Experimental Trial of DxO settings
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1. Factory default
2. Bob Johnson's default- slight exposure compensation, 75% vignetting vs 100% default and -0.25 sharpening vs default 0.0
3. Slight- Bob Johnson's settings but with slight rather than the factory default medium DxO lighting
4. Toned Down Settings- Bob Johnson's settings but with 50% medium lighting vs auto (auto initially opens at 70%), luminance noise 60% vs auto (initially opens at 70%), fine detail preservation 50% vs auto (initially opens at 0%).
I was really not able to evaluate sharpening and noise but otherwise my wife and I reviewed the 4 sets of pictures and rated the situations when there seemed to be obviously better and/or obviously worse results. In many cases the differences were small. Interestingly the toned down setting on occasion produced color/temperature changes (? because of having a fixed rather than an auto adjustment?) which did not occur with any of the other settings. Sometimes this was an improvement of an inappropriate white balance. At other time the picture became too blue. Never did the picture become redder/warmer with the Toned Down settings.
Overall, 2/3 of the time when there was a clear preference we preferred Bob Johnson's settings. One quarter of the time the toned down setting was preferred and 10% of the time the factory default was preferred. In most cases the factory default and Bob's default were quite close in appearance.
On the other hand, when one setting was clearly worse than the others, 60% of the time it was the Slight setting and 1/3 of the time it was the Toned Down setting.
For me then for now the factory default with slight exposure compensation will be how I batch process my raw files. Then I will open in Adobe Camera Raw and hopefully minimally process the majority (based on the above experience about 80%--Bob Johnson settings and the very close factory default setings results--should be in good shape) to be printed with automatic actions in most cases.
I'd be interested in other's experiences, observations.
Thanks,
Eliot