DxO PureRAW 6 is the latest version of DxO’s unique ‘pre-processing’ software, which takes camera raw files and converts them into DNGs using the firm’s proprietary demosaicing, denoising and lens correction algorithms. These DNG files can then be further processed using any imaging software, just like normal camera raw files. The program is aimed at photographers who use imaging software from other brands, most obviously Adobe, and who’d like to make use of DxO’s raw processing expertise without having to radically change their existing workflows.

　　Buy Now DxO PureRAW 6 at a glance: $139.99 / £119.99 $89.99 / £74.99 upgrade from v4 or later Converts raw files to linear DNGs with lens corrections and AI noise reduction Integrates with Adobe software For Windows and Mac 14-day free trial dxo.com DxO describes PureRAW as covering the ‘objective’ part of raw conversion. This means that it’s aiming to reproduce the scene that was in front of the camera as accurately as possible, by suppressing noise and correcting optical aberrations. The idea is that this should provide the best possible start-point for the photographer’s further artistic interpretation of their images.

　　So what are the benefits of doing this? In my reviews of previous versions (DxO PureRAW, DxO PureRAW 2, DxO PureRAW 3), I’ve shown that DxOs excellent denoising algorithms can give much better results than Adobe’s own software with files that were shot at high ISOs, with smaller sensors, or simply old camera models. Meanwhile its proprietary optical corrections get the most out of images that were shoot using relatively inexpensive or imperfect lenses.

　　On the other hand, with raw files that are already technically excellent – shot using a modern sensor at low ISO, with top notch lenses and perfectly controlled lighting – PureRAW offers less advantage.

　　One significant change since I last reviewed PureRAW, though, is that Adobe users now have access to very competent AI noise reduction of their own, via Denoise. That narrows the gap significantly in terms of output quality. So does PureRAW 6 still offer any significant advantages, and is it worth your hard-earned cash?

　　Pricing PureRAW is available for Windows and Mac computers, with a one-off cost of $139.99 / £119.99, or $89.99 / £74.99 to upgrade from Version 4 or 5. You also get a year of free updates, including support for new cameras and lenses. There’s no subscription option, so if you want another version in future, you have to pay for the update.

　　Features When it first appeared, PureRAW was a pretty simple piece of software. You’d load up a set of raw files, and it would identify and download DxO’s optical correction profiles for the camera/lens combinations they were shot with. Then, you’d batch-convert the raw files to DNGs using one of three noise reduction algorithms, with the choice trading off processing time against effectiveness. And that was pretty much it.

　　DxO PureRAW 6 can still work in essentially the same way, but now it has a lot more features up its sleeve. There’s a choice between two AI noise reduction algorithms, DeepPRIME 3 and DeepPRIME XD3, with the latter teasing out visibly more detail, particularly at high ISOs, but taking rather longer to process. You also get luminance and detail sliders to further tune the strength of the noise reduction.

　　It’s even possible to process different areas of the same image with different NR algorithms, using masking. The idea here is that if you only need to use the slower XD3 process over a small part of the image, you can speed things up by using standard DeepPRIME across the rest of it. In principle, that could be especially valuable when shooting such things as distant wildlife.

　　There’s a lot more control over lens corrections, and you can enable or disable vignetting, chromatic aberration, and distortion compensation individually. So, for example, you’re not forced to give up the attractive framing effect that light fall-off can provide with fast prime lenses. There’s a choice of how to crop the image after distortion correction, too, either retaining the original aspect ratio, or gaining a slightly wider view.

　　You can also adjust the strength of the Lens Sharpness Optimisation. This applies progressive sharpening across the frame, to improve the apparent cross-frame sharpness from lenses that give soft detail in the corners, but without over-sharpening the centre. Id apply a much stronger effect for landscapes than for portraits, for example.

　　One significant new feature that could potentially save a lot of time is Dust Removal, which automatically detects and removes sensor dust spots. Adobe Camera Raw has a similar option, but you have to enable it individually for each image. In PureRAW, in principle a single click will fix all your photos.

　　You can save combinations of processing settings as presets, and give them names for easy recall. That might be helpful for specific kinds of subjects – for example for portraits, you might prefer not to use lens sharpness optimisation or vignetting correction. Or you might choose to use DeepPRIME XD processing only for high-ISO files.

　　As well as exporting your raw files as linear DNGs, you can also tell the software to output JPEG and TIFF files, with DxO’s Smart Lighting to balance out tonality and a choice of colour profiles. This isnt something Id personally do, but you might find it handy for outputting rough proof JPEGs.

　　Usefully, the software will automatically assign filenames to the DNGs it produces that identify which NR algorithm was used. Alternatively, you can set up your own specific naming scheme. If you want to reprocess the same file with different settings, the software gives you a choice of either over-writing your previous DNG, or saving a new one with a unique filename.

　　Because converting a folder full of raw files to linear DNGs can take up a whole lot of valuable disk space, DxO has added an option to record compressed DNGs instead. This ‘high fidelity compression’ promises to deliver files that are up to four times smaller than uncompressed DNGs, with essentially no impact on either quality or processing time.

　　In my tests, the compressed DNGs turned out dramatically smaller; for example with a set of 60MP files from the Sony A7R V, uncompressed files ranged from 180-240 MB, but the compressed versions took up just 20-63 MB. Personally, I’d use compressed DNGs all the time.

　　Once your files have been converted, PureRAW gives the option to open them directly in your preferred software. You can choose between Adobe Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop (where they’ll open in Adobe Camera Raw), or set another program of your own choice. For Lightroom users, it’s also possible to invoke PureRAW processing directly from within the program itself. For Photoshop users, theres also the option to open processed files directly as Smart Objects, meaning you can go back and change the processing later.

　　Using DxOPureRAW When you first open PureRAW, you’ll see a blank ‘Lightbox’ window. The initial step is to populate this with raw files, either by drag-and-drop, or using the ‘Add photos to Lightbox’ options. You can then sort files by name, ISO or date, and filter them by such things as star-rating, ISO and aperture.

　　I find this particularly useful when combined with presets. For example, you could choose to process images up to a certain ISO using DeepPRIME, and the rest with XD3. And if you star-rate your favourite images in-camera, you can easily look at and process those first. Annoyingly, though, you can’t assign star-ratings in the Lightbox itself; instead, it only reads those that have already been set, either in-camera or with other software.

　　Select a number of files, configure their processing settings and click the blue ‘Process’ button, and PureRAW will queue them up and process them in the background. You can then keep on adding more files to the queue however you like, and let the computer get on with it. If you come across a shot you really like, clicking ‘Process Now’ will push it to the front of the queue.

　　If you’re not sure of which settings to use, you can click the ‘Process with Preview’ button. Then you can see the effect of your selected settings in a preview window, that shows the processed image alongside the minimally processed raw in a split view. You can zoom right in well beyond 100% view to see what effect each setting has on the pixel-level image quality, and then select your final processing options accordingly.

　　Here you can also use masking to apply different noise reduction and lens sharpness optimisation to different areas of the photo. This makes most sense if you have a well-defined subject against a background that doesn’t need ultra-fine processing.

　　The only masking option is a relatively simple brush – unlike Photoshop, there’s no AI subject detection here. But it turns out this doesn’t really matter, as you only need to select the areas where you require more detail, which doesn’t need to be particularly precise.

　　Personally, I had real problems with the masking function, with the processing often failing and requiring me to restart PureRAW before it would work again. But that could well be down to the age of my computer. If it’s a feature you think you might use, I’d urge testing before you buy. I can live without it working, given the program’s other benefits.

　　Processing speed and output quality I’ve tested DxO PureRAW 6 by processing raw files from a range of cameras with different sensor sizes and resolutions. It’s clear to me that DxO’s raw processing still has a clear edge over Adobe’s, especially at medium to high ISOs.

　　DeepPrime 3 gives visibly cleaner, more detailed results than Denoise, and XD3 does even better still. All are dramatically better than using Adobe’s default processing (with conventional noise reduction). You may need to zoom right in to see the differences clearly, but there’s no doubt they’re real. You can see this by comparing the crops below XD3 undoubtedly gives the cleanest detail that looks like it was shot at a much lower ISO.

　　To my eye, DxO’s processing is also often superior to Adobe’s with Fujifilm’s X-system cameras, which use proprietary X-Trans colour filter arrays over their sensors. To be fair, Adobe is a lot better at dealing with these files than it used to be, but DxO’s more sophisticated sharpening does a better job of rendering fine monochromatic detail.

　　As a Fujifilm user myself, I can see a significant benefit to the idea of batch-converting my raw files using PureRAW before pulling them into Adobe Bridge for further work. Then I’d mark selected files for reprocessing using DeepPRIME XD3.

　　Likewise, DxOs Lens Sharpness Correction does a great job with lenses that arent perfectly sharp across the frame from corner to corner. It cant create detail that doesnt already exist, of course, but it can bring out an impression of sharper detail towards the corners and edges.

　　In this example, looking at crops towards the right edge of the frame, you can see Lens Sharpness Optimisation doing its thing. Its worked well here with the Fujifilm XF 16-80mm F4 R OIS WR, which I love for the convenience of its zoom range, but which is a bit weak at wideangle towards the corners and edges, in terms of pixel-level sharpness.

　　It’s not just the quality where I’ve found DxO PureRAW 6 shines, either, but also the speed. On my Windows 11 laptop, for example, the same 20MP image from the OM System OM-3 took about 20 seconds to process using DeepPRIME 3 and 1 minute using DeepPRIME XD3 on my Windows 11 laptop. In comparison, Adobe Denoise required over 5 minutes.

　　It’s important to note here, though, that such performance differences will vary dramatically for each user, depending on the camera and computer they use. Modern Macs, for example, are dramatically quicker at running Denoise thanks to their super-fast GPUs. So if you own one of them, the time saving from using PureRAW probably won’t be so significant.

　　DxO PureRAW 6: Our Verdict If you already pay a subscription for Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, it may well be difficult to see a value proposition for DxO PureRAW 6. Nobody can pretend that Adobe software is anything other than highly sophisticated, and capable of delivering extremely good output quality. However, if you want to step up from extremely good to state-of-the-art, there’s a real case for giving PureRAW a serious look.

　　The benefits you’ll get, however, do depend a lot upon the technical quality of your raw files, and therefore upon the kit you own and how you shoot. If you use a modern camera and super-sharp lenses, and you mostly shoot at low ISOs, then there won’t be much scope for improvement. In this case, it’s probably not worth buying PureRAW.

　　However, if you use older kit, or more affordable lenses, or with cameras that have smaller sensors, and you shoot a lot in situations where image noise becomes visible, then chances are it’ll give you noticeably better results. Youll get cleaner, sharper images at high ISO, or indeed when making large shadow adjustments at lower ISOs. In effect, it’s like upgrading your camera and all your lenses all at once, and put like that, the asking price looks like a bargain. I’d recommend using the 14-day free trial to run your own files through PureRAW on your own computer, so you can judge its advantages for yourself.

　　Related reading:

　　DxO PureRAW 3 review: get more from raw DxO PureRAW 2 review DxO PureRAW review Do you want to win some great prizes for your photography? Enter your photos in our International Amateur Photographer of the Year competition. Free entry for photographers aged 13-21.

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