New Masking Tools

There are a couple of changes that affect multiple applications in the suite. The biggest of these are the new masking tools. You now have two new masking options, in addition to the U-point masking that you are familiar with. These are: AI selection and depth masking.

AI Selection

Using the AI selection tools from DXO’s own PhotoLab application, the new AI masking tool allows you to use AI to select subjects and objects within your scene. You can use this anywhere you can have local selections, and you have two options. The first is to cover the area with a brush and have the AI detect the object underneath. The second is to use a marquee to draw out a box, and have it select the object contained within. Of the two, I found the second one to be easier to use. You do get an onscreen icon to indicate the selection, and you can actually move it once the selection is made to have it reselect.

There are some kinks that still need to be worked out in this, especially when it comes to combining masks. For example, in Silver Efex I was trying to apply a “ClearView” effect to the image of yours truly, but mask out my face. The AI mask wouldn’t select my glasses, and try as I might, I couldn’t combine the two masks and invert them to mask out everything but my head. When I added a second mask for my glasses and inverted that, then the rest of my face would be back in the ClearView effect. I couldn’t figure out a way to combine the two masks and invert them both. So this needs a bit of work. You really need the ability to combine masks in a group and then invert the whole group, especially when the AI detection doesn’t get everything in one pass.

Even so, it’s a really useful addition. In another demo, for one of the new filters in Analog Efex, I was able to use the AI masking perfectly, but more on that in a moment below. For the most part, this works well, so long as you can create your selection in one go, and don’t need to combine multiple masks. If you do, then it depends on the image and it depends on the filter.

Depth Masking

Another addition to the local adjustment toolbox is the arrival of depth masking. This allows you to add a mask based on the depth of a scene, and once again it uses AI to create a depth map for the image. In my testing so far, this has worked extremely well.

To activate it, you select Depth Masking from the Local Adjustment selection and then click on the image. You get two sets of controls: there’s an onscreen control and a set of parameters in the adjustments side panel. The latter gives you more granular control over the mask, and you can adjust the feathering of the near and far points. If you have used the Lens Blur tool in Lightroom, then the controls are very much the same.

You can also adjust it with the onscreen controls by dragging it up and down to move through the depth of the image, although if you have previously adjusted the feathering in the side panel, this gets reset as soon as you start dragging. I’m not sure if that’s a bug or not, but maybe one for DXO to look at in the future as it’s a bit of a pain right now.

Additional Masking Tools

There are also some additional workflow enhancements to the masking tools. The new “Local Adjustments” palette consolidates all the masking tools under one section to make them easier to find. You can now see the mask as a black-and-white image in addition to the overlay. And local adjustments can now be copied and pasted between filters.

Blend Modes

Another big change that affects multiple applications in the suite is blending modes. Filters in both Colour Efex and Analog Efex can now have blending modes applied to them. This is basically the same as the blending mode options in Photoshop and it opens up a huge new way to vary the effects within these apps.

It works really well with things like the paper textures and light effects in Analogue Efex and can give you dramatically different results with the various filters in Colour Efex.

In the example below, I added a light leak to the image and changed its blending mode from the standard “Screen X2” to “Soft Light” and reduced the opacity. You can see the default version and the one using a different blend mode below.

New Filters and Effects

There are also a bunch of new filters throughout the various applications. Here’s a quick overview and some impressions of using them:

Colour Grading in Color Efex

Color Efex gains a new colour grading tool. This is interesting because they didn't just copy a standard three-way colour corrector out of your typical editing application. Instead, it’s a unique take on this tool, by using a single colour wheel. You get a single wheel with points for shadows, mid-tones, and highlights, and an additional one for overall.

You click on one of these points and can then adjust the individual control by dragging the point or using the controls underneath the colour wheel. It looks a bit odd at first, but once you get used to it, it works quite well and is actually pretty intuitive.

Chromatic Shift in Analog Efex

This is quite a stylised filter, but you can actually produce some really nice effects with it. It allows you to separate, what would be the print passes of the image and move them. In other words, if you were printing this in a proper printing press with a CMYK colour pass, it allows you to act as if you shifted one of the passes. It’s one of those things that you could see using to make a poster or album cover or something like that.

You can select pairs of colour channels to move: Red/Cyan, Green/Magenta and Blue/Yellow. Unfortunately you can only do one at a time, and can’t combine these, without rendering out and going back in, but it’s a nice effect. I can see this being useful, especially if you’re a designer. Combine this with blend modes and you can create interesting effects.

Halation in Color Efex

The idea behind Halation is to recreate the glow you would see on older film stocks, especially around lights and highlights, and other bright areas of a scene. That’s the idea anyway, but you can also create “bloom” type glows around bright sources with this too. It’s a cool tool, and having played around with it for a while, you can create some interesting effects with it. I’m not sure how accurate it is, mind you. I have used other Halation tools, especially in video applications, and this gives a different look than they generally do. There are, however, a good few options, so you can control it quite a bit.

The only issue I have with this tool is that I would have thought that this was better suited to AnalogEfex rather than ColorEfex. As I was going through the suite for this review, I actually thought it was in AnalogEfex multiple times and kept opening that instead of ColorEfex when I wanted to use it. It just seems odd that they wouldn’t put such a specific tool aimed at recreating an analogue film effect in the software specifically designed for analogue film effects. It’s not that big a deal, it just seems odd.

Glass Effect in Analog Efex

Finally (unless I’m missing something), there’s the new Glass Effect. You can find this in AnalogEfex, and it mimics the effect of shooting through textured glass. It’s a nice effect, and you may be thinking: “It’s nice and all, but how often would I need something like this?”. Funnily enough, a few years ago, I was working on a project, and the director was looking for this exact effect on something. Now it was video, so this wouldn’t have worked anyway, but it does come up. (I ended up doing it with displacement masks and a bunch of other effects in After Effects.)

It actually renders quite nicely, and you have control over the texture and the scale of the glass effect. There are onscreen controls too, and you can use both blending modes and masks with this for added effect. In this example, I used an AI mask to cut out the deer and had the effect just on the grass.

If I had one suggestion for this, it would be to give users the ability to add their own texture maps in addition to the included ones. This would be quite useful, especially if you or your client had specific needs.

Conclusion and Additional Thoughts

This is quite a solid release from DXO, and I think Nik 9 is definitely one of the bigger Nik releases recently. The masking tools and blending modes alone are worth the upgrade in my opinion. I do have a couple of gripes after using the beta, though.

First of all, for some reason, Silver Efex seems to be running quite slowly. It takes a few seconds to update after moving sliders, and it makes it very hard to edit with it. Now, it could be just a beta bug. There are some optimisation options in the software, and it did improve after changing these to use adaptive resolution and to force it to use the GPU, but there is definitely an issue here. I noticed the same problem with PhotoLab 9, so I hope this isn’t a trend. I’m currently using an M1 Max, Mac Studio. It’s not the newest, but it's hardly a slouch either.

My other gripe is that some of the tools seem oddly placed in certain applications. For example, I would have thought that Halation should be in Analog Efex and I would have thought that the Glass effect would be better placed in the Color Efex.

I also think they need a better way to combine masks. Especially as the AI masking tools will often miss something or add something that you don’t want, and there’s no way to control or edit these. In Lightroom, for example, you can always subtract another mask, so if something is included that shouldn’t be, you can just add a brush and remove it. The masking tools here are a step in the right direction, and the AI selection will save hours for sure, but it needs the ability to combine masks or at least edit the AI mask.

Gripes aside, and they are just gripes (except for Silver Efex, that’s a problem), I do really like some of the new tools. I especially like the Halation effect and the chromatic shift. I can actually think of uses for both of these. If you’re a designer as well as a photographer, these are definitely useful tools to have.

Availability and Pricing

Nik Collection 9 is available now from the DXO website. Pricing for the collection is as follows:

New License: $179.99 | €169.99 | £149.99

Upgrades (From Nik 7 or 8): $99.99 | €89.99 | £79.99

There should be a trial version available too from the website.

You can use my code: ThomasFitzgerald15 to get 15% off (new customers only, I’m afraid)

Note, as this is an affiliate program, we do get a small commission on sales made with this code, which helps run this website.

Back when Adobe released Lightroom 14.4, they changed the way the AI tools, such as Denoise and Super Resolution, work. You no longer use the “Enhance” function to create a separate DNG. Instead, you just tick a checkbox in the detail panel. When you do this, it calculates the AI function, which takes a few seconds. Until this new release, this was done through a status bar in a dialog box that took over Lightroom, meaning you couldn’t do anything else while this was happening. This wasn’t a huge deal for single images, but if you wanted to batch process this, it could lock Lightroom up for a long time, and people were understandably frustrated about it. Fortunately, they have now moved this processing to the background, and it no longer takes over Lightroom.

There are a few limitations still. When you enable something like Denoise, editing the current image is temporarily disabled while you apply it. This makes sense, as it’s basically creating a denoised version in the background. You can still continue to edit other images.

If you apply Denoise to a batch of images, the same happens. You can’t edit any images currently being processed or ones in the queue. However, once the process on any given image is complete, you can then edit it. You can still edit other images that aren’t part of the batch being processed.

Another change is that previously, if you were batch processing images, you would apply Denoise and then you would have to choose the menu option to “update AI settings”. You don’t need to do this anymore, as this all happens automatically now.

There are a couple of other updates in this release also. Most are under the hood type things and performance improvements. This are as follows:

1. Performance Updates:

   1. Interactive slider performance for global and local edits

   2. Better memory utilisation for Full Screen Window

   3. Cloud sync download

2. Assisted Culling Improvements: Assisted Culling updates improve detection of shallow depth-of-field images and reduce false rejects for photos with intentional background blur.

3. Sync: Sync support for Photoshop Big (PSB) files

4. Film-Inspired Presets

5. Send to Firefly Boards

There’s also the usual round of new camera and lens support updates with this release too. The rest of the photography family also received updates too, including Lightroom Desktop and Mobile and Photoshop and Camera Raw.

Originally posted on my Designtography blog.

The Mac Pro has certainly had a turbulent history in recent years. All the way back to the “Trashcan” Mac Pro, and Phil Shiller’s “Can’t innovate, my ass” comment. Before the Trashcan’s introduction, Apple had let the previous generation of Mac Pro languish for several years. However, as we all know, the trashcan was a bit of a disaster for Apple, receiving only one lacklustre update in its lifetime. In 2017, Apple introduced the iMac Pro, and many thought then that this spelled the end of the Mac Pro. However, the new cheese grater was just around the corner (well, two years away) and the iMac Pro was really thought of as an interim solution for those who needed more power than the trashcan could provide. While this was a solution for many pros, (and even the regular iMac improved significantly during this time), there were still a considerable number of high-end users who required more than the iMac offered.

During this time, Apple famously offered a mea-culpa to its professional customers, and apologised for the Trashcan’s lack of updates. This was something that Apple almost never does. They promised they understood the needs of the Pro market, and said that a new “Modular” Mac Pro was on the horizon.

Enter the “new” cheese grater Mac Pro in 2019, made famous for its ridiculously expensive wheels add-on. This also saw the arrival of the Pro Display XDR. The 2019 Mac Pro was indeed innovative, and its MPX slots were unique, as were some of the processing boards they offered. However, all of this was short-lived, and much of it was made redundant by the move to Apple Silicon. The ProRes board, that was an expensive add-on at the time, was essentially built in to the Apple Silicon chips. When the Mac Studio came out, the writing was pretty much on the wall for the Mac Pro.

However, Apple did do one last iteration of the tower Mac, bringing Apple Silicon to the Mac Pro. Many felt that this was just a stop-gap solution, though, as it was essentially the guts of a Mac Studio, but with PCI slots and a hefty price tag. Unless you absolutely needed to use expansion cards, this was terrible value. And once again, Apple let it languish, with the processor never moving beyond the M2 Ultra. There were repeated rumours that Apple was planning another re-do, with a version of the M-Series chips sitting above the “Ultra” but it never materialised. And the rest, as they say, is history.

With the Mac Studio being ever more powerful, and thunderbolt 5 bridging the gap to PCI cards, it’s understandable that Apple would discontinue the Pro. I still think it’s a shame, though. I recently wrote an article on here, about why I think Apple shouldn’t kill the Mac Pro, and one of the points that I made, was that it was about more than just PCI slots. The Mac Pro’s big advantage was always less about expandability, and more about its modularity. While this was less the case in recent years, it was always useful that you could replace components should they fail. Given how locked down the Mac Studio is, Apple will no longer have a Mac that you can do this with (unless they improve the accessibility of the Mac Studio) in the future.

I’ve also seen people commenting that the Mac Pro was “stuck” at M2 Ultra, as if this was some technical limitation, but this wasn’t the case. Apple decided not to update it, rather than something preventing them from updating it. They could have done whatever they wanted. In my afore mentioned article, I outlined lots of suggestions as to what Apple could have done with the Mac Pro, including an M.2 SSD drive array, Multiple Processors and so on. Of course, none of that will ever come to pass now, but I still think they could have made something incredible (and incredibly expensive.)

With the Mac Pro now officially retired, the high-end crown falls to the Mac Studio. To be fair, the Mac Studio is far more “Apple” than the Mac Pro ever was. Apple always wanted a smaller and a more minimalist computer, and in some ways, this fulfils the dream of the Trashcan Mac, or even the infamous Mac Cube. Apple always wanted this kind of form factor, but it was only with the move to Apple Silicon that they could finally pull it off. And to be fair, the Mac Studio is a fantastic computer.

A few years ago, I replaced my Ageing 2012 Mac Pro with a Mac Studio, and I haven’t looked back since. I do still have my Mac Pro running, though. I use it as a server, and it’s a testament to how well they were built. It kept on going through both the Trashcan era and the newer Cheese grater 2.0 era.

The big issue I have with the Mac Studio, and indeed many of Apple’s current generation of Macs, is that they feel disposable. If something goes wrong, you replace it with either a new one or Apple replaces it with a refurb (if still under warrantee). And while you can of course still repair these, it’s far from something the average computer user can and will ever attempt. Over the years, on my Mac Pro, I replaced the graphic card, the RAM, and even the hard drives with an SSD. All without having to take anything apart, or even using a screwdriver. I wouldn’t even attempt to open up the Mac Studio.

However, all is not lost on this front. With the MacBook Neo, Apple has mad strides towards making it more repairable, so who knows. Maybe a future Mac Studio will have at least some user replaceable components, or at least they might make them easier to access.

But what about the high-end? Well, for now, the Mac Studio it is. Currently, the highest spec configuration is an M3 Ultra, or an M4 max, although I suspect that will change soon. We should see the M5 Max and hopefully M5 Ultra this year. But beyond that, there was an interesting rumour that Mark Gurman reported for Bloomberg. In response to the MacBook Neo, the rumour is that Apple is planning to expand both ends of the Mac market. In addition to the low-end, they are also planning new computers at the high-end, above what they currently offer. So, while the Mac Pro may now be dead, and Apple have made clear that they are not directly replacing it, perhaps there is something else in the offing. Maybe there is something entirely different coming at the high-end. That could be just another higher spec Mac Studio, or it could be something different altogether. Or it could, of course, be nothing.

Either way, it’s kind of a bittersweet day. It’s sad to see the Mac Pro go. It’s long been a faithful companion for many years, or even decades if you include its predecessor. But the future is still bright in its studio shaped form factor.

So farewell old friend. It’s a cliché, but it really is the end of an era.

In this video, I take a first look at the new Film Negative conversion tools and I walk you through the process of converting negatives and show you a little trick for getting better colour. This isn’t a tutorial, but more of a demonstration. Capture One actually has a pretty good tutorial on their website if you want to check it out.

I talk a good bit about negative lab pro in this video. To be honest, I think that is still better than these features. The main reason for this is that Negative Lab Pro includes proper colour profiles for various film types, whereas this feature in Capture One relies on doing an Auto Levels to solve the negative backing problem. However, one advantage is Capture One’s Match Look tool, which allows you to match the colour of another image. If you got low resolution scans from the Lab when you got your film processed, you can use these as a colour reference with the match look tool, making colour matching a lot easier.

The really interesting thing here is that this is yet another sign of a growing resurgence in film. DXO recently added film conversion tools to DXO Film Pack too. We also just got the news of Eastman Kodak bringing out two new films, which are essentially Portra, but it’s interesting as they are bringing it back in-house to Eastman Kodak. (The previous Portra films were distributed by Kodak Alaris - essentially a venture capital firm which had Kodak’s rights) Unfortunately film and processing is still prohibitively expensive, so I won’t be showing that much any time soon, but it’s good to see things going in the right direction.

I got the 24-105 F/4 L just before Christmas in a Sale on Amazon. While I used it a few times initially, I never got to do proper testing until recently. This was mainly because I was working super hard before Christmas, and then after Christmas, it pretty much rained here solid for two whole months. I’m not exaggerating, it really did rain almost non-stop for that long. When I did do some proper tests, I was a little frustrated at first, but figured I was doing something wrong. While there was really nice bokeh at the telephoto end, with the f/4 aperture delivering the goods, on some scenes I struggled to nail focus. This was on subjects that I would have no issues with on my STM version of the lens.

Then I noticed that while some images were nice and sharp, others were quite soft. Again, I thought I was doing something wrong, or that I was going mad, one or the other. I even did some comparisons with my F/4-F/7.1 version of the 24-105 just to see if I was imagining things. That's when it started to get a bit weird.

At 24 mm, if you shoot wide open at F/4 the lens is pretty sharp. It looks like what you would expect from a relatively expensive L series lens, and matches or exceeds the STM lens. Nothing to fault it at f/4. However, as soon as you start to stop down, it gets soft at the edges of the frame. I and not just the extreme corners, but about 10% all around. By f/8 this is quite noticeable. This is such an odd issue, as lenses normally do the opposite. They normally improve at the edges when you stop down. I’ve actually never heard of this before. I’ve never seen a lens get softer as you stop down.

Another issue, that I’m less convinced isn’t something I’m doing, is that it’s difficult to focus on certain subjects, at certain distances. For example, small flowers. The camera will tell you it’s in focus, but it will be slightly off. On a DSLR, you would say that this could be a calibration issue, but that shouldn’t really affect a mirrorless camera. Yet, the exact same subjects in the exact same lighting conditions, with the 34-105 F4-7.1 STM lens will have no trouble with these. Well, a little trouble, but that's normal. Now, this could just be user error, as there are a bajillion settings on the R6II. But it only really happens at 105 mm, and only at certain focus distances, which again makes me think it might be an issue with the lens. But it could be me. (Cue angry commenters telling me it is, in fact, me)

So I went and searched reviews of this lens and no one reported a similar finding. The 24 mm thing is so stark, I can’t believe that someone would have missed it in a normal review, so I guess it’s just my copy. After doing some more research, and downloading some online sample files, it really does seem like I have a bad copy. I always thought that the whole sample variation thing was just an internet myth. I can’t really understand how, with such expensive gear, you pretty much roll the dice whether or not you get a good one. This just doesn’t seem like a sustainable business model for companies. To be fair, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten a “bad” lens and of all the lenses I've had over the years, most have performed as expected. I also don’t think this is a “bad sample” either, I think it’s actually defective. It’s annoying because apart from this, it’s a pretty great lens. But it’s clearly not right.

I contacted Canon customer support about it, and they told me that it doesn’t sound right, and I need to send it in for service. So I will be doing that shortly, and I will report back with their findings once that happens.

The thing is, I’d be really happy if this is something stupid I was doing, because I really don’t want to have to send this lens off. There’s a whole rigmarole trying to find the right box and what not. If anyone can think of anything at all that I might be doing wrong, please let me know. The only thing that I can think of is that it could be the stabiliser. I’m going to do some more tests soon before I send it off, with some more controlled experiments, to rule out a few more things.

If you’re wondering why I’m writing this at all, it’s because it’s such a specific problem that I wanted to share it in case anyone else out there had the same issue. So I guess for now it’s back to the STM version.

To be fair, the kit lens, while slower at the telephoto end, is actually a pretty good lens. For the most part, it’s razor sharp and produces wonderfully crisp images. The only two issues with it are that it’s quite slow on the telephoto end, at 7.1, and it’s not weather sealed. The bokeh isn’t quite as nice as the F/4L version, either. Anyway, if you’ve come across this issue before, or have had similar problems, please leave a comment below, not only to help me, but for any other readers which may have similar issues and have come across this page.

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DeepPRIME XD3 for all sensors

Previously exclusive to X-Trans cameras, DeepPRIME XD3 is now also available on Bayer sensor cameras. According to the press release:

An evolution of DxO’s renowned DeepPRIME technology, DeepPRIME XD3 is designed specifically for the most demanding files captured under challenging conditions. It produces cleaner, sharper images than ever before, extracting phenomenal detail while maintaining natural textures and accurate colour reproduction. From high-ISO night scenes to finely detailed landscapes, DeepPRIME XD3 establishes a new benchmark for what’s possible in RAW conversion.

I talked about this more in my first look review of PureRAW 6 if you missed it.

AI Masks gain diffusion for smoother, more natural selections

They have now added the option to diffuse AI generated masks. This basically allows you to soften mask edges and feather selections. This is something I have been wanting for a long time in any software that generates masks with AI. It’s good to see someone finally implement this.

High-Fidelity Compression: RAW-quality DNGs up to four times smaller

This was also introduced with PureRAW 6, and now you can make compressed DNGs with PhotoLab. This is a huge space saver, as previously DNGs would be quite large, often significantly bigger than the comparable RAW files. I looked at this when I was reviewing PureRAW 6 and here’s what I found:

For example, On a 24mp file from my old Sony A6000 (which does compress the RAW file slightly too) - the RAW file is 25mb. An uncompressed DNG file from PureRAW is 109 mb while one using the new high-fidelity compression option is only 17mb.

The same space savings should apply when using DXO Photo Lab 9.6

Price and availability

DxO PhotoLab 9.6 is available today from the DxO website for macOS and Windows machines. New license $239.99 / 239.99 € / £219.99 Upgrade from DxO PhotoLab 7 or 8 $119.99 / 119.99 € / £109.99

A 30-day trial is available from the DXO website.

Version 9.6 is available as a free update to owners of DxO PhotoLab 9. You can use my code: ThomasFitzgerald15 to get 15% off (new customers only, I’m afraid)

Note that this post contains a paid affiliate code. We get a small commission for purchases made using this code, which helps run this site.

I had seen people demonstrating this on various social media networks, and thought “there’s no way that’s real”, but it is! If you don’t have the beta version of Photoshop, as long as you’re a subscriber to the photography plan, or the all apps plan, you should be able to download it. Just go to the Apps tab, and then there’s a “beta” section and you can find it there.

To get to the rotate tool, just click on the transform control on the contextual bar thingey (the technical name for it!) and then you should see the rotate object tool. Note that you have to be in 8bit mode for this to work.

I am genuinely impressed with this. It’s not perfect, but considering what it’s doing, it’s kind of magic. I can only assume it will get better in the future. I’m not a massive fan of generative AI when just used for slop or creating whole images, but as a tool like this it’s pretty impressive and actually could be of use to save time when working.

“Even though it was long rumoured, Apple still took the world by surprise last week when it announced the MacBook Neo. Apple’s new entry-level MacBook shatters the price floor for an Apple laptop, marking a previously unheard-of entry point for a new Apple computer. The resounding reaction has been mostly surprise at the price and enthusiasm for what this could do for the Mac market. I would say it’s the most important Apple product since the move to Apple Silicon. In fact, it could be one of the most impactful Apple Products since the iPod.”

This story is normally for Medium members only, but you can bypass the paywall with this link.

Permalink

]]>Thoughts on the MacBook Neo - Why I think it will be a game changer for AppleDxOSoftwareThomas FitzgeraldThu, 05 Mar 2026 09:15:44 +0000https://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2026/3/dxo-launches-pure-raw-6-with-a-long-sought-after-feature-a-first-look-at-the-new-release53c631e4e4b0c4d68989cbef:540c893ee4b04215b3085eaf:69a94808c2b1d35a013bd4feDXO have launched the latest upgrade to their RAW pre-processing software, DXO Pure RAW 6. If you’re unfamiliar with the application, it basically lets you convert Raw files to DNG using DXO’s technology, including the companies excellent noise reduction software, Deep Prime. It does so in a way that maintains edit-ability and so you can use it to work with software such as Lightroom or Capture One, but bypass their raw conversion engine to use DXO’s instead. The latest version adds a new version of DeepPrime for Beyer sensors, adds a feature people have been wanting since version one, and another new tool that was quite unexpected but works surprisingly well. Read on for the details…

DeepPrime XD 3

The last version of PureRAW introduced DeepPrime 3 which was a step up from version 2 in that it was more natural looking with fewer artefacts. However, it came at the expense of the extra detail of XD2. Interestingly, the X-Trans support that they added in Pure Raw 5 did have the XD version, and could be noticeably more detailed. Well, in Pure RAW 6, they have unified the engine, so now you have DeepPrime 3 XD (extra detail) across all sensor options.

I did a few quick tests on this and you can see the difference. There is definitely more detail in XD3 compared to just ordinary DeepPrime 3. The results are quite impressive, it has to be said. I tried it across a number of files, and it creates a very clean and detailed image, and it doesn’t look too unnatural like earlier versions of DeepPrime (particularly version 1.)

The one thing in particular that I noticed is that you can get away with using a higher sharpening value than you could previously without the results looking too unnatural. This will depend on the image of course, and this is just a casual observation, as I haven’t done any scientific testing. I find that I would have to leave it on “soft” most of the time on XD2 to get natural-looking results, but with XD3 I can go to “strong” and it doesn’t look as overcooked. You can try this yourself and see how you get on, as everyone’s tolerances and expectations as to what looks right is different and subjective.

I tried this on a ridiculous example. I shot a few images at a famous old shopping centre in Dublin on my old Sony A6000 at ISO 10,000 and 25,600. Now, normally I wouldn’t use this camera above ISO800 and definitely not above 1600.

The results out of camera are clearly unusable. It’s not just noise, but there’s lots of colour smearing and a loss of detail. Deep Prime does a remarkable job of recovering the image. To be fair, so does Adobe’s Denoise, but with PureRAW you also get DXO’s module based sharpening too.

Here’s another example, also shot at ISO 25,600 and again, PureRAW makes a useable image out of it.

To be fair, these are extreme examples, and there’s only so much you can do.

DNG Compression

The biggest complaint about PureRAW is that the file sizes are often much larger than the original RAW files. This is due to the nature of the way RAW images are stored compared to demosiaced DNG files, but the end result was always a bigger file. This wasn’t just a Pure RAW issue, but with anything that converts RAW files to DNG like this, including Adobe’s own Denoise and Super Resolution, until they changed the way that works. Well, in this version they have introduced “high-fidelity compression” which shrinks the file sizes quite a bit, at least down to the size of the original RAW files.

I think a lot of users will be delighted about this. The number of times people have contacted me to complain about his, not just in PureRAW but also in the old “Enhance” dialog box in Lightroom, is quite something. I even had to write an explanation about it at one time to explain why this happens, as many people weirdly assumed it was due to some kind of weird conspiracy or just pure incompetence. (It’s actually because a RAW file only stores the value of light hitting the sensor sites, whereas linear DNG files store pixel values for each colour channel, so it's effectively three times the information (that's the short short version)

For example, On a 24mp file from my old Sony A6000 (which does compress the RAW file slightly too) - the RAW file is 25mb. An uncompressed DNG file from PureRAW is 109 mb while one using the new high-fidelity compression option is only 17mb.

Sensor Dust Removal

The feature I wasn’t expecting was automatic sensor dust removal. I was quite surprised when they announced it at the press briefing. I also wasn’t expecting too much, but based on my brief testing with the pre-release version, this actually seems to work quite well, at least on the image I tried.

I went through my library and found an image from my old Canon 5D Mark I that I knew had dirt on the sensor and opened it in PureRAW 6 to see what would happen, and to my surprise it caught all but one of the dust spots on the sensor. The only one it missed was the one that was over the crane. It seems it might have issues with sports where there is other detail obscuring it, which, in fairness, is difficult to correct for. I didn’t do extensive testing on this with lots of images, but it seems to work, at least on obvious spots on the sky.

Batch Processing Improvements

They have also added some batch processing improvements. The software will no process images in parallel, so this should speed up the processing of large batches.

Conclusion

Overall, I think this is a solid update to PureRAW. The compression alone is worth it if you’re a user of previous versions, although, as always, you should try before you buy. If you’re not a user, but you’re curious, then download the trial version and give it a go. It really depends on your images, your camera, and your lens as to whether you will get a significant advantage over Adobe’s own Denoise. However, PureRAW does offer DXO’s lens calibrated sharpening, which compensates for the differences in optics across the frame. It does also create standalone DNG files, which some people are still annoyed at adobe for taking away in the latest versions of Lightroom. It is maturing into quite a solid product now, and it’s probably the DXO software that I use the most personally. Now if they would just add high quality up-ressing ……

The software is available now from the DXO store. Pricing is as follows:

New license: $139.99 / 129.99 € / £119.99 Upgrades: $89.99 / 79.99 € / £74.99

A 14-day trial version is also available from the website. You can use my code: ThomasFitzgerald15 to get 15% off (new customers only, I’m afraid)

Note that this post contains paid affiliate links. We get a small commission for purchases made through these links, which helps run this site.

The funny thing about this video is that it literally took me a week to make. I had originally planned to post this on Wednesday, but couldn’t get it ready in time. It’s possibly the most ridiculously convoluted session I’ve had ever making a video. It’s not that there is anything overly complicated in it, but for some reason, nothing would go right when I was making it. I started off as I always do, with a practice run, making notes of the important things to talk about. That was fine, but then when I went to record it, it was a disaster, and I kept forgetting what to say, and it was just an overall mess. So much so, that I just said, to hell with this and deleted it.

Attempt two went perfectly. Or so I thought. Somehow my microphone settings got changed, and the gain was far too high, so everything was garbled. At this point, I was beginning to think the whole project was cursed. Finally, the third time, I managed to get through it all without something going terribly wrong, although I did have to reshoot the intro, as I had been reading off a script and it looked ridiculous.

For the edit itself, I started off in Lightroom, and did the basic edits there. Then I moved over to Photoshop and did the rest of the editing there. I also used Luminar Neo as a plug-in to use the cool “Light Depth” feature. I also did a very subtle grade in DXO Film Pack to use my favourite film: Kodak Elite Chrome. I also added some snow to beef up the wintery feel to the image. This was something that came about between takes two and three! I used a snow image from iStock photo for the snow, although technically, it is a water droplet image.

The action I used in Photoshop to create a vignette is pretty simple. You draw a marquee, and then run the action. All it does is create a curves adjustment layer with the middle point dragged down to reduce the brightness, and then blurs the mask. You can download it using the button below.

While this is a pretty long tutorial, I did my best to explain as much as possible as I went along, so I think there’s lots you can learn from this. Or at least, I hope you learn something from it. Please let me know if you ant to see more videos like this.

Help Support the Blog

Check out my eBooks and Presets

Check out my photography eBooks , Capture One Styles, and Lightroom Presets available on GumRoad.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Check out my YouTube channel for tutorials, Vlogs, and more!

Buy me a coffee!

If you want to say thanks or help, then you can feed my caffeine habit and buy me a coffee via PayPal with a one off donation to my PayPal tip jar. (Please note that PayPal doesn’t make it easy to respond to these so just know you are thanked in advance)

Note that this post contains paid affiliate links. We get a small commission for purchases made through these links, which helps run this site.

In the video, I take a look at the new features, specifically the Assisted Culling (which still has some issues) and the Firefly AI features, which also have some issues. In the new version of Lightroom Classic, you can now send your image directly to Adobe Firefly. It gives you two options: Edit Image and Create Video.

I tried creating some video from some of my photos and the results were mixed. None were what I would consider professional quality, and they all had issues following instructions, often directly contradicting what you asked it to do. To be honest, I can’t see this feature as being useful for anything more than generating slop (and for selling firefly credits).

This video was a bit messy, so I have to apologise. It was originally supposed to go out on Wednesday but the release was delayed. Then I found a few mistakes and had to re-edit some of it, and re-record a few bits, so it's a little all over the place, but I think it gets across the gist of the updates.

The edit function is similarly hit-and-miss. In the first example I did in this video, I asked it to turn the image into a sunset, and it totally changed the picture, with a different camera angle and a different view of the ship. I managed to change the prompt to get it to at least keep the ship, but as with many AI tools, the results are just too unreal to be useable. I’m sure the AI bros will just say that I’m prompting it wrong, but I am not convinced that's the real issue here.

I was a bit cynical in this video, to be honest. Well, I was actually way more cynical in the original version, but I cut a lot of it out! I just keep finding a huge disconnect between the promise of generative AI and the results. And if you dare question it, the AI pushers will just claim that the prompt is not specific enough. But I was very specific in my testing, and it often just ignored me. It’s kind of mad really, that this is an actual product that you can pay for (in terms of credits.) I can see it being impressive from a technological point of view, but it still needs lots of improvements in my opinion.

Anyway…. Moving on.

The releases should be available now in the creative cloud app. Just refresh it if you’re not seeing the updates.

In the video I show you a bunch of ways to reset parameters, how to crop without changing the resolution, how to work in layers, and a way to quickly get to the history panel in Lightroom. Finally there’s an extra tip on how to speed up rating in the library module! Enjoy!

So in this video I show you how you can make basic edits in Lightroom by dragging directly on the histogram. It allows you to adjust the basic sliders that are in the Tone panel, except Contrast. There are real advantages to editing his way, and I highlight these in the video. Not only that but once you get used to using this technique, you won’t go back (well, I never ween’t back) and I have found that it dramatically sped up my workflow!

If you liked this video, you can check out my other Lightroom Quick Tips here on YouTube and don’t forget to watch my recent video about the past, present and future of my channel! 

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]]>Apple Creator Studio Review: the Good, the Bad and the Weird.VideoVloggingThomas FitzgeraldTue, 27 Jan 2026 13:00:17 +0000https://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2026/1/an-update-on-my-youtube-channel-and-why-im-not-very-good-at-youtube53c631e4e4b0c4d68989cbef:540c893ee4b04215b3085eaf:6978ae900f65f0715543d65eIt’s been quite a while since I last posted to YouTube and I wanted to update everyone and start anew in 2026. So, in this video I give a quick update as to the channel, look at how bad I am at YouTube (and why) and look at plans for the channel going forward. I also take a Quick Look at my new vlogging camera and share some personal photography news!

I had actually gotten out of the habit of talking to camera and so it took em a while to get back into it. In fact, I decided to just take and record as a practice, but it ended up working well, so I went with it, after a bit of editing.

The thing is, I actually really like making videos, but I kind of got out of the habit of doing it, and I had fallen back to the “screencast” tutorial type of video, which unfortunately, YouTube really doesn’t like. So, I made a new year’s resolution to try and shoot more proper videos. Of course thats not exactly off to a good start as I had planned to do this at the start of January, but it’s nearly February! Anyway, I really am going to try and put in the effort this time, but don’t worry, I’m still going to do the tutorial type videos too.

I’m also very close to 10,000 subscribers on YouTube, so if you haven’t subscribed already, please do and help me get over the small but significant milestone! And also, please leave a comment and let me know what else you would like to see.

Once Nik Collection 8 is installed, Affinity users working in Pixel mode can access the full suite by navigating to Pixels → Filters → Plugins → Nik Collection. From there, each individual plugin can be launched as needed. This provides direct access to tools such as Color Efex, Silver Efex, Sharpener Pro and the rest of the Nik Collection lineup from within Affinity.

From the press release:

This new integration gives photographers and creators a smoother, more flexible editing experience — combining the powerful imaging capabilities of Affinity with DxO’s class-leading creative controls. Whether it’s color grading with Nik Color Efex, black-and-white artistry with Nik Silver Efex, or precision sharpening with Nik Sharpener Pro, Nik Collection is now more convenient than ever.

If you don’t already have the NIK collection, there is a trial version available and new customers can get an additional discount with the code ThomasFitzgerald15. Visit the DXO Store now for more details on the software.

Help Support the Blog

Check out my eBooks and Presets

Check out my photography eBooks , Capture One Styles, and Lightroom Presets available on GumRoad.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Check out my YouTube channel for tutorials, Vlogs, and more!

Buy me a coffee!

If you want to say thanks or help, then you can feed my caffeine habit and buy me a coffee via PayPal with a one off donation to my PayPal tip jar. (Please note that PayPal doesn’t make it easy to respond to these so just know you are thanked in advance)

Note that this post contains paid affiliate links. We get a small commission for purchases made through these links, which helps run this site.

The idea behind RAW details when it first came out (back when it was “Enhance Details”) was that it would use machine learning to remove artifacts in the RAW decoding process. Fujifilm shooters are most familiar with this, as it helped address some of the artifacting issues Fujifilm shooters had with the default raw conversion. But what use was it to users of other cameras?

When I first wrote about this many years ago, I got into an argument with someone in the comments over the efficacy of the feature. They argued that it made no difference whatsoever, despite the fact that I posted several examples showing the difference. Anyway, I believe this is relatively forgotten now, as Denoise is probably the primary reason people use this function now. But RAW details can remove artifacts on its own. It’s especially useful for certain types of moiré and aliasing. While you can sort of fix this by brushing on a layer with the de-moire turned up - all this does is blur the chroma channels. With RAW details, it actually fixes it. Here’s the afore mentioned example:

First, here’s the original image, zoomed to 100%. This was taken with the Canon R6 Mark II. You can clearly see the moiré on the railings.

Now here’s the same thing with RAW details (and only Raw Details) turned on. It totally removes the moiré without doing any kind of chroma blurring.

Finally, here’s the traditional method of removing moiré by using a brush and the de moiré function. While this has removed the moiré, it has also removed the colour surrounding it - because it works bye blurring the chroma channels. You could, of course, be more careful with your brushing, but the RAW details method fixes it in a couple of seconds with one click.

Anyway, I just thought this was interesting, as it was such a clear example of the function in effect. While it’s not something you will need to use every day, it’s worth knowing what it does and how it works. So the next time you come across a problem like this, try RAW details first and see if it fixes it.

Apple has just launched a new subscription bundle of creative applications for a pretty low price of $12.99 a month, or $129 a year. Called “Creator Studio”, the bundle includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and Pixelmator Pro. Weirdly though, it also includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers, which are already free. The value of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro combined would be about $600, so the subscription price is pretty good.

It’s also important to note that Apple is continuing to offer these applications to buy outright through the App Store, and they claim in the small print that they will continue to update them for current owners. The addition of the former iWork applications, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers is a bit odd, though. These are currently available for free, and according to the Apple website, they will continue to be free. The “Creator Studio” versions will include additional “premium” content and apple intelligence features that won’t be in the stand-alone versions.

Also included is Pixelmator Pro, which Apple acquired about a year ago. This is a Photoshop like application, that’s actually been around for quite a while, but it looks like Apple’s updated it, and there’s an iPad version now too. This appears to be new, and not the same as the version of Pixelmator that was previously available for the iPad (Pixelmator classic - please correct me if I’m wrong on this). Pixelmator Pro previously available (and still is) as a stand-alone purchase of $49 so again, good value when you include everything else in this bundle.

Oddly missing from the bundle is Pixelmator’s companion, Photomator, which is still available as a stand-alone application on the App Store. This hasn’t been updated in over a year since the acquisition, so it’s unclear if Apple intends to just let this die, or if they are working on a new version to be included later.

Overall, I think this is an interesting development from Apple and harks back to the days of Final Cut Studio. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out in the long term, though. Apple will need to keep updating its applications and content for people to keep subscribing to this; otherwise people will get upset. This is unfortunately not one of Apple’s strong points. Remember when they were offering music lessons through Garage Band and promised to keep offering new ones, only for that to peter out and die? On the flip side, if they’re getting constant revenue for this, there is more of an impetus for them to keep updating. Time will tell, I guess.

As for me, I already own many of the applications here, although I was considering purchasing Logic Pro at some point, so I might just go down this route instead. The fact that you get the iPad versions too is pretty good value as well, so it’s something I will definitely consider. It’s good to see Apple actively pursuing the creative market again.

Now just bring back shake and Aperture. Please!!!

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]]>Happy New Year (Plus a week!) & Bonus Sunrise Photos!TravelPhotobloggingPhoto JournalNatureThomas FitzgeraldTue, 30 Dec 2025 12:23:32 +0000https://www.thomasfitzgerald.photography/photoblog/2025/12/a-look-back-over-the-past-year-of-photography-202553c631e4e4b0c4d68989cbef:540c893ee4b04215b3085eaf:6953c3bbbbab6967418f8d4bIt’s that time of the year between Christmas and New Year when the world seems to slow down, and you never know what day of the week it is. I’ve been going back over old photos in my library and pondering the past year. I actually got out to take photos quite a bit this year, but I have been really bad at sharing the projects that I was shooting. These include photographing a local stately garden throughout the seasons, visiting a national park at sunrise and sunset and a trip to Scotland to see lough ness. So, as they’ll never see the internet light of day otherwise, here’s a quick overview and some images I took over the past year.

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]]>A look back over the past year of photography