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Version 5 held nothing for me, but the new features of version 6 got my attention. It has a lot of Lightroom like features and the processing looks really good. Additionally, there is support for my camera and two of the main lenses I use, the Sigma 18-200 and 70-200. No support for the Sigma 150-500 or the 100mm lens, but either they don’t need it or that will be forthcoming. It’s disappointing they’re not listed, but I supposed I can live with that.

I’ve only tried a few images but so far I like the way the new version works. The UI is improved and allows you to walk through it easier or jump to wherever you want to be. I was able to bring out some really good colors and get a much better image without really making any manual adjustments. The auto-detection worked very well. However, there are a lot of the same sliders you see from Lightroom to adjust the colors, saturations, noise level and you can even use some of the “Film Pack” technology DxO has been working on.

The upgrade was at an outrageously low price too. Normally the upgrade is $79, which for version 5 was just too much considering the late of true upgrades. However, version 6 comes in at $44 (40% off) which is really hard to say no to. I think this is a much more worthwhile upgrade that the 5.x series.

Even though my machine is older DxO still seems pretty responsive. It takes a couple of seconds to process the image, but that’s no different than the previous version. But when moving sliders, there’s only a slight pause for the changes to appear. So far it’s looking pretty good.

So far the only thing I miss is the Exposure and Curves panel like you see in Lightroom. I’m not sure it’s really missing since this is the main function of DxO anyway. With a little practice I’m sure I can get the same results by using the sliders available to me.

Other Articles of Interest:

• More on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
• I have to say, I love Adobe Lightroom!
• Picture Recovery with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
• DxO Optics Pro jumps to version 4.5
• Image Editing on the Cheap
• Adobe Lightroom 1.3.1 update
• DxO 5.0 Upgrade – No Thanks
• 10 Best Things About Adobe Lightroom 2.0
• Lightroom vs Aperture
• Adobe Lightroom 1.1 on the horizon.