Page 9 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 2 #3

FALCON 9

Some other changes are less obvious. For ex-
ample, Vibrancy and Saturation are now part
of the Color Accentuation palette. So, if you are
upgrading from version 7 or an earlier release,
we strongly recommend that you take time to
reorient yourself.

Changes

The most significant change builds upon one of
the features added in version 6: HDR. Version
8 enhances DxO’s implementation of HDR in
several ways. First, a new tool palette has been
added: Selective Tone. (See Figure 1 on page
15.) This tool has four sliders. They are High-
lights, Midtones, Shadows, and Blacks. Moving
a slider to the left darkens the corresponding
area of an image, while moving a slider to the
right lightens it. We found using the tool
to control exposure across an image to be
quite effective.
The traditional lighting tools (see Figure 2
on page 15) that have been with Optics Pro—at
least from version 4 on—are still present, but,
it is clear that going forward DxO intends to
move away from these controls to a new tech-
nology. Called Smart Lighting, this tool con-
sists of a drop box (select one of three intensi-
ties or custom) and a slider. The slider can be
used to modify the automatic settings. While
we can’t discuss the mathematics behind this
control, this tool produces lighting effects that
exceed anything we could achieve with version
7 and earlier releases.
Version 7 controls remain—at least for this
release—but if you are accustomed to adjusting
white and black points, you won’t find them—
not explicitly any way—if you use version 8’s
Smart Lighting. Contrast controls remain, but
they seem to have a different effect when Smart
Lighting is used. Gamma is still available, but NEW PROCESSING OPTIONS
if you use Smart Lighting your only access to Version 8 features a number of new output
options while retaining many of the advanced
Gamma will be under the tone curve. (I have options from previous versions.

nyghtvision magazine volume 2, number 3, Fall 2012