DxO Optics Pro 11 has been replaced by DxO PhotoLab. Read the DxO PhotoLab review here. There’s a line on the DxO Optics Pro website that explains its aim perfectly: “Upgrade your images without upgrading your equipment”. DxO Optics Pro 11 does this in two ways. First, it uses lab-developed lens profiles to correct aberrations in over 950 camera lenses, fixing distortion, … [Read more...] about DxO Optics Pro 11 review
Lens corrections – digital
No lens is perfect. All lenses display aberrations to some degree, including distortion, chromatic aberration (colour fringing) and vignetting (corner shading). These are worse with cheap kit lenses or zooms, and eliminating them optically is both difficult and expensive.
So it's often more effective to put up with these slight optical imperfections in the original lens design and fix them digitally instead.
An increasing number of programs now offer automatic lens corrections which can identify the lens used to take a shot and apply a specially-calibrated correction profile from that lens. The better the software, the better the corrections and the more lenses are supported.
DxO Optics Pro was the first in this field (now DxO PhotoLab), though Lightroom's lens corrections are really good too and Capture One Pro has profiles for a large number of consumer and professional lenses. These are probably the top three simply because they are RAW conversion tools you'd use at the start of your image-editing workflow anyway, but there are plenty of other programs which will fix your lens defects for you too.
DxO ViewPoint 3 review
DxO ViewPoint 3 is the latest version of DxO's perspective and distortion correction program. It works as a standalone application, as a plug-in for Lightroom, Photoshop and Elements and as a fully-integrated panel within DxO Optics Pro, DxO's flagship optical correction and raw processing tool. DxO Optics Pro 11 review ViewPoint is designed to correct the converging … [Read more...] about DxO ViewPoint 3 review
How to use the Aperture chromatic aberration correction tools – and why!
Chromatic aberration is the colour fringing you sometimes see around object outlines near the edges of the picture. With most consumer lenses it's a fact of life, and as soon as you know what you're looking for you can see the signs in many of the pictures you take. Some camera makers 'tune out' chromatic aberration as the picture is processed by the camera. Nikon does this … [Read more...] about How to use the Aperture chromatic aberration correction tools – and why!
Capture One keystone correction tips
Keystone correction is usually used to fix converging verticals in architectural shots – that's the most obvious use for the Capture One keystone correction tools – but this vertical keystone correction isn't the only kind you'll need. Keystone distortion happens when you tilt the camera relative to your subject, and this can mean horizontal tilt as well as vertical tilt. … [Read more...] about Capture One keystone correction tips
When and why to use the DxO Volume Anamorphosis option
DxO Optics Pro is designed to correct a range common lens distortions automatically, including distortion, chromatic aberration, vignetting and edge softness. But the DxO Volume Anamorphosis option is less well known. It's not enabled in the default DxO corrections, but it can make a big difference to super-wideangle shots and shapes near the edges of the frame. • Note that … [Read more...] about When and why to use the DxO Volume Anamorphosis option
Straighten up your shots with the DxO Force Rectangle tool
DxO Optics Pro uses custom-made lens correction profiles to fix the distortion issues inherent in nearly all lenses, but it goes further than that – it can also correct the perspective distortion created when you photograph a rectangular object at a slight angle, thanks to the DxO Force Rectangle tool . You often don't notice this kind of misalignment at the time, only later on … [Read more...] about Straighten up your shots with the DxO Force Rectangle tool
