DXO Optics Pro

I have fairly recently made the switch (not 100% though as I got a Canon A1 for Christmas) to digital photography with my K20D and 7000 images later am beginning to think more about workflows and raw conversion. Which if you can bear with me will lead to a number of questions/topics which I hope don't cover previously covered ground too much. To date my experience or raw converters is limited to Pentax Photo Laboratory to process my own images and Photoshop CS2 to process some Canon images at work.

Currently I am messing around with a trial version of DXO Optics Pro and have been very impressed with the results. For those not familiar with it you can download modules for individual cameras and lenses which correct optical faults of a given lens. One hope they used good copies of certain lenses to do their tests! It also seems to work well in correcting converging verticals in architectural photography which is a huge bonus for me, and cheaper than a tilt and shift lens! The only major downside that I can see is that is very slow probably in part due to the extra processing required. Minor gripes are that I cannot easily see a before and after histogram or see any easy way of doing a levels adustment as one can Photoshop.

Has anyone else tried the DXO software and have any opinions? If anyone wishes to suggest any alternatives my own particular requirement is to be easily able to view the before and after images and zoom in on detail - in my experience Pentax Photo Laboratory is hopeless for this.

Many thanks,

Jonathan

Silkypix Developer Studio offers distortion correction and digital shift, along with numerous other fine features. You can zoom in on the preview to any level at any time, and a histogram can be displayed all the time. All the functions are undoable.

The distortion correction is manually controlled, but it's easy to manage, particularly when you have straight lines in your image that can act as a guide. The preview shows the effect of everything you do, as you do it.