With better edge sharpening, a new preview option and more, PureRAW 4 can make your raw files look better than ever
(Image credit: DxO)
If you have an older camera and you can’t afford pro lenses, don’t worry – PureRAW 4 can harness the power of AI to transform your images, delivering the kind of image quality you didn’t know your gear could even achieve.
PureRAW 4 can be used as a batch processing tool, taking a folder full of regular raw files and outputting new DNG versions with DxO’s remarkable DeepPRIME XD2 noise reduction, new and improved in PureRAW 4, and with advanced lens corrections that can compensate for the edge softness visible with almost all camera lenses. Sometimes even the best photo editing software needs a little outside help, and that's s where PureRAW 4 fits in.
It can also be used as an Adobe Lightroom Classic plug-in, so that if you decide one of your images needs the PureRAW treatment, you can simply ‘round-trip’ it to DxO’s processing tool within Lightroom – and any edits you’ve already applied will be added to the new version automatically.
PureRAW 4 brings a new and improved version of DxO’s DeepPRIME XD raw denoising process – ‘XD’ stands for ‘eXtra Detail’. DeepPRIME XD2 is said to offer crisper and cleaner fine detail for “unprecedented” clarity and detail.
It includes improved edge softness correction based around DxO’s own detailed lens testing procedures, which list tens of thousands of camera and lens combinations and measures softness across a range of focal lengths and aperture settings for a specifically tailored approach that simple global sharpening tools don’t provide.
The other key part of the PureRAW 4 proposition – advanced noise reduction – has been given increased control with optional ‘Luminance’ and ‘Force Details’ sliders for balancing noise and detail rendition more precisely.
There are also some workflow upgrades in this version, with a preview window to check adjustments prior to processing, plus automatic memory card ingesting and advanced batch renaming for photographers who want to use PureRAW 4 right at the start of their editing workflow.
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Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com
