DxO OpticsPro

One of the sadder developments for serious photographers was the purchase of Nik Software by Google. It was done so that Google could leverage Nik’s Snapseed technology into its Photo offering. However, the excellent Nik tools were orphaned in the process. Now that has finally changed. DxO Labs, makers of OpticsPro, FilmPack, and ViewPoint, has acquired the entire Nik Collection. This will result in at least three pieces of good news for Nik fans:

If you’re looking for an all-in-one Photo management and editing package that spans the territory of Lightroom and Photoshop but is integrated and easy to use, Cyberlink’s PhotoDirector is a powerful and reasonably priced option. It competes more or less head-to-head with Adobe’s Photoshop Elements ($80 discounted), so which one you wind up with will depend on the specific features you need and which interface you prefer. If you have the time, I recommend trying them both out.

The 9th Edition of PhotoDirector is now out ($99 for Cyberlink Photo Director 9 Ultra), with some impressive new features. It has support for 360-degree video editing (which is nearly impossible to do without application support), can create some of the now-popular output formats like timelapse, motion stills, and animations, and has content-aware move. It’s also picked up a Dehaze tool, a feature I’ve found very useful in Photoshop and OpticsPro both.

For photographers looking for an alternative to Photoshop, that want all the power it provides and aren’t satisfied with the more limited processing capabilities of Adobe Lightroom or DxO OpticsPro, there haven’t been too many alternatives. The best options to date have been Adobe Photoshop Elements, Gimp, or perhaps Cyberlink’s PhotoDirector. Now though, Affinity has dramatically improved the capabilities of its Photo product and has also made it available on both Mac and Windows. For the value price of $40, you can have a product that does almost all of what Photoshop does, and many things it doesn’t. I’ve taken it for a spin and enjoyed using it. You can read my full review of Affinity Photo on Extremetech.com.

Thank you to all of you who are attending our Webinar on Mastering color for travel and vacation photographers, sponsored by DataColor and DxO Labs.

As regular readers know, I’ve been having a lot of fun shooting with a DxO ONE alongside my more-traditional DSLR and compact cameras over the last few months. Until now, the software and firmware have been pre-release versions, so I haven’t been able to take you through them in as much detail as I would have liked, or post sample RAW and SuperRAW images. Now that the ONE is starting to ship that’s all changed, so here’s a more thorough look at the camera and its companion software. More importantly, here are some of the first real RAW and SuperRAW images that are available for you to evaluate on your own. #dxoone

For the last couple months I’ve been traveling with both a DxO ONE (that fits in my shirt pocket) and a Sony RX100 IV (that barely fits in a cargo pocket). I’ve had a lot of fun with both cameras. While they have very similar sensors, they are different in almost every other way. Since they are both likely to be popular choices for image lovers looking for the ultimate compact camera, here are my thoughts on the very new ONE (you can read my review of the Sony online), and how it contrasts with a traditional high-end point-and-shoot… #dxoone