The Review Tab DxO Optics Pro v5 0 f e Cdt Workspuce Help The Review Workspace The Review tab work
33. ber F5 0 Lens Info 17 55mm j Author Copyright The Edit EXIF palette is composed to two parts Image information Exif Editor The Image information section displays key EXIF information written to the image being dis played in the Preview pane by your camera This is not information that can be changed This information is good reference information and can tell you if any EXIF data is missing that may affect the ability of DxO Optics Pro to perform key optical corrections The Exif Editor allows you to edit the Author and Copyright information in the image s metadata section Image Science B Preset Editor Palette DxO Default Presets A darker vision DxO Default Preset No Correction RAW anti color alias Romantic Look Vivid and Sharp Landscape Presets Natural Presets Presets are powerful tools that allow you to easily save and apply custom settings to one or more images in your projects Saving custom presets of the current image settings permits you to define a new Preset document that you can name as you like and which will be available in the drop down list under the Preset Editor palette in your future projects It will also be available under the add to my project with drop down list when you import your images So how do Presets work Basically the settings you ve prepared for use with an image can be saved and then applied to other images More powerful still you can choose which param
34. certain kinds of softness the lens camera combination s inher ent inability to reproduce fine detail commonly referred to as optical blur Other kinds of softness caused by inaccurate focusing insufficient depth of field or motion blur for example cannot be corrected Note These corrections will not be visible in the main preview image below 75 so you will need to use the Zoom tool DxO Lens Softness This forms part of Optics Pro s optical corrections and as such is lens and body dependent As a result this panel will only be enabled i e its title bar highlighted for images for which the appropriate correction module is installed Here again there is a check box to disable this correction The DxO Lens Softness slider allows you to manually set the overall level of sharpness required for a particular image Remember that this tool intends to reach an identical level of sharpness for the entire image Therefore it will automatically apply a stronger correction on the weakest areas of your image The sharpness level you choose to apply will of course depend on your personal taste final 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 The default setting of O is the lens softness setting that has been determined by DxO Optics Pro to be the best setting for this particular image Moving the slider to t
35. cific look to your RAW images starting right from the very look of specific camera bodies referred to here as color rendition profiles This functionality will differ slightly if you have activated the DxO FilmPack PR Y AA Color rendering Cross Processed Film Vv Color Palette The option ICC profile allows you to load a specific profile created from a test image The implication of this is far reaching It means you can shoot with multiple bodies and yet always produce results with consistent color rendition You can apply the color rendition profile of Brand X to a camera from Brand Y so all your pictures look as if they were taken using your Brand X camera body Alternatively the two more neutral settings cancel out even these tiny variations between cameras to produce a technically precise neutral result Sepia tone example Color modes offers you three combo boxes where you can make some preset and repeatable choices about the overall look of your image These color modes are available for both RAW and JPEG images Choices of high medium high medium low low are offered for both contrast and saturation Style offers As shot and various style presets B amp W Toning and others if you have installed the DxO FilmPack plug in As their names imply B amp W removes all the color from the image while Sepia tones the entire image with a pleasing sepia effect Contr
36. correc tion is required Choose the appropriate type of correction for the picture content that most needs correcting and then apply as little correction as possible to render the residual distortion acceptable Over correction will start to re introduce unwanted geometric distortion and you may have to find the best compromise Keystoning Horizon 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 is useful for correcting leaning verticals TIP Using the Toggle Grid Overlay button in the upper right toolbar can assist you in simplifying adjustment of the squareness of the shot If you click on More Options the Keystoning Horizon correction palette will expand to display additional button and slider controls 45 Image Science At the top of the extended panel are buttons to control Force Parallel Horizontal Force Parallel Vertical and Rectangle The pair of Up Down and Left Right sliders edit boxes give you addi tional fine control for adjusting vertical or horizontal keystoning correction with both sliders having a range of 100 to 100 Also note that you can type in a value instead of using the sliders for even more precise control of these functions Nofe in the sample image below that some cropping is necessary due to the adjustments needed to correct the keystoning in the original image This is normal Though ther
37. correction set tings for all of your images you can click on this button and you will be taken directly to the Process tab workspace Duplicate This duplicates the selected image so you can apply two different groups of settings to the same image source Once you click this button you will get a second identical thumbnail in the project that will behave exactly as if it was another original image Two more buttons allow the user to access to the Sort and Filter local menus The thumbnails will be reorganized according to the sorting option you select by file name Extension Size Modification date Camera Body Lens Status and you can hide some sets of images Raw images RGB Images Stacks Already corrected images to reduce the Project window clutter Thumbnail Icons Surrounding the thumbnail images in the Project window are a number of icons that offer you processing control and information about each image 9 Tip Since DxO Optics Pro considers each of your images as unique you can mark each image with a unique processing setting to improve your workflow In the upper left hand corner of the thumbnails are three buttons They are e Mark To be processed Green light e Mark as Undefined Yellow light e Mark Do not process this file Red light When you click on one of these buttons you tell DxO Optics Pro how to process the image during the Process stage You will notice that after you import
38. ct a different destination folder for each window Setting the indicator buttons to control Processing As mentioned earlier in this Manual you can control what images are processed by setting the indicator buttons on each image These are the circular buttons in the upper left corner of each thumbnail You have three choices e Green light Mark to be processed choosing this option will mark the image file to be processed when you click on Start processing e Yellow light Mark as undefined this default option like Mark to be processed will allow the image file to be processed in the next processing run e Red light Do not process this file choosing this option will cause the DxO Optics Pro processing engine to bypass this image file Processing your images To begin processing the images in your project simply click on the Start processing button in the upper part of the Process Status window As each image is processed a master indica tor bar will show you the progress being made for the entire processing run You may Pause or Stop project processing by clicking on the appropriate button to the right of the master progress bar Immediately below this area is a Status line which will give you additional information about the processing session And below this is information on how many images are currently cued for processing Finally as each image in the batch is cued for processing and
39. d attempting to force a color cast onto an originally neutral point is likely to produce unpredictable but interesting results Vv Geometry Palette Geometry Palette Geometry F Intensity Keep Image Ratio F Type Recover Spheres Less Options Radial Intensity Horizon Less Options Up Down Left Right Scale Honzontal Vertical Ratio Tool i Aspect Ratio Unconstrained Auto based on Keystoning Horzon A reminder that if the proper correction module is not loaded on your system some or all these corrections will be grayed out The Geometry Palette has been organized into to four major adjustment groups Distortion Volume Anamorphosis Keystoning Horizon Crop 44 Image Science Distortion Geometric distortion may be pincushion barrel or even for some lenses 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 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 and the range is O to 100 The default setting is 100 and you should only depart from this in special circumstances either to avoid cropping of important detail near edges or for creative reasons TIP Distortion correction involves a non linear change in t
40. d each image is treated as a unique file within a project Concept 3 There is no one right workflow Do not be afraid to experiment and learn Suggested DxO Optics Pro Workflows Output file formats File Edit Workspace Help Menus File Menu Edit menu Program Preferences The General tab Program Preferences The Module ambiguity tab Workspace Menu Workspace menu Help menu The Workspace Tabs The Select Tab select Tab Screen File System icon Windows version Macintosh version Project Database icon Content window The Project Window Thumbnail Icons Module Information Icons Ranking stacking Right Clicking DXO Chapter 10 30 The Prepare Tab 3 30 The Preview Window 31 Force parallel horizontal 31 Force parallel vertical 31 Force rectangle 32 The Correction Palettes 33 Overall Correction Palette workspace 33 Move Zoom Palette 33 Histogram Palette 34 Edit EXIF Palette 35 Preset Editor Palette 37 Four correction palettes Light Color Geometry and Detail 37 Light Palette 40 Color Palette 42 Color rendering 44 Geometry Palette 47 Detail Palette 50 My Palette Chapter 11 DT The Process Tab 51 The Process Workspace 51 Output Format window Chapter 12 55 The Review Tab 55 The Review Workspace 57 Chapter 13 DxO Optics Pro plug in for Adobe Photoshop 57 Installation 57 Activation and Use Chapter 14 58 DxO Optics Pro plug in for Adobe Lightroom 58 Setting up Ad
41. d right pictures NEW ICON Horizon provides you with the ability to draw a parallel line across the Preview window allowing you to readjust the horizon in the image Once you draw the line and release the left mouse button the picture will be rotated to reflect the new horizon NEW ICON Force Parallel Horizontal see the next section NEW ICON Force Parallel Vertical see the next section NEW ICON Rectangle see the next section TIP To quickly leave the Force Parallel and Rectangle modes click on the After icon Also depending on how much correction you make with these tools you will probably need to crop the image to reset clean edges of the image e Multi Point Color Balance Tool MPCB allows you to readjust the color of up to 4 color points on the selected image White balance color picker allows you select which point on the image in the Preview window should be used as the white reference point for the image After displays the processed corrected image in the Preview window This is an accurate display of how this image will look when you process it later during the Process phase of your DxO Optics Pro workflow Please remember that some cor rections can not be displayed in zoom factors less than 75 Before After This is one of the more useful features of the Prepare tab When you 10 click on this icon two images will be displayed in the Preview window
42. ded by clicking its icon in the upper right toolbar at the top of the screen Tip Cant remember which icon goes with which palette Just hover your mouse pointer over an icon and a tool tip will appear From left to right you ll find the first four contro palettes The Navigation palette helps you quickly zoom or pan in the image The Histogram palette shows the histogram of the image This graph presenting the number of pixels for each color value The EXIF palette gives you access to the information embedded in the header of the image The Presets palette which we have already mentioned Next you will find the four correction palettes Light shows the Exposure Lighting and Vignetting controls plus the Tone Curve Color brings together the Color Rendition Profile SmartVibrancy and the White bal ance and Multi point Color balances controls Geometry gives access to the distortion anamorphosis correction keystoning and crop settings Detail shows the pixel level controls such as Noise Sharpening Chromatic aberra tions and the new anti dust tool And finally you will find a very specific palette e MyPalette can be customized with the controls you use frequently Just drag any control from Light Color Geometry or Detail on MyPalette to duplicate it Not sure if the setting you applied to a specific image will do what you want To assist you with determining if the c
43. e area around each pixel having something of the feel of the old photographic effect of dodging and burning 38 WD Image Science After contrast adjusiment Before contrast adjustment Vignetting Here again there is a check box to the right of the Intensity slider that enables disables the auto matic mode Note This correction also depends on the presence of the correct DxO Correction Module being loaded on your system otherwise it will be grayed out and unavailable Vignetting correction takes place in two steps both of which can be fine 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 1 00 allows you to decide how much of the vignetting should be removed from the whole image independent of image content In other words all pixels will be multiplied by the scaled factor applicable to their position in the image Second a filter is applied to avoid clipping in bright areas and noise increase in dark areas Limiting the value by which a pixel can be multiplied depending on its luminance does this The effect of this filter will be different depending on image content Clicking the More Options button opens up a sub panel Shadow Highlights preservation restricts the amount of
44. e is some small loss of image information along the top and sides of the original image the finished product has the proper perspective with all objects in the image maintaining proper proportions Note Defining your geometric corrections in this way will override any other settings you may have entered via the sliders and or edit boxes Also note that each of these corrections cancels out the others so they are mutually exclusive Selecting the Horizon option the line button on the right above the direct entry box for the Horizon tool lets you define a line in the picture that you want to correct so as to be horizontal or vertical To do this you first create one end point with the mouse in the left hand preview image and holding down the left mouse key dragging the cursor to the other edge of the image Releasing the mouse button sets another end point to define your line A bright green line will appear on the preview image V Geometry Palette N 3 As soon as you release the mouse button the second point on the horizon is set and the right 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 allows you to make corrections to 1 100 of a degree Scale The Scale slider edit box lets you resize the image while maintaining all proportions associ ated with
45. e 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 The initial straight line indicates that output tonal values are exactly the same as input values over the entire tonal range In order to adjust tone mapping for correction or creative purposes the straight line is manipu lated so it alters this input output relationship In traditional photographic terms this means altering the gamma of the image and this graphical approach allows for a great deal of flexibility TIP lf you find that the right side of the Tone curve is too close to the right hand side of your monitor you can click on the undocking icon for the Lights palette and move the palette to another more accessible part of your screen Note first 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 Red Green Blue 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 Probably the first step in your adjustment will be to add points to the line which you do simply by left clicking on the line Note It may take a bit of practice to click exactly on the point on the line you wish to adjust As soon as a
46. ed to meet your specific needs and requirements In the following chapters you can discover the various settings that can be applied to your photos and how you can manipulate the corresponding palettes Remember that your original picture is never changed and you can always create a new project along with different settings applied to the same image or group of images Your workflow amp one final note Another point of interest concerns the way you integrate DxO Optics Pro into your personal workflow You may use image management software such as Adobe Lightroom to download index and preview your photographs You may also invest in post production software such as Adobe Photoshop It is very important to remember that in all workflows DxO Optics Pro should be used ahead of any image processing software If not the effectiveness of Optics Pro will be greatly reduced In any case you should always make sure that the original out of the camera EXIF information stored in your image files remains untouched Thank you for using DxO Optics Pro V5 You will find more information in the downloadable pdf ver sion of the Reference Guide and in the Frequently Asked Questions available on DxO s website http help dxo com en 16 Image Science Chapter 7 The Main Program Overview amp Preferences Three Basic Concepts As DxO Optics Pro has evolved over the years requests have been made to provide users with suggestion
47. erformed Cut Cirl X Copy Ctrl C Paste Ctrl V perform the usual clipboard functions DXO e Copy image settings will copy the settings applied to the selected image so that they can be applied to other images as needed Note When you copy the settings of an image with this command the settings remain in the computer s memory until you do the next copy image settings or you quit the software e Paste image settings will apply the settings that you placed into memory with the copy image settings command to the currently selected image This is a quick way to apply with settings for one image to one or more other images Refresh will update the content of the selected repertory The Preferences command allows you to make adjustments to certain overall pro gram working parameters Program Preferences Ihe General tab Here you can select the working language select if you want the camera shutter sound to play at startup select and deselect automatic checks for software updates Another useful feature on the General tab is the ability to set the ICC display profile you will use when working with your pictures in DxO Optics Pro Your choices are e Display device s profile allows you to use the ICC profile used by your camera when taking each picture sRGB allows you to work with the smaller sRGB color profile when correcting and adjusting your pictures This profile is ver
48. ete This feature is extremely useful when you are moving to another computer and want to free up the license on this computer for use on another computer Note When moving to another computer please make sure you transfer the license off of the previous computer first before formatting or removing the DxO programs Under the DxO license you are allowed a specific number of concurrent activations per license Failure to properly deactivate a system may lead to delays in being able to activate your DxO product on another computer Local help Clicking on this menu item will display the Reference Manual for DxO Optics Pro NOTE Your computer does not need to be connected to the Internet to use this menu item if the Reference Manual has previously been downloaded and installed on your computer If you have not previously downloaded the Manual you will need an active Internet connection to 1 download the Manual from the Downloads page on the DxO Labs website or 2 download the Manual the next time you download the program for an update making sure the User Guide box is checked Online help Acfive Internet connection required Clicking on this menu item will start your default web browser and take you to the on line support page of the DxO Labs website There you will find links to Customer Service Technical Support Downloads and our FAQ Frequently Asked Questions section 23 Image Science Tech support Active Internet
49. eters to include or not include in your preset And you can manually override any preset setting at any time By using Presets you can quickly apply your preferred settings to achieve the kind of look you want and then work on each image individually to fine tune corrections and adjustments that perhaps need to be done on an image by image basis TIP It is probably a good practice to start off by saving most of your custom settings as Presets in case you want to apply similar settings later to other images This is much less work than laboriously going through each image trying to reproduce settings you ve used before Vv Preset Editor Palette PE 2 lt It s worth noting here that all settings used to process any image are saved in DxO Optics Pro s internal database If at any time you return to an image it is possible to find out what settings were last used to process i When you open the Presets Palette you see various buttons along with a list of folders Below this list three icons let you create and organize presets New Folder allows you to create folders in which you can group similar types of presets By doing this you can create custom groupings of presets to meet the needs of the way you work However be aware that if you delete a preset folder you will also delete the presets in that folder New Preset enables you to save the current settings for the image into a new preset If you
50. ey are built upon hundreds even thousands of exacting measurements taken from actual photographs These measurements are tailored for the originating camera and lens It is therefore critical to remember that in order to get all of the benefits available in DxO Optics Pro you must use the specific camera and lens combinations that are supported VOTE You can always find an up to date list of these combinations on the DxO Labs website By treating each image individually DxO Optics Pro allows you to mix varied images into a project for processing Each image can then benefit from the specific changes it needs to produce the best results for you This includes the adjustments you make manually as well as the automatic optical corrections produced by the modules Concept 3 There is no one right workflow Do not be afraid to experiment and learn Whether you shoot portraits landscapes weddings sporting events people wildlife family pictures a handful of images or hundreds of pictures at a time using Optics Pro within a good workflow tailored to your individual needs will yield the best results and reduce the amount of time between an unfinished image and a finished product This Manual will help you develop your workflow s as well as assist you in understanding when they should be used We therefore highly recommend that you read this Manual to better understand the program s features and keep it handy for future reference Dx
51. f the corrected version appears In case you re not satisfied by the default correction you have the choice to adjust manually your pictures by using the Correction Palettes In version 5 all available settings have been organized into four photo palettes that logically group corrections according to four suc cessive ways to consider the image These photo palettes are Light where you can control Exposure Lighting the Tone Curve Color White balance Color profile SmartVibrancy Geometry for Distorsion Anamorphosis Keystoning and Detail Sharpness Denoise Anti dust You can access them by clicking on their icons on the top right part of the main window You can also access the more traditional Navigation Histogram Exif and Presets palettes When checking and correcting your images you may find that some of them do not deserve any further processing This may be because you chose one among many almost identical images of a sequence or simply because you don t want to process them now Click the little Red light above the thumbnail and the image even if it remains inside your project will be ignored during the final Process Note that while the Orange light means Process status to be defined it will still be processed by default The green light obviously enough means Process this image Step 3 Process a batch of images For further information please see Chapter 4 regarding the Process
52. first highlight a folder before creating the preset the new preset will be created in that selected folder Duplicate Preset creates a copy of a selected preset copy that you can the modify later Click on the name of a preset to select it you will visualize the way it changes the current image But the changes are not validated if you select another preset the effects of the first one are discarded and the new one applied When you like the way a preset affects the current image and want to make these changes permanent just click on the Apply button on the bottom right of the Preset palette If you create a new preset you can edit its settings by clicking on the Edit button Note that the DxO Default Presets cannot be edited you must first duplicate the DxO Default preset you want to modify and edit its copy selection of a preset When a preset is selected and you click on the Edit button you can see an orange vertical bar appearing along the left hand side of any opened correction palette In this orange bar checkboxes are visible the status of these checkboxes is very important some of them may be checked this means the corresponding correction engine is activated by the selected preset A checkbox left unchecked in the orange bar means the corresponding correction is not impacted by the preset applying this preset to an image will not alter the previous setting for this correction This is very differen
53. folder as the input files not recommended or browse and specify a separate output folder recommended TIP Create an output folder that is easy to remember i e DxO Output This way you will always be able to easily find your output files after pro cessing is complete File name suffix select a file name suffix This is useful if you are going to place the ul output files into the source folder Size Select the output image dimension size from pre determined selections includ ing the ability to specify a custom output size Resolution select the resolution in dots per inch dpi including the ability to select a custom dpi If you select the Custom option the next combo box is activated which lets you specify an image size in dpi WD Image Science TIP Use an output dpi that is compatible with the target output For instance if you are going to print you output files to a high quality printer that supports 300 dpi use 300 dpi as your output resolution 9 ICC Profile select the output ICC profile color space including sRGB AdobeRGB and a custom profile If you select a custom profile a blue folder will be displayed to allow you to browse to the location of the custom file TIP Like resolution use the color profile that is appropriate for the intended use for your images For example consider using sRGB for web use and AdobeRGB for printing to your photo printer ENHANCED FEATUR
54. ge Card gt Hard disk gt DxO Optics Pro gt Other post production pro grams if necessary 2 Archived originals workflow Archived originals gt DxO Optics Pro gt Other post production programs if necessary 3 Adobe Lightroom and DxO Optics Pro workflow Camera Storage Card gt Hard disk gt Adobe Lightroom gt DxO Optics Pro plug in gt Adobe Lightroom gt Other post production programs if necessary 4 Adobe Photoshop and DxO Optics Pro workflow Camera Storage Card gt Hard disk gt Adobe Photoshop gt DxO Optics Pro plug in gt Adobe Photoshop When is it the best time to use the standalone version of DxO Optics Pro versus the plug in version in your workflow There are several answers fo this question The answer that is right for you will depend on what your goal is for the particular project you are working on at the time Option 1 Use the standalone version of DxO Optics Pro without any other program Use this option if your end goal is to process your images review them and remove the images that do not meet your requirements or expectations and archive the rest of the pictures Remember that you will always need your original images to reprocess your pictures in Optics Pro Option 2 Use the standalone version of DxO Optics Pro followed by Adobe Lightroom or any other Image database In this case you will first process your images directly from
55. h the Dust tool activated The mask will turn dark blue remove it by pressing the Del key NOTE Dust removal is not displayed if images are displayed more than 75 The width of the dust pen can be adjusted using the slider in this section Chromatic aberration There are two controls for chromatic aberration To the right of them are the usual check boxes for automatic setting which have to be unchecked to enable the manual controls The first slider edit box with a range from 0 to 200 adjusts the correction intensity for all types of chromatic aberration It basically affects tiny colored transitions which may generally be assumed to be the result of aberration rather than actual picture content The second with a range from 0 to 12 adjusts the size of the purple fringe that will be suppressed this basically affects the way DxO Optics Pro decides what is considered to be chromatic aberration that needs correcting and what is wanted picture content The Purple fringing correction just has a check box to enable or disable it Nofe Overall Chromatic aberration correction must be enabled in order for Purple Fringing to become available There is also a check box to enable Lateral chromatic aberration This correction depends on the presence of the correct DxO Correction Module otherwise it will be grayed out and unavailable ibs My Palette MyPalette is an extra palette that you can freely customize While
56. he image rendering speed of your system a clear sharp image may take several seconds to be redisplayed Zoom viewport When clicked you can move the mouse cursor over a specific part of your image and clicking will automatically zoom into that area of the image Crop When clicked the mouse cursor turns into a cross hair cursor allowing you to crop the image in the Preview window The boundaries of the cropped image will be shown with a black dashed line If you would like to quickly leave the crop mode click on one of the other buttons on the toolbar Anti dust tool allows you to paint a point or a line whose thickness can be adjusted over a dust shadow or a blemish detail you want to erase After you draw a point or a line it becomes selectable if you click again on it with the anti dust tool You can then remove it by pressing the Del key on your keyboard s numeric keypad Of course once you erase dust and blemishes on one image you can make a preset out of it and reuse this setting on other images Note When you first click on the dust tool two picture images will be displayed in the Preview window The left hand image is the before image where you will make your correction and the right hand picture is the after image You will need to use the zoom slider and Move viewport button to zoom into the area of the image you want to work on When you zoom in the same 3 area will be displayed in both the left an
57. he left or entering negative values will give a softer smoother image while moving the slider to the right or entering positive values will give a sharper image 47 Image Science Note The value 1 0 will result in an image that is similar to a Gaussian Blur image in Adobe Photoshop This is presented as a comparison only This is because the value 1 0 is nora simple unsharp mask 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 For each area in the image the amount of sharpening will also depend for example on the ISO setting 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 Note that because this sharpness correction is specifically tailored for your camera s optics and may well vary across the image field to allow for lens performance variations it is usu ally preferable to perform as much of your sharpening as possible using the Lens Softness correction This allows less use of the Unsharp Mask USM which although is an adaptive tool is a more generalized and coarser sharpening process Of course for images where the appropriate DxO Correction Module is not installed all sharpening must be done by the USM ie r a S Z Pun M Unsharp Mask If you click on More options on the Sharpne
58. he magnifica tion which produces curved edges to the image and empty black spaces Io restore clean straight edges and maintain the image s original aspect ratio some cropping of the image is inevitable At very wide angles especially with fish eye lenses this may be quite significant so remember to make allowances for this when framing these types of shots There is a check box to enable or disable Keep Image Ratio Normally during distortion cor rection the corrected image is re cropped back to the original aspect ratio However in certain cases this may mean that the image is cropped tighter than is strictly necessary Using this option releases this constraint on the aspect ratio so the cropping is just the bare minimum required to straighten the edges of the image You are then free to crop the image manually to suit your needs Volume anamorphosis correction VAC There is a fundamental problem when capturing a picture of our three dimensional world onto a two dimensional image governed by the basic laws of optics When converted into a flat image the shapes of certain three dimensional objects seem 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 One of the biggest problems when trying to correct for this distortion is tha
59. header of each picture Then according to the photographic situation type of camera body and lens used aperture speed zoom position etc the program adapts its corrections and adjustments to meet the specific needs of each image This is truly a unique feature of DxO Optics Pro that can save you many hours of image adjustment time and effort You can also replace these standard parameters with different ones The Preset local menu gives you access to the list of all recorded presets available in your DxO Optics Pro internal database At first you will find presets prepared by DxO engineers but you also have the pos sibility to add you own custom presets thanks to the Presets palette in the Prepare Tab See chapter 10 for more details on this feature You can repeat this process over and over choosing a different preset to use with different images Remember in Optics Pro each image is treated as a unique process ing file So being able to mix varied images and presets in a single project is a very powerful feature of the program In the upper left hand corner of the Project window you will find the name of the project you 27 are working on To the right of the name you will see the following icons e Create a new project If you click on this icon the program will create a new blank project To the far right of the Project window are two buttons Process Now If you want to apply the automatically created default
60. hin Optics Pro using the contents of one folder or many folders However only the contents of one folder can be displayed at any one time in the right hand window Project Database icon When you click this icon the upper left window shows the content of the internal Project Database This database will automatically record every project you ve worked on listed in a chronological order You ll see first the most recent projects then yesterday s last week s last month s and so on When you click on a projects name the right window shows the images that were imported into that project If you drag some of these images into the current Project window they will be added with their respective settings This means that if you applied some specific settings in the original project these same settings will be reintroduced into the current project This will give you the option to modify some settings in order to obtain a different version of the same original image Content window At the top left of the right hand window the path and name of the selected folder is displayed as well as the number of files in the folder On the upper right hand side of the window you will find two File Display buttons The left most button displays the folder s contents in a list view showing each file s name Photo file extension Extension file size Size and its creation or modification date Date Note You can resort the names of the file
61. hole Batch svat 3 A Reame Dr Y euprocmss bp Part E Windows Task Manager GA OO Optics Pre vso EEC va The Process tab The top part of Process workspace is divided into three areas while the familiar Project pane is located in the bottom section of your screen Output formats In the left hand area of the top section is where you can specify what output file formats you would like created during the processing phase of Optics Pro Optics Pro supports three output formats JPEG TIFF and DNG DNG formatted files can only be created from RAW input files A summary of all available formats is shown and you can click on W to enable them for this batch You must have at least one output format active for processing to begin Otherwise you will see an error message when you press Start The right side window at the top of the screen is divided into two smaller windows The top window will give you information about both the overall processing status of your project as well as the status of each of the image files being processed Your Start Resume and Stop buttons are also located in this window 13 Image Science Immediately below the currently processed images you will see the next images in the batch list Only the images you have marked with a green or a yellow light will appear in this list Start the process As noted above you are kept informed of the progress
62. icial 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 more appropriate for the artificial light actually used will cool the image therefore correcting the orange cast to the image If you click on More options in the RAW White Balance panel two sliders become available A Temperature slider similar to the RGB version and a Tint slider that will shift the image colors from green to purple VW Color Palette Let s take a look at the operation of this control using some actual pictures in this case RAW images 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 Cooler Lower Original Warmer Higher TIP Extreme settings in the RGB mode need to be used with care in order to avoid artifacts that are the result of limitations in the RGB formats themselves Vibrancy Moving the slider controlling Vibrancy to the right will enhance the colors to make them more appealing and give your image greater pop while avoiding undesirable side effects such as reddish skin tones Conversely moving the slider to the left will reduce the strength of the colors in an over saturated image Vibrancy control moved higher to enhance natural colors of photo 41 Image Science Color rendering lets you apply a spe
63. ics Pro plug in for Adobe Photoshop DxO Optics Pro plug in for Adobe Lightroom Process Chapter 1 Chapter 2 D uUUN SM aca OT BB BR A O Chapter3 10 10 10 10 11 11 12 Chapter 4 13 13 13 13 14 Chapter5 15 15 15 Table of Contents Introduction to DxO Optics Pro v5 quick session overview First in your workflow A typical image enhancement session The Photographic Workflow Ultimate flexibility and ease of use Select Add Your Photos from Various Sources Adding images Import plug ins The Project window Star ranking and Stacking The thumbnails and their buttons Fully automatic mode Prepare sort and Fine Tune Your Images A new look and a more powerful workflow A gradual complexity Control and corrections palettes Adapting your workflow The Correction Palettes Process The Whole Batch The Process tab Output formats Start the process Review Control the Results Check the before and after Chapter6 16 16 Chapter7 17 17 17 18 18 18 20 Chapter8 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 23 24 Chapter9 25 25 26 26 26 26 26 27 27 28 28 29 29 How to go further 2 Your workflow amp one final note The Main Program Overview amp Preferences Three Basic Concepts Concept 1 DxO Optics Pro is part of a larger post production workflow Concept 2 DxO Optics Pro is made up of correction modules an
64. if you are going to print your output files to a high quality printer that supports 300 dpi use 300 dpi as your output resolution TIFF ICC Profile select the output ICC profile color space including sRGB AdobeRGB 5 and a custom profile If you select a custom profile a blue folder will be displayed to allow you to browse to the location of the custom file TIP Like resolution use the color profile that is appropriate for the intended use for your images For example consider using sRGB for web use and AdobeRGB for printing to your photo printer Output Name name the output format Format select an output format in this case TIFF Compression select whether you want file compression employed during processing Note Contrary to JPEG compression the TIFF compression is non destructive you can use it without damaging the quality of the image Force 8 bits select whether you want to create 8 bit images or 16 bit images Of course whether you can create 16 bit images will depend on whether your original image is 16 bit If the original image is already 8 bit it will remain 8 bit TIP Unless your intended output destination requires a lower quality image it is recommended that you not select yes for this processing option and leave the output image in the same quality format as the original image Destination specify a destination folder You can choose to place the output files in the same
65. if you need to crop a whole series of images to conform to a specific aspect ratio You can enter numeric values for the ratio you want These must be integers but the box will accept a sufficiently wide range of values to enable any desired proportion to be achieved In the lower part of the Crop palette a checkbox activates the automatic crop feature Auto based on Keystoning Horizon With this option any modification of keystoning will bring an automatic crop of the image according to the ratio parameter that is selected 46 Image Science a Detail Palette E Detail 7 l a Lon L Less Options Unsharp Mask Intensity Radius Threshold Current color profile Intensity 24x36 Adjust Size to Current Crop Size a Yoi Luminance Chrominance i More Options Tool Dust pen width 2 Chromatic Aberration Intensity Size 5 Purple Fringing Lateral Chromatic Aberration The Detail palette allows you to control everything that concerns the pixel level Sharpening denoising dust and chromatic aberrations removal settings are available within this palette Note that the grain controls appear only if you installed the DxO FilmPack plug in Y Detail Palette amp VW4eeeaeae Cin CAC SEC SCA 1626200008 el LL as LEFT TANT dede PEUT Mi an in 2 ap 25 Mi in VID dal a a Sharpness DxO can correct only for
66. images they all appear marked as Undefined with a yellow light This is done to remind you that you have not yet decide if you want to process WD Image Science or discard them When you display the images in the Prepare Tab you may decide their final status Process Green light or Do not Process Red light IMPORTANT TIP Note that images carrying a yellow light i e with an Undefined status will ALSO be processed along with green light images This allows you to import images and start processing them right away when you know you want to process every image In the lower left of the thumbnail controls for rotating the image are available You can rotate the image by plus or minus 90 degrees at a time Note DxO Optics Pro will automatically rotate any image you shoot if you used the auto rotate feature of your camera Module Information Icons Once your project is open and you add image files to it the thumbnail of each image displays various icons that will give you processing information about your image If for some reason correction tools in Optics Pro are not available or the image cannot be processed please check these icons to help diagnose what might be causing the problem The proper correction module to use has been determined from the EXIF data portion of the image file Your image is ready to process There is ambiguous focal distance or ambiguous rotation information in the EXIF data portion of
67. in processing your project by means of two sets of progress bars During processing the upper Pause and Stop buttons will allow you to halt processing temporarily or abort it altogether Lower buttons similarly allow you to Pause processing of the current image or Skip it altogether Note In DxO Optics Pro v5 you no longer have to save your projects to your system s hard drive to process your images At Process time all settings associated with your images are recorded automatically in a database composed of sidecar files While processing is under way the thumbnails of all images being processed carry a two cogs icon Once processing is completed this icon changes to a W indicating that processing has been successful for that image Please note that DxO Optics Pro will automatically utilize the resources of your computer sys tem in the most efficient way possible If you have a computer system that has multiple cores DxO Optics Pro will make every effort to utilize as many cores as possible If you have other programs or processes running in the background that are also vying for system resources then it is possible that not all of your cores will be utilized during that particular processing run This is normal You can control to a certain degree how DxO Optics Pro manages your system s resources by adjusting the performance controls in the programs Preferences window After processing your images you ma
68. indow By moving the slider to the left you can reduce the magnification of the selected image in the window Move the slider to the right and the magnification of the image is increased There is also a down arrow to the right of the slider that when clicked will present a drop down selec tion of predefined magnification amounts as well as the ability to type in a zoom value of your choosing Accepted values range from 5 to 200 For more information about Zooming please see the Move Zoom tool palette section below Other icons above the Preview window include from far left to right Before image displays the thumbnail image chosen in the lower Project window in the Preview window as your camera shot it without any Optics Pro corrections To see the as shot image simply click and hold the left mouse button down The original As shot image will be displayed When you release the mouse button the corrected image with default processing settings will be displayed This is an excellent way to do a quick check on optical corrections automatically made by the program to see if they meet your needs Move viewport When clicked a hand icon replaces the standard mouse arrow and allows you to grab by clicking and holding down the left mouse button and move a magnified image in the Preview window so you can examine individual parts of the entire image Please note that when you move to a different area of your image that depending on t
69. ings will provide you with the best possible results and clicking on Process Now will start the procedure to process your images immediately without further adjustments TIP The image information read by DxO Optics Pro is not information that can be changed once it is written by the camera If advanced correc tion tools such as volume anamorphosis distortion lens softness etc are greyed out this is a good sign that either the correction module you need is not loaded on your system or the EXIF data in the file has been changed or damaged You may occasionally find that you want to apply additional corrections to one or more images By clicking on the Prepare tab you will have access to the full suite of Optics Pro tools When you manually make changes to these tool settings you are making your changes based on the best default values computed for that image TIP Returning to these default values can be accomplished either by rechecking the auto mode box io the right of the tool s input window or slider or using the default Presets to reset the original settings second all images that are to be processed either singly or as a group are placed into a project in Optics Pro The Project window at the bottom of your screen allows you to specify what picture files you want to process at any given time We will cover how to control this processing later in this Manual Third correction modules are the heart of DxO Optics Pro Th
70. irst program in your post production workflow immediately after your images have been copied from the card reader or camera Please note that if your images have been previously processed using any other software including reader or cataloguing programs or are missing important EXIF data DxO Optics Pro needs certain DxO corrections you want to use may be limited in their use or not available Note Please check the on line FAQ at www dxo com en photo support for the most recent updates regarding this requirement DXO Optics Pro also strives to leave as much of the metadata EXIF MakerNote IPTC XMP as possible untouched This means that you should still be able to use your other image process ing editing software even after your images have been processed by DxO Optics Pro And DxO Optics Pro automatically rotates your images if you use the auto rotate facility of your camera therefore eliminating the need for additional software for this particular step As you can see DxO Optics Pro is a powerful first step in your post production process enabling you to dramatically improve your images in a standalone or highly integrated workflow The fol lowing chapters will offer you valuable information to help get you quickly started implementing a more effective image improvement process We recommend that you take the time to read this User Guide carefully Doing so will answer many of your questions regarding the proper operation of the program
71. isplay available via the three buttons beneath the Histogram display 33 iG Pa Histogram 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 displays a picture that is mainly black areas with no clipping in which certain small areas will display as white highlights where all three color channels are at maximum or as different colors only one or two color channels are at maximum This enables you to spot at once precisely which parts of your picture are clipping The exact opposite is true for the shadow clipping button in this case the picture displayed is mainly white with small black or colored areas indicating clipping The middle button restores the normal display It s important to note that shadow and highlight clipping displays are computed in the final output color space and hence these displays and any adjustments performed based on them will be affected if the output color space is subsequently changed Vv Edit EXIF Palette v d d Ge gt L 6 34 Edit EXIF Palette k Edit EXIF Te T DxO Module Infon Canon EOS DIGITAL REBI Size 7945x2622 Exposure 1 100 s Date 2007 11 09 16 05 35 Focal Length 18 00 mm Iso Speed Rating 400 Flash Flash did not fire compul F Num
72. ivates DxO s denoise engine along with the grey equalizer that removes color noise Romantic Look A rather soft and low contrast preset bringing a slight highkey style Vivid and sharp on the contrary this preset gives a dynamic look to the image thanks to strong vibrancy and sharpness settings 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 it Depending on how you name your new folder it will be auto matically moved 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 On the top right of the Presets Palette you see a drop down menu icon This menu duplicates the commands that we already described such as New Preset Edit etc But you will also see original items import allows you to import previously created presets for use in Optics Pro v5 This is particularly handy if you want to move a preset you created from one computer to another computer Choosing the Import menu command will open up a folder tree display allowing you to browse for the preset s you want to import Export allows you to export presets to a text file this feature is plateform specific versions Mac and Windows of DxO Optics Pro v5 presets remain incompatible 36 DXO Four correction palettes Light Color Geometry and Det
73. l change into a star and the dots below it will also change to stars giving this image a rating of 3 It will look like this xxx In the lower right side of the thumbnail is a red X If you highlight an image or set of images and click the red X the highlighted images will be removed from the project 28 Image Science Stacking A stack of images is a way of organizing your images into groups which can not only help reduce clutter in your Project window but more importantly enable you to apply various set tings to a entire group of images at the same time without having to multi select them each time In this way a stack is equivalent to a permanent multi selection Any tme you have a number of images that for some reason might require the same process settings you may want to consider stacking them These might be a series of related images of the same subject or a set of images taken under the same lighting conditions The possibilities are endless NOTE If one of these images subsequently needs individual settings you must first unstack it in order to be able to adjust the settings for this particular image A stack always shows a master image at the top of stack It s this image that will be displayed in the Prepare tab when you select the stack WI4V999S CR2 Stack 01 4 WI4V9993 IPG Skack 01 WI4V9995 CRZ Stack 01 Create a stack It is easy to create a stack by selecting mu
74. l take you to the first image file in your multiselection The button with just a left facing arrowhead will take you to the previous image unless you are already at the first image In this case both of the left hand buttons will be greyed out The buttons on the right side of the file name have a similar function only they will take you ahead to images that are further into the multiselection On the far right hand side of the bar above the Preview window to the left of the zoom slider are three icons The icons from left to right are Proof this allows you to immediately process the image currently chosen in the Project window to quickly verify if the settings you have made for the image meets your needs or if additional correction and adjustments are necessary e Toggle Grid overlay superimposes and removes a grid over the image in the Preview window to assist you with correcting horizons and image distortions e Toggle Image information overlay displays and hides program information for the selected image This information will appear in the Preview window The Correction Palettes In the upper right hand corner of the Prepare workspace screen you will see icons for each of the available correction palettes If you hover over these icons with your mouse pointer a tool tip with the name of the palette will be displayed for you From left to right the icons are e Move Zoom e Histogram Edit EXIF Preset Edito
75. lect the preset by clicking Exit In case you don t want to apply the preset to the image simply click Exit to deselect it Note You can move a preset to a different folder by drag and drop In front of each folder is a a triangle on the Mac version By clicking on the the subfold ers under Presets will expand just like a folder tree in Windows File Explorer In the DxO Default Presets folder are grouped all of the default presets provided with the program A Darker Vision This preset will reduce the exposure level while increasing the overall contrast This gives a slight lowkey effect DXO Default Preset As you can guess this preset is applied by default to all images imported in DxO Optics Pro It concerns the basic corrections Light Exposure compensation activated but set to 0 Lighting set to 70 Slight Vignetting set to 100 Geometry Distorsion set to 100 Vv Preset Editor Palette qu a l Ee 4 Detail DxO Lens Softness activated but set to 0 Chromatic Aberration sintensity to 100 and size to 3 with lateral chromatic aberration active and DxO Noise activated to values depending of camera and ISO setting e No correction As its name tells this preset will desactivate all DxO correction engines Of course when applied to a RAW image DxO Optics Pro still takes in charge the Raw conversion with standard settings RAW Anti color alias This preset act
76. ltiple images so they are highlighted with a blue outer box and then right clicking on one of the images A menu window will open and one of the options is called Stacking with a right facing arrowhead next to it Clicking on this menu item opens up a sub menu to the right TIP To select consecutive thumbnails for inclusion in a Stack hold down the Shift key and click on the first and last images for the stack To select non consecutive images hold down the Ctrl key and single click on the thumbnails you want to be included in the stack e Create a stack Clicking on Create Stack will create a stack where the images to the right of the first selected image will collapse below the first image A number box will be placed in the right top corner of the thumbnail informing you of how many images are currently in the stack Expand the stack by double clicking on the image so you can check all pictures inside without unstacking them You can also expand the stack displaying all of the images in the stack in the Project window by right clicking on the stack and then choosing Stacking and Expand stack Shrink the stack by double click on the top of stack master image Note It s the one outlined in blue Change the master image if the stack is expanded by double clicking on another image or if it s collapsed by using the scroll wheel on your mouse e Add more images You can later add more image
77. ly the Tone curve gives you very precise control to every level of luminance DxO Color is the place to go when you want to modify colors in your image The first control concerns the familiar White Balance which allows you to alter the light temperature and tint Another very important tool gives you a choice of Color Rendition Profiles These profiles let you apply a specific look to your images starting from various camera bodies up to traditional film rendering Style contrast saturation and HSL Hue Saturation Luminance controls are also available But you will also find DxO s exclusive Multi point color balance tool to be crucial when various colored light sources are active in the same scene SmartVibrancy on another hand brings out more vivid colors in the image while preserving skin tones Geometry In this palette you will find controls for Distortion Volume Anamorphosis Correction and Keystoning Horizon The distortion correction is automatically applied by DxO Optics Pro according to the type of lens used for the picture and the photographic set tings zoom aperture etc But you may want to adjust this correction in order to create a specific effect Volume Anamorphosis Correction is another exclusive tool It takes care of this geometric distortion that stretches objects in the corners of wide angle images Being subject matter dependent this adjustment requires you to manually
78. n the lower patch in the Multi points Color Balance panel If you want to select further points for balancing you can click again on a new location in the left image As you do so the previous color wheel will collapse to a small circle with its number beside it These numbers correspond to the patches in the MPCB panel You can revisit an ear lier color point at any time by clicking right in the center of it And you can move it around by grabbing it at any point on the color wheel other than at the adjustment cursor and dragging it to where you want it You can delete any color point by clicking on the X button beneath its color patches in the MPCB panel Also on the MPCB panel are two sliders and edit boxes for sample Radius range 1 to 4 pixels which sets the size of the point around the cursor that is averaged There is also an adjustment for Intensity 0 100 which enables you to adjust the flexibility around the clicked point and a check box for Preserve white balance From the points you set DxO Optics Pro calculates the color adjustments that need to be made to achieve the balance you require If there is a conflict between the points you have set the program will make the best compromise it can between them all If you check the box to enable Preserve white balance then DxO Optics Pro will calculate the compromises in such a way as to maintain the neutrality of the image as much as possible With this mode enable
79. ng on the Choose button allows you to select DxO Optics Pro exe on the Windows platform or DxO Optics Pro 5 on Macintosh Next select the TIFF File Format AdobeRGB color space 16 bits component bit depth and Compression None Using DxO Optics Pro from Lightroom First in Lightroom select the image s that you want to process in DxO Optics Pro In the Photo menu choose Edit with DxO Optics Pro DxO Optics Pro opens automatically you see the Prepare tab where you can make some adjustments of the automatic settings Then in the Process tab you can start the batch Once corrected the images are sent back to Lightroom TIP ff the RAW version of a selected image is available in the Lightroom database DxO Optics will retrieve it and process it even if Lightroom s dialog box only proposes a Tiff version of the image This gives you the opportunity to use DXO Optics Pro Raw converter instead of Lightroom s Accessing Lightroom collections from DXO Optics Pro In Dxo Optics Pro a plug in allows you to access directly Adobe s Lightroom collections Click on the optional Lightroom icon sitting on the top right of the main window next to the Database and FileSystem icons You see the collections created in any version of Lightroom installed on the same computer visible in the the left pane Click on a collection to see the images it contains You may then import any image inside your cur
80. o achieve your desired photographic goals To insure that DxO Optics Pro fits within a larger workflow the program outputs three popular file formats They are e JPEG TIFF e DNG The DNG format produced by Optics Pro is fully compatible with the Adobe specifica tions and can be easily used in Adobe products such as Camera Raw Photoshop and Lightroom 17 DXO Concept 2 DXO Optics Pro is made up of correction modules and each image is treated as a unique file within a project There are several important but related points that make up this concept First DxO Optics Pro does not work like any other post production program you may use Rather than presenting you with an uncorrected image to work on and expecting you to manually make the corrections and adjustments Optics Pro automatically determines the best set of settings for each image you add to its Project window When you add an image to DxO Optics Pro the program reads the camera and lens informa tion that is stored in the EXIF data portion of your image as well as analyzes the subject matter content of the image If the camera and lens information matches the information found in an installed correction module the module is chosen and optical corrections are applied to the image Taking the information from the image file Optics Pro develops default correction settings that are custom tailored for each of your pictures In most cases these sett
81. obe Lightroom preferences 58 Using DxO Optics Pro from Lightroom 58 Accessing Lightroom collections from DxO Optics Pro Vv Histogram pren Pe D PE Die Image Science Introduction to DxO Optics Pro v5 Welcome to the exciting world of DxO Optics Pro digital image enhancement This powerful groundbreaking software will improve the quality of your digital images in a way you would never have believed possible DxO Optics Pro s precise calibrated corrections are based on unique algorithms derived from actual measurements made on real camera bodies and lenses Thousands of test measure ments are made on each body and lens combination using every combination and permuta tion of shooting parameters The entire DxO Optics Pro system utilizes what are called Correction Modules Each module is unique and specific to a particular camera body and lens combination For this reason you need to make sure you have the right module s for the camera bodies and lenses you use to take your pictures When you do DxO Optics Pro reads the EXIF information embedded in your photos and produces extremely accurate corrections of measured optical flaws This is not just subjective and often time consuming manual approximations In addition version 5 of DxO Optics Pro also includes a number of corrections that are not camera specific You can automatically obtain image improvements going beyond simple cor rections which you c
82. ombination of both vertical and horizontal keystone correction since it can also introduce an element of skew into the correction Example What if you have a picture that contains both keystoning and a horizon that is not level since the four corrections Horizon Force Parallel Horizontal Force Parallel Vertical and Rectangle are mutually exclusive if your image contains both keystoning and a horizon that isn t level you will have to first perform one of the corrections using the top left hand buttons and then the other correction in the Geometry palette since the Level horizon command only works with a horizontal line if the problem with your picture is in fact a leaning vertical it will make sense to correct any keystoning first and only then go and correct the leaning vertical in the right hand Geometry palette Alternatively you can cheat by using the Force rectangle tool though this type of correction can prove to be very difficult to master ENHANCED FEATURE Image navigation buttons In the center of the upper portion of the Preview window you will find the name of the image file you are viewing and to the right and left of the filename are buttons similar to what you will find on a VCR or DVD player These buttons are useful in case you select many different thumbnaisl in the Project window multiselection If you click the far left button that has a left facing arrowhead and vertical line Optics Pro wil
83. orrection selections you have made meet your requirements DxO Optics Pro vo has a Proof this feature This allows you to immediately automatically start processing the picture you have chosen with the settings you currently have picked for the image This way you can quickly and easily process a single image and verify the results On the left hand side of the header tool bar is another series of icons to help you easily access often used tools that will assist you in visualizing and adjusting your pictures For example the second icon from the left is a magnifying glass mA tool that lets you zoom in to any part of the previewed image by successively clicking on it Holding down the Shift key as you click turns it into a zoom out tool In all cases the minimum zoom size is Zoom to fit determined by the current size of the preview pane and the maximum is 600 Please note that some corrections cannot be observed with zoom factors smaller than 75 This is the case for the Chromatic Aberration DxO Lens softness DxO Noise and Unsharp Mask corrections Alternatively over on the right hand side of the header bar a drop down box lets you choose the zoom ratio of the preview image as well as zoom in and zoom out buttons Adapting your workflow In the Preview workspace you will find two buttons that specify the way your preview image is displayed J displays both before and after images in
84. ou might expect Moving it to the right or entering a positive Ev num ber into the edit box increases the image s exposure while moving the slider to the left or a negative Ev number reduces it The range is from 4 00 Ev to 4 00 Ev Tip During exposure adjustments you will find it helpful to use the highlight shadow clipping display available via the buttons beneath the Histogram display Below the slider is an Auto exposure compensation drop down box This box provides you with a list of predefined automatic exposures for different types of shooting conditions Choosing one of these exposure compensations can speed up your workflow by providing additional 37 WD Image Science custom settings for this type of shooting situation Of course these settings can be refined as needed DxO Lighting Pixel precise image segmentation technology lies at the heart of DxO Lighting to deliver auto matic local contrast adjustment and thereby reveal hidden detail in dark areas Simply put DxO Lighting first breaks the image down into a number of areas 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 specific terms lightness and tone curve slope are slightly increased in dark areas to bring out detail while avoiding signal clipping that can occur if the overall gamma level of the image were adjusted The Intensity Slider range is f
85. out corrections and then after a few seconds with all corrections active A gradual complexity An important change between DxO Optics Pro vo and its previous versions is that there is now only one user mode for DxO Optics Pro In fact in v5 you always work in full Automatic mode DXO But even in this mode you can access all the presets of the previous Guided mode or all the correction palettes that were available in the Expert mode It s worth noting that the complexity of the software appears gradually based on how you use the program The first time you select the Prepare tab no correction palette is visible To access the Presets for instance click on the corresponding icon on the top right of the main window The Preset palette will then appear allowing you to select from a list the presets you want to apply If you want to modify a particular aspect of the image such as Light Color Geometry or Detail you simply click on the appropriate icon to open the corresponding palette All palettes open with a simplified design showing only the basic controls However you can click on the More Options button to access the full complexity of all available settings Control and corrections palettes All corrections you make to your images are coordinated using Correction Palettes In version 5 these palettes now float and are independent of each other Each palette can be made to appear or disappear as nee
86. point is created that point is locked You can then drag it around and the unlocked portion of the line will follow creating a curve in the line as you do so You can watch the results of your adjustments in real time on the preview image 39 Image Science 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 filled 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 figure between 0 05 and 6 00 As you would expect a gamma value higher than 1 tends to bring up detail out of the shadows while a value lower than 1 pushes details down into the blacks The input and output black and white points can likewise be set either by dragging amp dropping the relevant points with your mouse or entering numerical values in the 4 entry boxes from 0 black to 255 white DxO s powerful tone curve lighting correction and noise reduction features mean you ll be able to recover an astonishing amount of shadow detail that in conventional photography would likely have been lost Remember these corrections are most effective when processing RAW images which is why the RAW form
87. pply a different set of settings to the second set Remember each image in your project is treated individually so your flexibility in processing possibilities is virtually unlimited Import plug ins Let s now return to the group of icons sitting on the top right of the main window Next to the System icon you will see the Project Database icon When you click on it the left pane updates to display a chronological list of all the projects you already processed it may be empty the very first time you work with DxO Optics Pro v5 If you click one of your previous projects you will see the thumbnails of all images belonging in this project You can then import one or many of them into the current project DxO Optics Pro v5 will re create the full configuration you had used for this image including the settings used in the previous project This allows you to easily modify some settings in order to get a different version of the image Another useful feature in version 5 is the ability of the program to use plug ins that allow you to access photo collections of other software packages The installed plug ins will appear in the upper right of your screen next to the System and Project Database icons These plug ins control the importing collections of your images from other software packages This feature allows you take full advantage of the organizational and sorting capabilities of various professional programs you may be using such as
88. project if you don t need to make any manual adjustments to any of your images you can simply click on the Process now button to the right of the Project pane and processing will take place You will only be asked for output file type and image destination information and to intervene manually to input data in the event DxO does not have enough information to process certain images correctly Image Science Chapter 3 Prepare Sort and Fine Tune Your Images File Edt Workspace Help Haur 0000er tre tam Qe amp C Reame L2oces D ra EF Ox0 Optics Pro v5 0 En UT i720 A new look and a more powerful workflow One of the exciting new changes in DxO Optics Pro version 5 is the new Prepare tab For users who wish to go beyond the automatic settings for some of their images and need greater control over how their pictures are adjusted and processed the Prepare tab is the heart of their workflow Once you have established a project either by re opening an existing one or by creating a new one you can use the Prepare workspace to organize your images and specify any special corrections or adjustments that need to be made In this workspace the top half of the screen is resizable and is available as a type of light table to display the image you select for preview Once you left click on a thumbnail in the Project window the corresponding image will appear in the Preview pane first with
89. r Lights Geometry e Colors Details My Palette If you click on an icon the corresponding correction palette initially located on the right side of your screen will be hidden from view thus freeing up valuable monitor space for working on your images In this way you only display those correction palettes you need Returning 32 Image Science the palette to be viewed again is just as easy as hiding it Simply click on the icon and the correction palette returns As noted earlier the tools found in previous versions of Optics Pro have now been reorganized into more logical correction palettes And these palettes can be displayed and hidden as needed as well as allowed to float over any part of the screen Let s examine each of these palettes and how the work Overall Correction Palette workspace On the right side of the Prepare tab workspace each palette can be accessed from its black header bar containing its unique icon identifier and name Also on the header bar for each palette you will find two other icons on the right side of the bar The far right icon is an X When clicked the palette will be hidden from view Don t worry you have not deleted the palette You can always redisplay the bar by clicking on the palette s icon at the top of the screen Just to the left of the X is an icon that contains a square and an arrow This is the undock icon and if you click on it you will undock
90. r project you simply click on the orange E icon displayed in the upper right of each thumbnail if multiple images are selected clicking the on any one of them will delete the entire selection in one action You can select a group of adjacent images by dragging a rubber band box around them with the mouse or by holding down the Shift key as you click on the first and last images in a series Multiple non adjacent images can be selected by holding down the Ctrl key while you click on them The buttons associated with each thumbnail offer the following functions E removes the image from the current project WD Image Science rotates the image for correct viewing orientation creates a stack active on the last selected image of a multiple selection un stacks a stack of images active when a stack is selected To the right of each image only visible on mouse over is a vertical line of stars xxx xx greyed out at start up to indicate the selected ranking of this image You can click these any number of these stars on or off at any time In addition to these buttons certain icons may appear above each thumbnail indicating the Status of the image for correction These icons give important information about each image The color of the frame surrounding the thumbnail also has meaning that should be understood for the effective use of the program Fully automatic mode Once you have selected and added pictures to your
91. r to enable the controls Note If you move a slider the automatic setting box will be unchecked for you In order to judge the effect of your noise adjustments it is essential to use the Zoom tool which gives an accurate preview of the final image quality Choose an area of your image where you can best assess the noise to make your adjustments and then if necessary move the zoom area around in order to examine other critical areas The degree of Luminance noise correction can be set using the slider edit box with a range from 0 to 100 TIP Although DxO Optics Pro s luminance noise reduction is intelligent and discreet it is still advisable to use the minimum amount of correction that produces acceptable results and avoids any danger of unwanted effects on fine detail The degree of Chrominance noise correction can be set using the slider edit box with a range from 0 to 100 This is useful for reducing or eliminating color noise which the eye is particularly sensitive and you can usually and safely use higher settings with little risk of unwanted side effects The Gray equalizer slider box under More Options has a range from 0 to 100 This makes it possible to clean up unwanted color noise from mid tones and has the effect of slightly de saturating neutral tones around mid gray to minimize spurious color effects in these sensi tive areas TIP You will probably be able to leave this correction at the
92. ram display selecting the check box on the right enables and disables the automatic mode The Brightness adjustment acts basically like an overall gamma control with the slider and entry box having a default setting of 1 00 and a range from 0 50 to 5 00 The Preserve shadow feature checked by default operates at higher positive gamma settings where shadows tend to become washed out and intelligently 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 what 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 local ized As with other controls there is a check box to the right of the adjustments that allows you to enable or disable the automatic modes for Gamma and Shadow Radius sliders And last but by no means least comes the pair of sliders edit boxes for Local contrast range from O to 100 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 bi directional range allowing both contrast enhancement for slightly flat images and reduction for contrasted ones 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 th
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94. rom O to 150 and there s also an edit box for direct entry This slider will blend the original image with the corrected one There is a check box to the right of the slider that indicate that the slider is in Automatic mode When you move the slider the check disappears you can click on the check box again to reactivate the automatic mode Directly below the slider is a drop down box allowing you to pick from 3 correction modes Slight Medium Strong Look at the effect on the four pictures below Original image Y Light Palette Lighting slight Lighting medium Lighting strong Note Certain features will only be available if the appropriate lens correction module is loaded Where this is not the case some of the corrections will appear grayed out and be disabled Below the Auto Mode drop down box is More Options If you click on these words an additional correction panel will be displayed Clicking Less Options will hide this panel The White and Black point sliders operate in a complementary fashion Each has a range from O 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 Histog
95. s a very useful tool that you will probably find yourself leaving open many times while you are adjusting color and exposure EXIF Editor brings up a list of valuable information about the current image You will also find two text fields In these fields you can enter specific author and copyright information that will be added to the EXIF header of the chosen image HINT You can create a Preset with the EXIF information and easily apply this custom Preset to additional images Presets opens a window with a list of available presets you can apply to your image A preset is a group of settings fine tuned for a specific photographic situation You will find some DxO crafted presets but it s easy to create your own presets to complement your own vision and needs Once a preset is applied you can always adjust its parameters manually in which case the preset values will be over ridden for this particular image Light In this palette you will find everything necessary to adjust the density of your image Exposure control with highlight preservation allows post shooting exposure adjustment as well as offering the possibility of recovering apparently lost highlight detail available for RAW for mat images only The famous DXO Lighting process corrects image contrast in an intelligent adaptive way using global and local contrast adjustments Vignetting fixes the dark areas often visible in the angle of some images And final
96. s in the folder alpha numeri cally either high to low or low to high The button to the right of the detail button displays your folder contents as thumbnail images with the file names displayed below each image A slider bar in the lower right hand corner of the window adjusts the size of the thumbnails Moving the slider to the left decreases the size of the thumbnails while moving the slider to the right increases the size of the thumbnails TIP When the content of a folder has changed for instance because you added images to it you may refresh its visualization by pressing the FO key To the right of the thumbnail button is the Sor butfon that allows you to filter and sort the files in the folder display Options available to you using the Sort button are Name Sort the contents of the folder alphabetically by file name Size Sort the contents of the folder by file size Date Sort the contents of the folder by file creation modification date This is useful in quickly finding the most recent image files in a folder Show RAW Filter When checked RAW image files will be shown in the file list or among the thumbnail images displayed If unchecked RAW files will be filtered out not displayed Show RGB Filter When checked RGB image files will be shown in the file list or among the thumbnail images displayed If unchecked RGB files will be filtered out not displayed 26 DXO Show corrected images
97. s on specific settings and workflows that best use the capabilities of the program There are three underlying concepts to successfully using DxO Optics Pro If you understand these concepts you will find that achieving your post production goals is greatly simplified Concept 1 DxO Optics Pro is part of a larger post production workflow As anyone who has worked with photography over the years knows every image is unique even images from the same batch There are almost an unlimited number of factors that must be considered when taking a picture Factors such as type and model of camera and lens image content constantly changing weather and lighting conditions manual and automatic settings the photographer s personal taste and for what purpose the images are being taken With film based photography unless the photographer developed his or her own film and prints much of the post production workflow was left to development houses or the local street corner vendor Digital photography has changed this and has moved control over all aspects of the picture creation process into the hands of the photographer Understanding how Optics Pro works allows you fo fully utilize each of the correction and adjustment tools it offers and properly use the program within a larger workflow This Reference Manual will give you an overview of each tool in the program It will also offer recommendations where appropriate on how to best use these tools t
98. s the Menu Bar and will contain drop down menus for File Edit Workspace and Help We will review each of these drop down menus so that you can familiarize yourself with the operation of each menu File Menu The File drop down menu includes commands to New Project creates a new DxO Optics Pro project Open Project opens a project from the database of DxO Optics Pro projects Save Project saves the current project in the projects internal database Recent Projects direct access to the recently opened projects e Delete all projects will remove all previous projects from the DxO Optics Pro database Import v4 project open a project previously created in DxO Optics Pro version 4 Export Image for ICC Profile save images with standard fiat corrections that can be used by professional calibration programs for creating ICC profiles Sidecars export and import of the current project sidecars the individual settings files for each image with original images e Exit Exit the DxO Optics Pro program It is important to note that a project saves all the specific settings of each imported image along with the Output formats settings but it does not save duplicate copies of your original images Edit menu The Edit Menu contains many useful pairs of commands to assist you in your work Undo Cirl Z and Redo Cirl Y apply to the last action you have p
99. s to the stack by right clicking on the stack and choosing Stacking and Add to stack Remove from stack If you expand a stack and click on and highlight an image in the stack right click the mouse and in the Stacking sub menu click on Remove from stack This will remove the image from the stack but not from the project Unstack items with the help of the menu that appears with a right click of the mouse and choosing Stacking and Unstack items Once a stack has been created it sticks together and can be handled and manipulated as if it were single image The thumbnail for a stack of images appears with a light gray border Right Clicking This is a very powerful yet hidden feature of the program right clicking gives you quick access to Showing the file selected in Windows Explorer Controlling stacking functions Creating a virtual copy of the image selected Rotation controls Image ranking Image process flagging Copying the correction settings of the image Pasting copied correction settings from another image to this image Applying chosen presets and Removing the image file from the project Image process flagging has 4 sub menu items Undefined Mark to be corrected and Do not correct correspond to the three process ing buttons in the upper left hand corner of the thumbnail image The reset button returns the settings to the pre selected condition 29 DXO Chap
100. set the type and amount of correction The remaining corrections provide adjustments to compensate for keystoning in both vertical and horizontal planes image rotation horizon correction sealing image sizing and H V ratio stretching squeezing of horizontal vertical proportions Finally you can crop your image eventually constraining the proportions to specific formats An original Auto crop process can do the job for you following the keystoning adjustments you already performed Detail concentrates all parameters concerning the pixel level Sharpness applies DxO lens adapted sharpening while Noise minimizes both general and impulse noise Chromatics Aberration is removed either automatically or manually with the option of deleting the Purple Fringing introduced by some lenses Finally the new semi automatic Dust removal tool lets you specify the position of dust and blemishes on one image and then automatically remove them from a full batch of pictures Note These corrections will not be visible in the main preview image below 75 so you will need to use the Zoom tool It is important to understand that all of these manual adjustments are not immediately applied to your images It s just a preparation before you actually start processing your images To do this move to the next workflow tab by clicking on the Process tab 12 Image Science Chapter 4 Process The W
101. space is divided into two windows The left window will contain a pair of images for each picture processed The left image in the pair is the original image and the right image is the corrected image If you click on a pair the corrected image will initially be displayed in the right hand window and the pair will be highlighted with a blue background immediately surrounding the images If you would like to see both images side by side you can click on the Before After button above the viewing window This is similar to the Before After button on the Prepare tab Above and to the left of the right hand window are five icons They are Before image displays the thumbnail image chosen in the lower Project window in the Review window as your camera shot it Clicking on this icon will alternate between the original image and the processed image e Move viewport allows you to grab and move a magnified image in the Review window so you can examine multiple parts of the image Zoom viewport clicking on this icon zooms in to the image in the Review window After displays the processed corrected image in the Review window DXO e Before After This is one of the more useful features of the program When you click on this icon two images will be displayed in the Review window The left image will be the unprocessed As shot image The right image will be the DxO Optics Pro processed image This will give you a
102. ss panel the Unsharp Mask tool will be displayed Once again as with the Lens Softness option there is a check box to enable and disable this correction And if the check box is unchecked correction disabled the title bar and controls will be grayed out The Intensity slider edit box sets the degree of sharpening correction applied with a range from 0 to 500 The Radius slider edit box has a range in units from 0 10 to 5 00 This control affects the fineness of the correction zone surrounding image detail Low values give very subtle correction while over use of high values can lead to the formation of haloes The Threshold slider edit box has a range from 0 to 255 and adjusts how far up the tonal range sharpness correction starts Y Detail Palette z y a 4 TIP To avoid noise increase in lowlights which may not contain much wanted detail the threshold can be raised so that sharpness correction starts at a higher gray level Also you do not normally want to use both lens softness correction and the Unsharp Mask on the same image This can lead to undesirable results including the creation of artifacts in the image Take a look at these images to see the effect of these USM controls Grain When the Grain box is checked and DxO FilmPack is installed you can apply the film grain characteristics of several types of film to your image By clicking on the drop down box you can choose to stay with the
103. t from a setting that shows a check in an orange checkbox facing an deac tivated correction engine with a gray name instead of blue In such a case the application of the preset would force the deactivation of the correction engine 35 Image Science TIP Presets are additive a preset does not erase a previous one This means that a preset may impact only certain settings for instance on the Light Palette If another preset has been designed not to impact the Light Palette applying this second preset it will not affect the effects of the first one but add different settings to the first one s Modification of a preset When this orange bar is visible you may change the settings of the selected preset The image is modified to match any action you make on the controls but these changes will NOT be taken into account for application during the final process of the image until you click on the Apply button Saving a preset If you modify the settings of a selected preset by checking or unchecking any checkbox in the orange bar or simply by altering the position of a cursor in any correction palette you can save the modified preset click Save or discard your changes click Cancel Apply or not a preset Whether you made any modification to the selected preset or not if you like the aspect of the corrected image you may apply the settings to it by clicking the Apply button Finally you dese
104. t grey tone Avoid clipped highlights because the results can be unpredictable Simply position the pointer over the required area you can Zoom in fo the area first to improve the selection points accuracy and left click to white balance this point At any time you can re select As shot on the drop down menu in order to cancel the changes and go back to the original white balance setting You also may prefer to select any standart setting from this menu Note The eye dropper looks at the average of a number of screen pixels so you should also avoid transition areas that might yield unwanted errors From this point the controls will be different wether you re working on a RGB or RAW image If you click on More options in the RGB White Balance panel a Temperature slide appears that adjusts the color temperature of your image This will swing the balance of the red and blue channels while leaving the green channel untouched Moving the slider to the right increases the color temperature and moving it to the left decreases it Note that the effect on the image is to make it warmer with increasing color temperature and cooler with decreasing color temperature Although this might at first appear counter intuitive we need to remember that this is correcting the color balance as if the picture had been shot with this color temperature lighting in the first place EXAMPLE Imagine that a picture has been taken by tungsten artif
105. t 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 The distortion is most evident with objects near the camera and the correction required depends on their underlying shape Basically cylindrical objects for example columns or full length human figures need correction along one axis more than another which we refer to as cylindrical correction in a sense this may be either horizontal or vertical Spherical objects e g a human head need correction on both axes at once We refer to this as spherical cor Vv Geometry Palette rection 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 Anamorphosis Spherical Correction The Volume Anamorphosis Correction panel provides a drop down box recovering either spheri cal or cylindrical corrections When selecting the spherical corrections the More options panel let you access to a Radial Intensity correction slider cylindrical corrections are fine tuned with Vertical and Horizontal Intensity sliders All sliders can take values from 0 200 and allow you to control how much of each type of correction is applied to the image To adjust these controls you need to first examine the image and decide what type of
106. ter 10 The Prepare Tab Mrs im E iy E mile m Er Mhus maesr eut DL CES att Past customers of DxO Optics Pro will notice that the Organize and Enhance tabs are no longer available in version 5 In their place is a single new Prepare tab that combines the functionality of the two previous tabs therefore streamlining your workflow The Preview Window The Prepare tab workspace is divided into 2 primary windows The top window is the Preview window while the Project window continues to occupy the lower part of your screen To work on an image simply click on the thumbnail of an image in the Project window When you do this the correction and display processing for the Preview window will be started In fact the first image to appear will be the before image the original image you imported in DxO Optics Pro Then after a few seconds a preview of the after image replaces if Remember DxO Optics Pro reads the EXIF information in the file and analyzes the image contents to create a unique set of default settings for your image This process is automatic so the settings for each of your images are optimized right away The corrected image is then displayed in the upper Preview window TIP Some corrections made by Optics Pro i e lens softness correction can only be seen at high zoom settings above 75 DXO Zoom Slider Note the zoom slider in the upper right hand corner of the Preview w
107. the image The default value is 100 and you can reduce the size to 50 or increase it to 200 Horizontal Vertical Ratio The Horizontal Vertical ratio slider edit box 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 90 to 200 of normal height Crop To crop an image you can either select the Crop button from the left side of the header tool bar or open the Crop panel in the right hand corrections palette and click on the Crop icon Once Crop has been enabled you can select a point in the image and holding down the left mouse button drag and create a crop box that appears as a black line rectangle inside 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 On the right hand panel there is a drop down list from which you can choose the way the aspect ratio of the image is controlled in Crop Unconstrained gives you complete control to reshape the crop in any way you like Otherwise a choice of one of the fixed ratios will constrain the crop to always maintain certain proportions from 1 2 to 1 1 or maintaining the original as shot aspect ratio A final option allows you to define a Custom ratio handy
108. the palette so it can float on your screen Notice that you are not limited to placing the floating palette only over the Preview window but you can place this palette anywhere on the screen Clicking the palette bar will expand and display the tools associated with the palette Clicking the bar again will collapse the palette tool display back into just the header bar TIP lf you click the undock icon again the palette will automatically snap back to its docked position 5 Move Zoom Palette E Move Zoom The Move Zoom correction palette displays a small thumbnail of the image displayed in the Preview window The green box on the thumbnail indicates the section of the image currently being displayed A minus sign is on the left hand side of the zoom slider bar and a plus Y Move Zoom Palette b PL a Pal Fans an l A Histogram Palette sign is on the right side of the slider You can click on either the or signs to decrement or increment the zoom factor by 1 Also to the right of the slider there is A dropdown arrow that allows you to choose from predetermined zoom factors or directly enter your own factor To close the drop down simply click again on the down arrow A fit button that sets the zoom factor so that the entire images fits in the Preview win dow It s important to remember that the fit to window preview image only shows an approximation of some of the corrections to be applied i e
109. the program These Correction Modules will not work on your system and you should consider updating your program version at the earliest convenient time Active Internet connection required The Install button at the bottom of the DxO Modules win dow will start the process to add new modules or update currently installed modules to the DxO Optics Pro program on your computer Important Once the modules have been downloaded to your computer you must close and restart the program to finish their installation The Close button will close the DxO Modules window You can also click on the X button in the top right corner of the window to return to the Optics Pro program screen DxO FilmPack activation Active Internet connection recommended If you have pur chased this product clicking on this menu item will start the process to activate DxO FilmPack You will be able to enter in the activation code when prompted 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 the programs activation Transfer license Active Internet connection required Clicking on this item will bring up a short menu list that allows you to transfer your DxO Optics Pro and FilmPack licenses off of the current computer system This will deactivate these products on this computer once the transfer process is compl
110. tments It s important to understand that corrections are NOT applied to the image at this point You just modify some settings and the chain of corrections will be applied during the final processing of the image in the Process tab It is also important to remember that DxO Optics Pro treats each of your images uniquely The default settings for one image will be different from the default settings of another image Default settings are determined by the EXIF information in each picture file as well as the contents of the picture What makes DxO Optics Pro even more powerful is that some or all of your personal adjustment settings can be saved as one or more Presets These can then be applied to any number of images in this or other projects And while you can easily apply your presets to images you can still make further manual adjustments as needed Finally processing your images is as easy as a single mouse click in the Process tab All processing for each image file is handled using a hands off procedure You simply designate your output file format s and destination s and click the Start processing button and DxO Optics Pro does the rest We should also note that you have the choice of three output file formats They are covered in more detail in the Process chapter of this document First in your workflow Another very important point to remember is that DxO Optics Pro is designed to be the f
111. togram display Moving the slider to the right or entering a positive figure 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 down the white level towards black compressing the tonal range into the lower half of the scale And as usual the As shot button cancels any HSL correction Vv Color Palette MPCB Multi points Color Balance Notice the more natural color of both the hair and face Multi points Color Balance MPCB offers you a sophisticated way of achieving exact color matching between shots even where a neutral color reference is not available The system allows you to pick up to four colors and set the color you want reproduced DxO Optics Pro will then make a best compromise calculation to adjust the color balance of the entire image What s more it can achieve this across an entire group of images making if is easier to match critical colors between different shots To use this function you first need to click on the MPCB button g on the left hand side of the Prepare tool bar This will open the DxO Color correction panel It will also put the preview display into twin image mode before and after correction On the MPCB panel you have four pairs of color patches labeled 1 4 These will represent the color points you pick in your image and beneath each pair is a red X which enables yo
112. u to delete any of the 4 adjustment points As soon as you left click on the left hand image you can select a color to go in the top before color patch and a color wheel will appear on your image like this 43 Image Science The center of the color wheel corresponds to the point you have selected its size from 1 to 4 pixels set by the Sample radius slider edit box on the MPCB panel Now you can use the mouse to drag the cursor around the color wheel to set the color you would like this first point to reproduce as in your final output TIP You might want to zoom in to a specific part of your image to make choosing the exact color point easier Dragging the cursor the small circle on the adjustment line in and out on the radius reduces or increases the saturation and dragging it in an angular direction changes the hue The saturation is displayed alongside the color wheel as a value from 0 to 100 TIP 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 When your mouse cursor is over the adjustment cursor the mouse cursor with turn into a cross hair target You can also lock Hue and saturation by right clicking on the color wheel and selecting one of these two options The result of your color adjustment will be previewed in the right hand after image and the new color after will be shown i
113. ules Click on the Install button at the bottom of the DxO Modules window to start the installer Note If asked you do not have to download the program again plug in or User Reference Guide Deselect these options the software will only download the DxO Modules you selected The image cannot be processed This is caused by camera model information being absent from the EXIF data portion of the image file or DxO Optics Pro has already processed this par ticular image file or the program cannot read the file s format properly Missing information in the EXIF data area is most often caused by the image file being processed by another program prior to being loaded into Optics Pro Ranking To help you effectively organize your workflow there is a built in system of image ranking that uses stars to indicate a quality ranking to your images Unlike version 4 this ranking has no effect on DXO Optics Pro v5 s workflow It is merely a convenient way of indicating some form of quality classification Down the right hand side of each thumbnail image is a line of dots to indicate the selected ranking of an image You can click these dots on or off at any time and in any workspace When you do the dots will be replaced by stars xxx xx Note In the Prepare workspace these stars are also accessible in the preview pane Using the rating system is easy and straightforward For example if you click on the third dot it wil
114. using the Prepare tab you will probably notice that there are controls that you use more often than others In fact it s very likely that you use only two or three of them on a daily basis Instead of opening a series of palettes you can prepare your own personalized one Open MyPalette by clicking on the icon with a small character on the right of the icon palettes bar Vv My Palette You ll see a blank palette named MyPalette Simply drag on MyPalette the control you often want to access a duplicate of the control appears that you can use exactly as its regular copy This original one has not disappear that s just an alias that has been installed in MyPalette You can repeat this operation with some other controls to built the perfect set of tools that suit your needs On the opposite you can clear MyPalette of any useless control by dragging it away from if Geometry Intensity Keep Image Ratio i My Palette Type Recover Spheres T J PRES TE Less Options Please dro p your favorite Radial Intensity corrections here Horizon Less Options Up Down Left Right Scale Honzontal Vertical Ratio Tool ti Aspect Ratio Unconstrained Auto based on Keystoning Horizon 90 Image Science Chapter 11 The Process Tab a Dxo Optics Pro v5 Untitled Project Hog File Edit Image Workflow Help LR CR eo E m The
115. y useful if you are processing your images for use on the Web or to send them as e mail attachments sRGB files generally produce smaller file sizes Adobe RGB allows you to work with this popular Adobe color profile Many customers prefer this profile because it is commonly used by many commercial printer manu facturers and will provide an excellent match when printing your images on your personal photo printer It is also supported by a number of popular post production programs such as Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop Two checkboxes activates the automatic creation of sidecars the dxo files that contain all settings used to process the image next to each original image and the automatic loading of the dxo sidecar when opening the image These fonctions allow to transfer processed images from a computer to another Finally you can activate or deactivate the video GPU graphics processor unit code within the program On many newer systems this feature will help speed up the display of your images on your computer screen However it should be noted that not all video cards support this code and this can result in less than optimal performance TIP If you experience any video related problems with the Optics Pro program you will want to deactivate this feature first to see if this corrects the problem before doing any other troubleshooting or contacting DxO technical support Note Current users of DxO Optics Pro
116. y want to examine the results and compare them to the original images DxO Optics Pro makes this workflow step easy as well To do this move to the next workfiow tab by clicking on the Review tab 14 Image Science Chapter 5 Review Control the Results DRO Optics Pro v5 0 File Edit Workspace Help Ready Ban 0 2 E some contes I Bote der casten Extranet ono moai oro Opties Pro vs atomes Ta i 28190 3 1700 Check the before and after In the Windows version the Review workspace has two resizable panes the left hand pane shows before and after pairings of thumbnails of all your processed images The image pair being viewed in the right pane is highlighted with a blue background On the Macintosh version it s a click on the thumbnails inside the Project window that allows the visualization of the full screen processed image On the header bar are arrow buttons plus the usual group of zoom controls Key controls are El and D display previous next image El ona A display next previous output image if you have selected more than one output format lets you view the JPEG TIFF DNG images in turn 15 DXO Chapter 6 How to go further After going through a full typical session you may want to explore more options The power of DxO tools is the ability to bring under your direct control many correction and adjustment functions that can be fine tun
117. your Camera into DxO Optics Pro You will then store the processed version in your Image database for archiving and referencing purposes Option 3 Use the plug in version of DxO Optics Pro with Adobe Lightroom If you want to use Adobe Lightroom to catalogue and review your original images prior to processing them in DxO Optics Pro you have two options First use the plug in version of Optics Pro In that case you will need to set up the plug in as an external editor in Lightoom Second option after you store your images in Lightroom col lections you can access them throuph the Lightroom plugin that is available directly in the Select Tab of DxO Optics Pro See Chap 14 for more details on these two workflows Option 4 Use the standalone version of DxO Optics Pro followed by Adobe Photoshop Use this option if you first want to process your images in DxO Optics Pro examine them and choose the pictures you want to process further in Adobe Photoshop Option 5 Use the plug in version of DxO Optics Pro with Adobe Photoshop If you want simplified access to processing your images by Optics Pro from within Photoshop then use this option See Chap 13 for more details on this workflow Option 6 Use the standalone version of DxO Optics Pro with other programs As with using DxO Optics Pro with Adobe Photoshop in Option 4 if the other post production programs you want to use can read and process J

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