Video Summary
In this video, I demonstrate how to use DXO Pure RAW 4 for noise reduction, image correction, and improvement of image softness. See the process of exporting raw files from Lightroom, applying lens corrections, and processing images to enhance their quality.
See the software’s capabilities, including handling lens distortion and chromatic aberrations, and the workflow for integrating processed images back into Lightroom.
Takeaways
- DXO Pure RAW 4 helps reduce noise and sharpen images.
- The software applies lens corrections and denoising effectively.
- The software allows for adjustments in lens softness compensation.
- The processing time for images is relatively quick.
- You can bulk process multiple images at once.
- Export images back to a specific collection in Lightroom.
- The software is a one-time purchase, not a subscription model.
Video Transcript (Computer Generated)
In this video, I want to show you how I use DXO Pure RAW to get rid of my noise and to help sharpen my images. I do use a kit lens, and it’s very soft in some areas, and what I like about DXO, the Pure RAW products, is that it combines your lens with your camera. It has run a thousand s of tests and it can actually help improve sharpness in areas where it’s soft. Now I don’t suspect too many problems with softness here because the main subject is right here, this mushroom clump, you can see the background is already blurred, and up here. It’s blurred and that’s sort of how I want it But I want to use this photo later on to show you some things that I do in Photoshop But I want to show you my whole work process So first thing I do is take my raw file and I run it through DXO pure raw for and to do that You just bring up the file in the lightroom you right click the image go to export
And you can do it instantly, or you can actually preview and set the settings. If you do it instantly, it will run with the settings that you’ve done and the last time that you previewed any other image. So I’m going to use this one, but I’ve already brought it up, so I don’t have to switch screens. So let me bring it to the forefront here. This is the image as it’s been brought into DXO Pure Raw 4. I do not have five, I just have four.
And this is the preview. You can see down here at the bottom that it says the preview is updated. It hasn’t been processed yet. This is just a preview. And this is the slider. So what this program is doing is it’s taking lens corrections, adding the lens corrections, it denoises, and it will improve softness in areas. So before we go through this, you can see there’s a difference in how they line up. And that’s because of the lens correction.
We’ll take a closer look at what this does as soon as we go through the settings. So I’m using a Deep Prime XDS2/XD, and there is an advanced and this is where you can force details into your image or use the luminance. I just use these are the defaults. I just use the defaults, but I do my lens softness compensation, and I have it set to strong. You can see that they’re soft, standard, and hard.
I know my lens is pretty weak. It’s just a Fuji kit lens. So I put it on strong. If I had better glass, I probably would do standard or soft, but we can see the difference. It’s hard to actually see the difference between the two. Maybe we’ll do that later. So this is an optical correction. It’s also going to correct vignetting, chromatic aberrations, and any lens distortion, and it’s going to make the image crop to its original ratio. So it’s not going to change the ratio. You can have a maximum rectangle. So if your lens distortion is so bad that it changes the aspect ratio or the size of your image, these will allow that. But I just do it right back to the crop. I don’t care about anything too close to any of the edges. If I lose it, that’s OK. Now we have the outputs. So you can output it to a JPEG, a TIFF, or a DNG. So DNG is basically like RAW. This is what I’m going to have it sent back to Lightroom. I have it sent to another SD card, but that’s beside the point. But I’m sending it back as a RAW file. And here you just put in where your destination is. You can click this one and put it back into the original folder and subfolder, which actually isn’t a bad idea. I used to do that.
But my external hard drive, my large external hard drive, is slow. So I have it sent to another SSD drive that’s quite a bit faster. You can rename the files if you want to. And then you have options on how it’s exported. I don’t export after it’s processed. I always wait to take a look at it.
You can export it to Adobe Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop. I just don’t export it here. And I do set it to its own Lightroom collection, so you can send these back to the collections. You can send it anywhere you want to. So I’m importing this image back into Lightroom and its own collection. And then I just delete those collections when I’m done with them. So again, a collection isn’t the file. The actual file is going to the SSD card or SSD drive. But I do want it still put into a collection. And the reason I do that, I’ll maybe show that, and something helps. If I am focus stacking a bunch of images, I send them back to the collection. I process them in Lightroom, and then I send them off to my stacking program from there. So let’s take a look and see what it’s done. So again, this is the image.
What I care about in this image is these wrinkled mushrooms. I think they look pretty cool. It’s on a log. There’s another log in the background. And the reason I really want to process this image is, I’m going to put it into my mushroom book. I also want to show people how I dodge and burn these mushrooms in Photoshop with the TK9 plugin. I want to show you how I modified the background.
I want to show you how I create a mask, depth mask, depth map mask, and with the TK9 plugin, and how I deal with these corners, and all this extra green that the Fuji film seems to put in. Well, let’s take a look and see what, again, this is the preview update. I have not processed it yet. You can see over here, if I click this, it will process. Well, let’s take a look and see what it has done.
So you can see that there is a little bit of change in the shape of the image, and that is because of the lens distortion. So it’s corrected for the lens distortion. It’s also taken care of any chromatic aberrations, and it’s taken care of any lens vignetting. I can’t ever say that word, vignetting, blacking of the corners. It’s taken care of that if there is any. Well, let’s take a look and see how it’s done with the focus. So again, this is the line between the original raw on the left-hand side of this line and the processed or what the processed raw will be over here on the right. Okay. So let’s take a look at 2x, and we’ll scan down here, and these scallops here are what’s pretty amazing. So here’s the original raw, you can see it’s a little bit fuzzy.
Maybe even a little out of focus, but after processing, it’ll be a lot sharper. They’ll have more definition. You can see all these crannulations have come out. You can even see that this line, even though it’s a little bit thicker, right? So there is some ghosting on this line at 2X. I think it’s going to be so small that it’s not going to matter. So it does add some ghosting you have to be careful about, but overall, it’s added quite a bit more detail.
We go back to the background. You can see it is very fuzzy back here. And it just seems a little bit smoother after it’s been processed or what will happen when it’s processed. The colors don’t change much in this at all. But you can see that it has changed locations and spots. So out here on the edges, right up here, let’s take a look at this line right here. There’s not much difference.
in the location of this bump in the raw compared to the modified. But as we get into the middle more, you can see that it has changed perspective, and that’s because it’ll lend distortion.
especially you can see the mushroom here more towards the middle. How my lens has sort of squished it all in together when in reality it should be more spread out.
But I think it does a great job, and this is why I use Pure X D4. Again, this was down here; it gives you the stats. So it was an ISO 1250 at F10 point. I guess at F10.
But I think it’s done a good job. So when I click process now, I’ll go through the process thing. It’s going to send the modified file over here on my SSD card, and it’s going to send a virtual copy of the image to a Lightroom collection in my Lightroom catalog. So you’re just going to hit process. It doesn’t take long at all, really. Hit process now, it goes through the processing thing. And the nice thing about this is you can bulk process this. Sometimes I’ve had focus stacks of up to 30, 40 images, and I just process them all at once.
And I just go away, get a drink of water, do something like that, and come back, and it’s usually done. So there you go. It’s all been processed.
And that is how you use DXO PureRAW 4. Now it’s switched me back to Lightroom, and this is the image in the collection.
So you can see it still looks very nice, and you can process it here in Lightroom if you want to. But I have another copy, another raw copy that I have on an SSD card that I want to process from here. So that is DXO’s PureRAW 4. I do believe they have PureRAW 5 out now. I didn’t see that they really need to upgrade.
We’ll have to see what the next one is. I think maybe if you’re getting a Fuji film camera like I have, I think does do a little bit better job but I don’t plan on having the Fuji film for very long I’m gonna switch over to Nikon so right now I’m not gonna switch I’m gonna save my money for the camera instead of the software update again this isn’t a subscription model this is you buy it outright and if you want to upgrade to their newer software version then you just pay a smaller amount than they would if you’re buying it new so that’s DXOs pure raw 4
