DxO Optics Pro v9 Quick start guide

DxO Optics Pro 9

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Quick Start Guide

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1. Introducing DxO Optics Pro 9 ...........................4

1.1. Welcome! ........................................5

1.2. Basic principles of a work session ...................5

2. Correcting and processing your ﬁrst images .............. 7

2.1. The Organize tab...................................8

2.2. The Customize tab ................................10

2.3. Exporting images .................................12

3. Presets............................................. 14

3.1. What is a preset? .................................14

3.2. Applying presets..................................14

4. More information about the Customize bar ............... 15

4.1. The command bar ................................15

4.2. Palettes.........................................16

5. Publishing, printing, and externally editing images .......18

5.1. Publishing your photos on Flickr

®

...................18

5.2. Printing your photos ..............................18

5.3. Editing your photos in another application ............19

Thank you for choosing DxO Optics Pro.

This Quick-Start Guide will help you get

started using your software right away

by taking you through its principal

features and functions.

Online resources :

If you have any questions about

this software, please see the

complete documentation on our

website at (http://www.dxo.com/

intl/photography/tutorials).

Contents

Photo credits : Olivier Lambolez

Layout : degresfahrenheit.com

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Introducing DxO Optics Pro 9

The DxO Optics Pro interface.

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1.1. Welcome!

Welcome to a software world that offers you countless possibilities.

DxO Optics Pro is a powerful software application that includes many

highly-effective and automatic tools for processing your RAW and

JPEG images.

Unlike most software programs on the market which require you to

manually apply numerous correction settings, DxO Optics Pro can

automatically and precisely correct each of your images.

DxO Optics Pro is based on DxO Labs’ exclusive method of prior

laboratory calibration and characterization of equipment just

like yours. These measurements are incorporated in DxO Optics

Modules, which the software uses to automatically correct your

equipment’s intrinsic ﬂaws.

Thanks to this characterization, DxO Optics Pro automatically

corrects optical and geometric distortion, vignetting, chromatic

aberrations, and lens softness with unrivaled quality. Its many tools

allow you to optimize the exposure and contrast, reduce noise, and

preserve the colors and details in your images.

DxO Optics Pro’s presets, its performance, its intuitive interface, and

its smooth and quick workﬂow will let you bring out the best in your

photos in just a few clicks, regardless of the shooting conditions!

1.2. Basic principles of a work session

DxO Optics Pro has been designed to give you a great deal of freedom

in the way you process your images: you can work on your images

directly from your hard drive, or you can combine them into one or

more Projects.

DxO Optics Pro does not alter or modify your original image ﬁles;

it associates each image ﬁle with a set of corrections, stored in a

sidecar ﬁle (bearing a “.dop” extension) along with the original ﬁle.

So you can modify or undo the corrections at any time.

The three steps in a DxO Optics Pro work session involve two tabs

and one export function.

A project is an easy way to gather and manage a group of

images that you want to process simultaneously.

NOTE

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All your corrections are saved in real time. If you close the

application, you will ﬁnd all of the same settings applied to

your images when you reopen the software.

NOTE

Upon launching the application, the Organize tab lets you work on

your images directly from your folders in your hard drive directory,

or on selected images that you have grouped together as Projects.

The Customize tab lets you automatically or manually correct your

images and immediately see the results. Your settings will be applied

deﬁnitively when you export the corrected images. You can also save

your various corrections and settings as custom presets, which you

can then apply later on to other photos.

You can export your images from either the Customize tab or the

Organize tab, by selecting the Export to disk command in the Image

browser toolbar, which will open a menu showing the different

export options.

The Organize and Customize tabs.

The Export button.

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Correcting and processing your ﬁrst images

The Organize tab.

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Step 1 – Select a folder or a project. Its contents will be displayed

as thumbnails in the Image browser located at the bottom of the

application window. You organize and choose your images in this

pane, which also lets you change the size of the thumbnails, add

notes to, or delete your images.

As soon as the Image browser displays the images, DxO Optics Pro offers

to automatically download the DxO Optics Module(s) corresponding to

your images.

As soon as you’ve stored your images on your hard drive, processing

them with DxO Optics Pro will take you only a few minutes.

2.1. The Organize tab

When you open DxO Optics Pro, you’ll see the ﬁrst of two tabs,

Organize, representing the ﬁrst of the three steps in processing your

photos. The navigation panel on the left lets you browse between two

types of image sources:

The folder directory structure on your hard drive.

The projects you have created in DxO Optics Pro.

You can browse among your folders or projects to ﬁnd the images

that you want to process.

With Mac OS X, projects are found in the same directory as

folders. With Microsoft Windows, projects are shown in a

separate directory at the bottom of the navigation panel.

NOTE

The Image browser.

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In the third case (“DxO Optics Module available, but needs

to be downloaded”), DxO Optics Pro presents you a list of

DxO Optics Modules identiﬁed via your image’s EXIF metadata as

matching your equipment, and asks you to select the one you want

to download.

In cases of unresolved ambiguity or when there is no available

DxO Optics Module, see the DxO Optics Pro 9 User Guide.

Step 2 – Click on a thumbnail. The image will be displayed in the

Image window. A group of settings (called a preset, and in this

instance, the DxO standard preset) is automatically applied to the

image. The DxO standard preset corrects lens ﬂaws and digital

noise, and optimizes the exposure and the dynamic range.

The icon in the upper right corner of each thumbnail in the Image

browser informs you about the status of the DxO Optics Module

corresponding to that image:

DxO Optics Module enabled and ready to use.

No DxO Optics Module is available for this image.

DxO Optics Module available, but needs to be downloaded.

DxO Optics Module ambiguity (needs to be resolved).

DxO Optics Module ambiguity (resolved).

A blue star-shaped icon placed above the status icon indicates

that the ﬁle is waiting to be processed by DxO Optics Pro.

NOTE

DxO Optics Pro reads the characteristics of the camera and

lens saved in the image EXIF metadata. This information allows

DxO Optics Pro to identify the appropriate DxO Optics Module

to use to automatically apply the optimal corrections to your

photos.

NOTE

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2.2. The Customize tab

In the Customize tab, you will ﬁnd the Image browser and the Image window in which you preview the corrections applied to your images.

The Customize tab.

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The very ﬁrst time you launch DxO Optics Pro, the Customize tab

displays only the most important palettes containing the most

essential corrections to apply to your images.

You will ﬁnd the following palettes on the left side of the workspace:

• Move/Zoom: For zooming in and out and moving around in the

image.

• EXIF (image properties/data): Displays the principal shooting

conditions and the exposure, as well as information relative to the

camera and lens used.

• Preset Editor: Displays the available presets and allows you to

create your own custom presets.

On the right side of the workspace:

• Histogram: Displays the distribution and the light levels for each

RGB (red, green, blue) color channel present in the image.

• Essential Tools: Contains all the basic tools that are indispensable

to image correction.

The Light and Color – Advanced, Detail and Geometry – Advanced,

and Optical Corrections palettes contain advanced settings.

Step 1 – In the Image browser, click on the thumbnail of the image

that you want to process. DxO Optics Pro will automatically apply to

your image the DxO standard preset, which comprises the following

corrections:

• White balance: Set to As shot.

• Exposure compensation: Set to Smart.

• DxO Smart Lighting: Set to Slight.

• Noise reduction: Set to High quality.

• Distortion: Automatic, based on the DxO Optics Module used.

• Vignetting: Automatic, based on the DxO Optics Module used.

• Chromatic aberration: Automatic.

• Lens softness: Activated with a medium correction (–0.50).

All other available corrections are deactivated.

Step 2 – In the Essential Tools palette, go into (for example) the White

Balance sub-palette. Make your settings with the help of the available

sliders and drop-down menus. DxO Optics Pro will immediately

display the results of your corrections in the Image window.

During your ﬁrst attempts, go ahead and play around with the sliders to

see how they affect the appearance of your photos. All the corrections

can be undone and will not affect your original image.

For a more complete description of the palettes, see section

4.2 below.

NOTE

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Step 3 – Proceed to adjust any other needed settings by successively

going through the Exposure Compensation, DxO Smart Lighting, or

Contrast palettes.

Of course, you can use whatever palettes you want, including those

with advanced features. Consult the DxO Optics Pro 9 User Guide for

more details.

To truly see the results of such corrections as Noise, Chromatic

aberration, or Lens Softness, we recommend that you display

your image at a pixel ratio of 1:1 (zoom level 100%). You can

easily zoom in to 100% by double-clicking in the area of the

image that you want to inspect. (A second double-click will

return you to the original zoom display level.)

NOTE

2.3. Exporting images

To deﬁnitively apply the corrections you make in the Customize tab, you

will need to export your images. This step involves the creation of new

ﬁles. By default, these new ﬁles are in high-quality JPEG format and are

stored in the same working directory as the original image ﬁles.

Step 1 – Click on the Export to disk button on the right of the

command bar in the Image browser.

Step 2 – The Export options ﬂoating window displays so that you can

choose and set the format (JPEG, TIFF, DNG), the quality, and the

destination of the ﬁles to be exported.

The Export to disk floating window – Options.

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Step 3 – After you have made your settings, click on the Export

button.

Two kinds of information appear in the Image browser:

• By clicking on the

button in the command bar, you can display

the progress bar of the export in process.

• After your images have been exported, the icon situated in the

upper right corner of the thumbnails in the Image browser will

display the processing status of each image:

Waiting to be processed

Processed image

Processing error

Do not process

Cannot process

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3.1. What is a preset?

Presets let you easily apply a set of corrections to one or more

images without having to adjust all of the tools and settings in each

sub-palette. By using presets, you can apply your favorite settings

to your photos to achieve the result you want, while maintaining the

possibility of ﬁne-tuning the corrections for each image.

The presets are divided into ﬁve categories: General purpose,

Portrait and Landscape, Black & White, Atmospheres, and High

Dynamic Range.

The General purpose presets category include, notably, the

DxO standard preset, which is applied by default to all new images.

You can ﬁnd more detailed descriptions of other provided presets in

the DxO Optics Pro 9 User Guide.

Presets

You can create your own presets: after you apply all the

corrections you want to your image, right-click on its thumbnail

in the Image browser, and select Create preset from current

settings in the context menu.

NOTE

The keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Z (PC) or Cmd + Z (Mac OS X) lets

you cancel the correction and return to the previous settings.

TIP

3.2. Applying presets

There are several ways to apply a preset to an image:

• By clicking on the Preset button: A ﬂoating window displays a

preview of all available presets.

• By right-clicking on a thumbnail in the Image browser.

• From the Preset Editor (Customize tab).

You can also apply correction settings from one image to other

images as follows:

• Right-click on the thumbnail of the corrected image in the Image

browser.

• Choose Copy correction settings in the context menu.

• Select the destination image in the Image browser.

• Right-click on the selected destination image and choose Paste

correction settings in the context menu.

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4.1. The command bar

The command bar.

The command bar runs along the top of the Image window. It is a user

interface element that is available in any workspace, whether custom

or default, and contains the following commands (from left to right):

Display and navigation tools

Compare: By clicking on this button and holding the

mouse or trackpad button down, you can temporarily display the

reference image (which by default is the original image before

correction).

Drop-down menu (at right): Lets you choose the reference image

(before or after correction) to compare with the displayed image.

Corrections in process: (Mac OS X only): Displays a preview of the

image currently undergoing correction.

Side-by-side display: The original image before correction and

the corrected image are displayed one next to the other.

Zoom: Lets you choose how large you want the image to

display on your screen. The drop-down menu lets you choose from

several common zoom sizes (from 25 to 400%), or you can enter a

value of your choice (up to 1600%).

More information about the Customize tab

Hand tool (Mac OS X only): Lets you move the visible part of the

image in any direction and to zoom in or out by double-clicking on

the image. While using another tool, you can temporarily call the

Hand tool by pressing down on your keyboard space bar.

Correction tools

Cropping.

Dust removal.

Straighten horizon.

Force parallel lines.

Rectangle.

White balance eyedropper.

Multi-point color balance (OS X only)

Presets

The Preset button opens the preview and preset

selection window.

You can also use a scrolling motion (via your mouse wheel or

trackpad) to zoom in and out on the image (if using a Mac, you

must simultaneously hold down the Cmd key).

TIP

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4.2. Palettes

A palette is a logical grouping of sub-palettes. A sub-palette groups

together all of the settings and tools of a given correction — for

example, color temperature and tint are found in the White Balance

sub-palette.

The word “Auto” appearing to the right of the sub-palette name

indicates that DxO Optics Pro automatically optimizes the

corresponding corrections. If you change a parameter in these sub-

palettes and you want to return to DxO Optics Pro’s default optimal

values, click on the magic wand situated on the right side of the

setting in question.

Two other important icons can also appear in the sub-palettes:

• The barred eye icon

advises you to zoom in at a minimum of

75% in the image to be able to see the effects of certain corrections.

• The question mark icon lets you display context help that describes

what the sub-palette and its associated sliders do.

To expand the contents of a sub-palette, click on the small

arrow on its left side.

TIP

The Customize tab contains the following palettes:

Move/Zoom: lets you zoom in and out

of the image with the help of a slider

or by entering a percentage value;

identify where you are in the image;

and move around in the image in any

direction.

EXIF: displays the principal shooting

parameters and lets you add your

name and copyright notices.

Preset Editors: Groups all the

presets and allows you to manage

(i.e., add, modify, delete) them.

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Histogram: displays the Luminance

as well as the tonal range and the

distribution of pixels in RGB mode

(or separately for any of the RGB

channels).

Essential Tools contains all of the

necessary tools for basic corrections

such as white balance, exposure,

selective tone, contrast, color

accentuation, reducing digital noise,

straightening horizon lines, ﬁxing

perspective, and cropping.

Light and Color – Advanced contains

such advanced correction tools as

custom color rendering, tone curve,

and HSL (Hue / Saturation / Lightness

by color channel).

Detail and Geometry – Advanced:

Corrects overall sharpness, moiré

patterns, dust specks, and volume

deformation.

Optical Corrections: Lets you correct

distortion, vignetting (the darkening

of the corners and edges of an image),

chromatic aberrations (colored

fringing), and lets you optimize the

sharpness of the image.

DxO FilmPack: If DxO FilmPack

is installed on your computer, you

will be able to use it directly in

DxO Optics Pro, which will

automatically display its dedicated

palette.

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DxO Optics Pro lets you publish your images directly in your Flickr

®

web gallery, print them, and open them in another application to

further retouch or correct them.

5.1. Publishing your photos on Flickr

®

To transfer photos to you Flickr

®

gallery:

1. Select the images in the Image browser.

2. Select Export to Flickr on the right of the Image browser

command bar.

3. Click on Connect in the dialogue box to connect to your Flickr

®

account.

4. Choose the format and the quality of the ﬁles.

5. Click on Export: the selected images are processed and then

transferred.

Publishing, printing, and externally editing images

To publish your images on Flickr

®

, you must have both a Flickr

®

account and an active Internet connection.

NOTE

5.2. Print your photos

DxO Optics Pro lets you print your photographs. You can access

the dialog box from either the Organize or Customize tab, or from

the File menu, or by clicking on the

icon in the Image browser

command bar.

The print dialog box (Microsoft Windows).

The dialog box displays a preview of the photo to be printed. Several

page setups are available: ﬁll the page with photo; rotate the image;

add a caption from metadata (ﬁle name, date, etc.) and select its

position, font, and color.

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Further, you can adjust the margins and create contact sheets —

choosing the number of rows and columns and setting the size of

the photo cells either automatically or manually. You can create and

print several pages at a time.

Note that the dialog box also gives access to the print driver settings.

DxO Optics Pro’s print feature lets you print every kind of ﬁle that

DxO Optics Pro supports, including RAW-format images and virtual

copies.

5.3.

Editing your photos in another

application

DxO Optics Pro lets you open your photos in a different application so

you can further retouch or apply more corrections to them. To do so:

1. Select the images in the Image browser.

2. On the right side of the Image browser command bar, select Export

to application.

3. In the dialog box, select the destination application either from

the saved list, or by browsing in your computer’s applications folder.

4. In the Action drop-down menu, choose the export format (JPEG,

TIFF, DNG, or original).

5. Click on Export: DxO Optics Pro will process the selected images

(that is, deﬁnitively apply your corrections to your images before

exporting them), after which they will open in the other application.

In the Microsoft Windows version, the printing tools appear in a

ﬂoating window, whereas the OS X version displays an operating

system dialog box.

NOTE

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Présentation de DxO Optics Pro 9

L’interface de DxO Optics Pro.

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Einführung in DxO Optics Pro 9

Das Interface von DxO Optics Pro .

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DxO Optics Pro v9 Quick start guide

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