DXO PhotoLab 9 or Lightroom?

I was a long-time Lightroom (LR) user having taken weekend workshop courses and online tutorials. I appreciated its database function to ingest and store images on my external hard drives.

But after I retired I didn’t need all the power and functions to be found in LR and I wasn’t thrilled with the costly subscription model.

So I ended up doing my raw editing either in OMWorkspace which is available for free to Olympus camera users or Alien Skins’ Exposure 7 with its very good built-in presets.

So how did I end up with almost $1,000 worth of DXO products?

Well it all started with my birding trip to Costa Rica. Shooting birds and wildlife with the Olympus OM-1 and the 150-600mm (300-1,200mm in 35mm equivalent) I needed DXO’s very excellent Pure RAW noise reduction software.

Considered by many to be the very best noise reduction app DXO Pure RAW makes worrying about noise and high ISO a thing of the past. It’s just that good.

This was the Trojan Horse moment.

Last week I heard that DXO Pure RAW had an update version so when I went to buy an upgrade subscription DXO kindly offered to bundle the NIK Collection of apps.

I was familiar with the NIK Collection having used the software for years in the past and very much liked the Silver Efex, Color Efex and Analog Efex.

These apps can be used as external editors in Lightroom, Affinity, DXO Photo Lab 9 and can also be used as independent external editors in your PC or MAC.

One of the biggest advantages of the Nik apps is they now support AI masking. For newcomers masking is just a way of isolating parts of your image, say the sky, and creating changes to just that part. It’s a very powerful and yet simple to use tool that can really change the way you edit and show your images.

So I bought the upgrade to Pure RAW and took advantage of DXOs offer to purchase the NIK Collection at a discount.

To say I was impressed with the power of these tools would be a gross understatement.

Now remember I’m the guy you says “GET IT RIGHT IN CAMERA!!!!” and I stand by that statement because no software can fix a bad photo. In fact, most software makes bad photos worse…often a lot worse.

But good software can enhance a good photo and besides who doesn’t want to produce the best image they possibly can?

But this is not the end of the story.

After a couple of hours of playing around with the NIK Collection apps I realized that I was now so far down the proverbial rabbit hole that it only made sense to purchase DXO PhotoLab 9 which work with the NIK apps.

But wait! DXO made me another offer and that was to bundle DXO FilmPack with my purchase of PhotoLab 9.

I have been known to use presets in the past and DXO FilmPack is loaded with film and special effects presets that while I might not use them professionally sure are a lot of fun to use on my photos destined for use online. Beside it was only just over another $100.

Anyway if you’re still with me here’s an excellent video comparing the two software packages: Can DXO PhotoLab 9 Replace Lightroom For Landscapes Photographers?

Is one better for you than the other?

Most likely. One is a subscription payment and the other is cash upfront and you own the software. One has a data-base management function and the other will work with your images just about anyway you store them.

There are other differences but if you’re into editing raw images either one gets the job done and done well.