DxO PhotoLab 9.10.0 — Mac version

DxO PhotoLab 9.10 doesn't shout about flashy new tools — it's a quiet polish of the deep-lab science DxO built their name on. If you're coming from an older version or a different RAW developer, you're probably wondering the same things everyone else does before they commit drive space to a big photo app. Here are the practical bits.

• Can it rescue noisy old shots? DeepPRIME XD3 works on Bayer and X-Trans sensors, baking demosaicing and noise reduction into one step. Grainy high-ISO files clean up properly.
• Does it know my lens? DxO Modules carry measurements for specific camera-and-lens pairs. Corrections for distortion, vignetting and soft corners happen without you drawing a single slider.
• What about Apple's own formats? It reads HEIC, HEIF and ProRAW files natively, so iPhone and newer Mac camera work slots straight in.
• Are masks a fight? AI Masks pick out skies, people, backgrounds and animals in a couple of clicks. You can copy those local adjustments between images too — handy for batch jobs under the same light.
• What happened to U Point? It's still here. Drop a control point, tell it what to affect, and it sorts the rest without brushing a mask by hand.

The app's only requirement is macOS 14.7, and it runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon machines. If you remember it as DxO Optics Pro, this is the same DNA, just grown up a bit.

What 9.10 changed, day to day

Version 9.10 didn't rewrite the application. It tightened the bolts. The most noticeable shift is how DeepPRIME XD3 handles colour noise in the shadows of high-ISO shots — red and green speckles that older denoising left behind now get scrubbed without turning fine detail into plastic. If you push a four-year-old Micro Four Thirds file past ISO 6400, you'll see it.

AI Mask subject detection also got a quiet bump. The sky selector now copes with hazy horizons and branches against a bright overcast — scenes where earlier versions drew a wobbly line and left you tidying the edge with a brush. It's not magic, but it saves ten minutes per keep.

The Synchronisation palette learned a new trick: you can now sync edits between images using quick-select Subject Types. Pick a batch, tell it to match masks by subject (people, sky, animal), and local adjustments copy across to the right zones without remapping every shot by hand. Wedding and event shooters will spot the benefit straight away.

RAW development before you touch another app

PhotoLab doesn't try to be a library manager, a pixel editor or a panorama stitcher. It does one job — RAW development — and it does it before you open anything else. A common flow: drop a card into the machine, run the files through PhotoLab for lens corrections, noise and colour, export as DNG or TIFF, then finish in whatever you prefer for spotting or layers.

It reads the same HEIC and ProRAW files that Photos and Preview use, so you can pull iPhone shots straight in without converting them first. The optical modules also feed off the same DxO database that powers dxo labs corrections in their Nik Collection tools — if you own both, lens corrections match up across apps.

Copy-paste of local adjustments between images works properly now, which means PhotoLab plays nicer with a round-trip workflow. Do your base grade, export, retouch elsewhere, and you haven't painted yourself into a corner if you need to re-develop later.

High-ISO shooters salvaging dim chapels and dawn wildlife

Three crowds keep coming back. First, high-ISO shooters — anyone working dim chapels, gig venues or wildlife at dawn. DeepPRIME is the reason they install it. The difference between a usable frame and a bin job often sits in that one pipeline.

Second, batch processors who need consistent corrections across hundreds of frames. The Modules do the lens grunt work, the sync tools handle the creative adjustments, and you're not clicking through a hundred dialogs to get there.

Third, hands-on editors who like control but hate brushwork. U Point and AI Masks let you shape adjustments with a few clicks, and the Smart Lighting and ClearView sliders give you a quick path to a balanced file without pushing everything through five layers. It suits the sort of person who'd rather spend an evening printing than pixel-peeping a mask edge.

• macOS 14.7 or newer
• Runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs