DxO Photolab 6.3 update brings improved color management and profile handling

The improvements in PhotoLab 6.3 mainly target the Elite edition, with an extension to the soft proofing tools that can no incorporate on-screen simulations of papers and inks, to allow even more accurate color visualization and control over printed output.

This uses the DxO Wide Gamut working space introduced in PhotoLab 6. A working space is designed to encompass all the colors that can be reproduced, so that no color information is lost or overlooked during editing. With soft proofing you can edit images to make sure the colors you need are brought within the color gamut of your chosen output device.

DxO is especially proud of its Wide Gamut working space, claiming that it fully encompasses all the colors available in commercial lab printing, where the sRGB and Adobe RGB color spaces do not.

The ProPhoto working space is larger still, we understand, but DxO says it did not follow that route because the ProPhoto color space describes theoretical colors that don’t necessarily exist in nature. Other enhancements include the ability to now edit JPEG and TIFF files in this Wide Gamut working space, not just RAW files.

DxO has also modified its automatic camera-lens profile downloads to make it quicker to select the lens modules you want and download them all at once – previously you had to download them one by one.

You can now also extend the crop tool to show the entire image, including distorted/corrected edges, which could be useful in conjunction with content aware fill tools to extend the image area.

This does not seem like a major update, except for users producing high-end prints. There are no other changes to the editing or cataloguing tools, for example. This is an interim update not a full version update, though, so existing PhotoLab 6 users will get this free.

If you haven’t tried DxO PhotoLab yet, there is a 30-day free trial. You can also try out the DxO Nik Collection, FilmPack 6, ViewPoint 4 and the very clever DxO PureRAW batch processing, lens correction and noise reduction tool. Click on the DxO Store link below.