DxO PhotoLab 9 has just gone live and brings with it a smorgasbord of RAW photo editing additions and upgrades, in what DxO Labs is calling “a new era of editing”. And the Paris-based company certainly stands by that statement; VP of product strategy, Jean-Marc Alexia, calls it: “probably our biggest upgrade to our flagship editing software of the last 20 years.”
The headline new feature is DxO AI Masks, which uses artificial intelligence to create “precise selections in an instant.” And indeed, from the product demo I was able to view, this does look mighty impressive. There are three ways to make use of DxO AI Masks.
First, the Object Selector will create mask previews as you hover the cursor over an object, and you then simply click to create the mask.
Area Selection enables you to draw a rectangular box over your intended subject, which the AI will then mask. Finally, you can access a list of predefined objects with options – “Sky”, “Subject” and “Background” – as well as more specialist selections, such as “Animals”, “Hair” and “Faces”. Tonal adjustments to these predefined objects can also be copied and pasted between images or saved as a preset.
DxO PhotoLab 9 also enables you to combine DxO AI Masks with the software’s existing U Point Technology. This means you can combine AI Masks, Control Points, Control Lines, Graduated Filters and the Brush tool to “create highly complex masks that would otherwise be too sophisticated for even the most advanced AI.”
DxO PureRAW 5 recently debuted the latest in the software developer’s coveted AI-powered noise-reduction and demosaicing tool, DeepPrime XD3. Well, in PhotoLab 9, both DeepPrime and DxO’s Lens Sharpening Optimization can be applied locally with existing local adjustment tools and new AI Masks.
On the subject of DeepPrime, DxO has now announced that DeepPrime XD3 is no longer in beta and can process RAW files from all Fujifilm X-Trans cameras.
In addition to all the above, DxO has included a variety of lifestyle adjustments in a bid to create “a smarter, faster workflow”. Upgrades include image stacking, a Favorites system for folders and projects, and direct access to the Project palette from Customize mode.
The software also includes a new batch renaming tool. Filenames can be automatically generated via EXIF and metadata, as well as custom text. You can also create and save your own presets, said to make it “easy to apply consistent naming conventions across entire projects or workflows.”
Finally, iPhone photographers can make use of this powerful RAW editing software, with support for HEIC / HEIF and ProRAW.
DxO PhotoLab 9 is available right now, for macOS and Windows. A new license is priced at $239.99 / £219.99 (Australian pricing to be confirmed) while DxO PhotoLab 7 or 8 users can benefit from a reduced upgrade fee of $119.99 / £109.99. If you want to try the software out, there’s also a 30-day free trial.
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