The older algorithm has also been tweaked it preserves more detail but lets through more grain. It’s a sensible compromise, considering the complexity of Prime. The older algorithm is used by default, and it’s still used for previews when Prime is selected, save for a 150 x 150 preview window in the side panel. A 36-megapixel raw file from a Nikon D800 took more than ten minutes to process on our Core i7-870 PC, which means full-screen previews aren’t possible. However, the Prime algorithm is extremely processor-intensive. So, despite some welcome improvements, there’s still no outright winner here. For very noisy images, Lightroom took a clear lead.

It also produced colour banding rather than graduated tones on a couple of occasions. However, it wasn’t so good for out-of-focus areas, with blotches compared to Lightroom’s fine grain. It did a better job of maintaining subtle variations in hue, too.

Is it better than Lightroom’s noise reduction? Prime produced smoother expanses of block colour, and was marginally better at maintaining sharp details. A new noise-reduction algorithm called Prime, which analyses each pixel with reference to more than a thousand neighbouring pixels to differentiate unwanted noise from desirable details, is a significant improvement on the already-decent noise-reduction algorithm. It’s handy if you have lots of photos but little time.ĭxO has stuck to its guns with version 9, improving rather than adding tools. However, for photo optimisation, its automatic processing gives it a head start over Lightroom’s vanilla default settings. Optics Pro can’t compete on breadth of features, with a bare minimum of library-management and export facilities.

Dxo prime