If you’re not a DxO PhotoLab user but still want to use its RAW engine, considered by many as offering the world’s most advanced and acclaimed RAW processing algorithms, then DxO PureRAW is the software you need to add to your workflow. DxO Labs, the pioneer of RAW image processing, released a new version, DxO PureRAW 3.7, which in addition to its acclaimed performance and unique approach to extracting greater detail, removing noise, and ensuring optical clarity, introduces new options to manage Lightroom Collections within PureRAW itself, offering photographers greater control over how images are ingested into Lightroom Classic catalogs.
“This improved integration seals PureRAW’s position as the essential Adobe Lightroom plugin, ensuring that photographers get more than they thought possible from their equipment,” says Fabrizio Dei Tos, Product Director.
DxO PureRAW works seamlessly with Adobe Lightroom Classic, and users can now stay even more organized thanks to new options. Photographers are able to place their images into any Collection and from within any Collection Set. Alternatively, users can create a new Collection that can then be renamed within Lightroom, or simply keep the images within their existing Collection.
Working as a simple plug-in to Adobe Lightroom Classic, it couldn’t be easier to improve images using DxO PureRAW. Photographers simply select the images they want to enhance and send them for processing, after which new Linear DNG files are added back into the user’s Catalog. This works even if the image has been previously edited, with all adjustments retained. And with Version 3.7, the addition of the new Collection options detailed above makes workflow organization even easier. Plus, users can also open DxO PureRAW as a standalone application, or even right-click their RAW files from within Finder/Explorer.
DxO PureRAW improved integration with Lightroom Collections seems to follow a recent trend from the industry as a whole: to realign their software with Adobe’s products. After a period where we saw “plugins” getting their own interface and, to a certain extent, reducing the notion of the “plugin” dependance, it appears as companies have decided to return to the “plugin” logic, and explore, as is the case in DxO PureRAW, the fact that many photographers prefer DxO’s approach to RAW processing.
Note that DxO PureRAW 3.7 continues to offer its direct, albeit simple – interface, and images can also be sent to the app directly from a browser, but it works as plugin, now offering improved integration with Lightroom Collections. Furthermore, DxO PureRAW 3.7 works with other photo editing software: Photoshop, obviously, Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo.
The new version offers more than the integration with Lightroom… which may not be that important for those not using Adobe’s app. The ability to extract great detail, remove noise, and ensure optical clarity, continue to be key goals for the development team at DxO.
“PureRAW supercharges the performance of all cameras and lenses, from entry-level gear through to professional-grade bodies and optics,” explains Jean-Marc Alexia, VP of Product Strategy. Suddenly you get cleaner, crisper images — as if you’ve just swapped to a sharper lens and an upgraded sensor.”
Here are the essential features that make DxO PureRAW 3.7 a tool you may want to add to your workflow:
Unique and powerful lens softness correction
Even the best lenses lose sharpness towards the edge of their light path, and with cheaper optics and complex zoom lenses, softness becomes even more noticeable. To rectify this, PureRAW has an approach that is unique amongst optical correction software. Using DxO’s laboratory-grade Optics Modules, a mathematical model is created by observing each lens’s unique performance across its field of view and focal range, ensuring that a precise level of sharpening is always applied to the image. Software that uses global sharpening cannot compete with DxO’s laboratory-based lens testing.
State-of-the-art distortion correction
DxO’s exacting measurements also bring huge benefits in the correction of barrel and pincushion distortions. Every lens is individually measured, and zooms are tested throughout their focal range. As a result, it’s possible to compensate for each optic’s peculiarities with total precision. This means more accurate corrections, often delivering a larger image area due to less cropping compared to other software.
World-leading denoising technologies
DxO PureRAW includes the world’s most advanced and acclaimed RAW processing algorithms: DeepPRIME and DeepPRIME XD. Both trained on neural networks, these are the most effective noise-reduction tools available to photographers, and can routinely improve high-ISO images by the equivalent of over 2.5 stops – the equivalent of an ISO 4000 image looking like one shot at ISO 800.
Unique demosaicing for greater detail
Demosaicing is a vital step in RAW conversion, and DxO PureRAW’s DeepPRIME and DeepPRIME XD modes take a unique approach — denoising and demosaicing are performed simultaneously rather than in sequence, with one process potentially undermining the other. This leads to a more natural rendering of fine detail in complex structures like fur, foliage and feathers, as well as more lifelike colors and tones.
A smarter way to beat chromatic aberration
Longitudinal and lateral chromatic aberrations can vary according to focal length and distance. DxO’s meticulous corrections take these factors into account in order to achieve more natural and accurate results. Fringing is eliminated without compromising color or detail.
State-of-the-art vignetting correction
Vignetting is resolved by all optical correction tools, with a simple lightening of the corners of the frame. But again images corrected with PureRAW have an advantage. Thanks to the high-quality denoising that precedes vignetting adjustment, and an image’s subsequent increase in dynamic range, lightened areas show less noise and purer tones.
Price and availability
DxO PureRAW 3.7 (Windows and macOS) is now available for download on the DxO website at the following prices:
- DxO PureRAW 3.7 $/€ 129
- Owners of DxO PureRAW 1 or 2 $/€ 79
A free, 30-day trial is available. Owners of DxO PureRAW 3.x can update for free from within the software.