dxo has just released the latest version of its photo management and editing software in
this video I'll review what's new in photolab 7 and explain how these features work
dxo has also released filmpack 7 on the same day which I'll be covering in a later video
Let's Start by opening an image for editing in the customize module the first change is
to the color rendering section which we find in the color tab we now see a new black and
white renderings option when we select this we can choose the rendering with three choices there are
generic renderings as well as black and white film and digital which I'll talk about shortly
for the moment I'll choose the generic rendering I then have four choices which I can select in
the renderings drop down the default is a neutral black and white which produces a good result with
most of the images I've tried in addition we have three DXO renderings which are faded balanced and
strong these apply an additional rendering on top of the default black and white conversion
to show you what I mean I'll pick the strong rendering which works great for this image I
can then use the Intensity slider to reduce its effect pulling the intensity slider back to
zero produces the same result as the neutral black and white rendering you can see this when I return
to that rendering and move the intensity slider to 100. the intensity slider doesn't have any
effect on the neutral rendering in addition to using the intensity slider to control the
effect I can combine it with the channel mixer when I turn on the channel mixer I can control
the black and white conversion using the color response sliders for example I can lighten the
Sky by increasing the blue slider and I can reduce the yellow slider to darken the area behind the
viaduct the DXO has also added several new film and digital renderings to photolab 7 in both
color and black and white if you have filmpack 7 installed as I do there are additional renderings
and it integrates seamlessly into photolab let's turn off the channel mixer and return to the color
rendering because I want to tell you about local adjustments DXO has completely redesigned the local
adjustments in Photolab 7. Their old system of applying local adjustments was a bit like Marmite
you either loved it or you hated it to open the local adjustments click the paintbrush icon now
I can select the tool that I want to use in a row of icons there's also a new Luminosity Max feature
but it's only available if the filmpack 7 software is installed I'll be looking at that in a later
video let's say that I want to select the blue at the top of the sky I'll do this by selecting
the control line tool and then drawing the control line onto the image then I'll position the sample
point to select the blue area of the sky notice how much cleaner this design is as I no longer
have all the sliders on the control arms instead all the adjustments are on the right of the
interface and arranged into panels this makes them much easier to access for example if I want to
add a clear view adjustment to the selection I use the slider on the right side of the interface this
makes for a much better experience when editing your images as well as being faster then if I want
to select new area using the same tool I click the new mask button at the bottom or the plus
icon I can then click on draw my new selection to prevent confusion I can rename the Selections in
the local adjustments list I'll call this one Viaduct and I'll call the other adjustment Sky
then when I select either adjustment I can see the controls change I also like the fact that
I can combine different tools onto the same mask just like you can in Lightroom for example I can
select the control Point tool and add it to the viaduct mask that I created with the control line
I'll undo that now because I want to show you another new feature this is something that I've
been wanting for a long time we now have an hsl tool added to the local adjustments this
uses the same excellent design as the global hsl tool in photo lab dxo has created a completely
flexible color management system by adding it to the local adjustments I've lost count of the times
I've wanted to control the colors in a specific area of an image and that's exactly what the new
hsl tool delivers I hope others like Adobe pay attention and add a similar feature to their
software let's say that we now want to choose the sky adjustment and alter just the blue although
the control line selected the blue area of the sky it does spill over into surrounding clouds
I can refine it to a degree using the chroma and Luma sliders but combining these with the
hsl tool gives much greater control first I pick the color range I want to affect which is blue
you can then see the colors appear on the color wheel to indicate the selection I could change
these by clicking and dragging but I won't Now using little lollipop control I can alter the
Hue element of the color if I want to reset the adjustment I just double click a control I can now
increase the saturation and reduce the luminance I'll also increase the uniformity to smooth the
effects transition if I go to the split screen view you can see the difference these simple
changes can make let's switch to a different image because I want to explain another new feature here
you can see a photo of a color Checker chart there are different ways to use these but I use this one
for generating new camera profiles to do that I first need to convert my raw files into dng files
and then import them into the software the color Checker manufacturer provided that's a rather
laborious process that puts me off using it now we have an alternative as DXO was introduced a color
calibration feature into photolab 7. it's grouped with the other color controls in the customize
module to create a profile we need to select the create profile icon we can then click and drag on
our image of the calibration card I can then click the overlays Corners to move them into position on
the chart once in position I can choose the type of calibration Target that I'm using in this case
it's a passport color Checker mine's an older one produced by x-rite but it still works with this
software now I can click the save and apply option to generate a color profile for this camera this
opens the save as dialog where I can name the new profile and choose where to save it after clicking
save the new profiles generated as a DCP file and this applied to the image I'll close the overlay
now if we look at the rendering panel you can see the new profile already applied to the image when
I turn off the panel you can see the changes that it's making to the accuracy of the colors in this
image it's probably most noticeable in the Blues and the Reds of the calibration Target everything
is now much more vibrant and reproduces the colors accurately I found this much easier for generating
profiles than the chart manufacturer's software it's so easy that I've begun carrying and using
the color Checker card again now I can apply the profile to other images shot with this camera if
we go back to the viaduct image which was also shot with the Panasonic gx1 look at
the difference it makes to the colors another new feature added to photo lab 7 is Lut color
grading you'll find this in the color section of the customize module here we can choose from one
of 17 look files included with photo up seven for this image let's choose the O2 bleach bypass look
I can then change the strength of the effect using the intensity slider I can also import
third party alerts in the cube file format using the drop down whilst it's nice to see the new look
color grading I would have liked the option to add multiple Luts to the same image hopefully
this will be added in a future release overall there are some nice new features in Photolab 7
and the redesigner for local adjustment interface is superb in terms of cost the new full version is
priced at 209 pounds or 229 dollars and the same in euros if you're an existing user and qualify
for an upgrade it will cost you 99 pounds or 109 dollars in the same in Euros you can also download
a free 30-day evaluation version of the software from the dxo website I'll include a link to that
in the YouTube video information below earlier I talked about the color renderings in this video
I explain more about photo lab renderings and the color space as well as how to achieve the better
results with them it's a good one to watch next I hope you enjoyed today's review don't forget
to subscribe if you haven't already and please share this I'll see you soon for another video