Getting Lightroom users to switch to another photo editing program is a hard sell, and DxO knows this. That’s why it makes its PureRAW utility available as both a standalone app and a plug-in. Regardless of how you access it, PureRAW provides powerful lens corrections, lens sharpness, and noise reduction tools, so you can start your actual image edits from a better place. We also like its fixes for things like chromatic aberration, geometric distortion, and vignetting. That said, Topaz Photo AI is our Editors' Choice because it delivers slightly sharper results and has AI tools for adjusting image exposure and colors. Neither replaces full-featured pro photo workflow software like Adobe Lightroom Classic, however.

Pricing: A One-Time License

DxO PureRAW costs $119.99 or $79.99 if you are upgrading from a previous version. This is a one-time cost for a permanent license—you don't need a subscription. For comparison, the DxO’s full photo workflow software, PhotoLab, costs $229.99. It includes all of the features you get with PureRAW, including DeepPrime noise reduction.

Of course, with PureRAW, you still must pay for another program, such as Adobe Lightroom ($119.88 per year for both Classic and non-classic) or Photoshop ($263.88 per year), to get a full photo editing experience. (You can also get all three Adobe apps in a bundle for $239.88 per year.) ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate ($149.99), Corel PaintShop Pro ($99.99), and CyberLink PhotoDirector ($99.99) are among the other viable, lower-cost options with a one-time fee.

What's New in DxO PureRAW 5?

Here's a brief rundown of what's new in version 5 of DxO PureRAW:

• Custom Presets. These are important for when you get an image just right and want to get the same result from a similar shot without going through settings again.
• DeepPrime XD3. This is a new denoising engine that combines denoising with demosaicing of raw camera data. DxO claims that it's better at recovering detail in low-light shots.
• Local Adjustments. You can now use layer masks to apply DxO corrections only to specific areas of an image.
• An Updated Interface. The program now uses blue accents and new dialog box designs.

Previously, the company added the following important features:

• Advanced Batch Renaming. You can rename a bunch of photo files using a pattern of your choice.
• Improved Lens Softness. This is a lens-profile-based correction that applies sharpening differently across the photo based on the lens's unique characteristics.
• PureRAW Widget. This small panel shows you the program's processing status and automatically opens the app once it detects that you have plugged in a photo memory card.
• Real-Time Preview. You can see previews of your changes to the rendering settings as you adjust them.

System Requirements: Desktop-Only

DxO PureRAW runs on macOS 14 or later and 64-bit Windows 10 Version 22H2 or Windows 11 23H2 or later. You need at least 8GB of RAM and 6GB of storage space on either. A recent GPU is also a requirement. I ran it on an Intel Core i7-based PC running Windows 11. It has native support for Apple silicon-based Macs, but not for Copilot+ PCs running Windows on Arm processors. To use PureRAW as a plug-in for your main photo workflow application, you need Lightroom Classic.

Interface and Getting Started: A Straightforward Design

When you first run PureRAW, you see the optional DxO Hub. This shows new features, help resources, and the online DxO store. Without the Hub, the starting interface simply shows an upload button and offers sample raw image file downloads you can use to test the program.

(Credit: DxO/PCMag)

Since it’s more of a utility than a full workflow or editing application, DxO PureRAW has a remarkably simple interface. It’s mostly a blank panel onto which you drag and drop the photos you want to process. Alternatively, you can select images from a folder in File Explorer or Finder.

To use PureRAW, you need a camera that produces raw image files. That shouldn't be a problem, since even most phones let you save in that format. DxO PureRAW supports the same vast list of camera models and lens combinations (now over 100,000 profiles) as PhotoLab. In testing, the software had no trouble working with raw files from Canon’s EOS R1 and Sony's a7R IV, as well as with longtime standbys like the Canon EOS 6D. Importantly, DxO PureRAW doesn't support all compressed raw formats: According to DxO, "Canon mRAW and sRAW are not supported, while cRAW is supported; Nikon RAW-S is not supported, while HE and HE* are supported."

A Process With Preview option gives you more flexibility over the corrections PureRAW applies. Live Preview lets you see the results before processing, though I ran into a couple of snags with this. Zooming to 100% actually appeared to be 200% on my 4K Lenovo ThinkVision monitor, and noise reduction and sharpening effects disappeared when I zoomed back out to 50% (actually 100%). Although you get a split-screen view to see a photo before and after processing, the app doesn't provide a side-by-side view like Topaz Photo AI.

(Credit: DxO/PCMag)

In this Preview panel, you choose among DxO’s noise reduction technologies: DeepPrime 3, DeepPrime XD2s, or the beta XD3 method. DeepPrime 3 is the default, and it's your best option in most cases because it uses DxO's latest and fastest enhancement model.

You also choose whether you want the output format: DNG (Adobe’s universal raw file format) or JPG. You can rename files using a pattern of your choice. Saving to DNG makes sense if you’re going to continue adjusting the photo in Lightroom or another photo app. If you just want the improved image and don’t plan on further editing, the JPG option is for you. It's also the way to go if you don't want to deal with the huge DNG files that processing produces. For example, running a 37MB CR2 photo through the utility resulted in a 102MB DNG file.

(Credit: DxO/PCMag)

You also have a choice of which corrections to apply to a photo and whether to add it to a batch of images for later processing. The previous version of the app didn't give you any control over the strength of denoising if you chose to use the DeepPrimeXD noise-reduction technology. But now, if you choose Process With Preview, you see sliders for Luminance and Force Details. The former defaults to 40 and the latter to zero. You can increase or decrease either, depending on whether you're looking for more noise reduction or more detail. The default settings delivered good results in testing, though the ability to adjust the processing strength is welcome.

Once processing completes, a dialog box pops up that gives you the choice to show the result file location, view the result in PureRAW, or export it to an application like Lightroom. The second option, View Results, gives you a split-screen before-and-after window, but again, there is no side-by-side before-and-after view.

PureRAW places a widget in your OS taskbar. It shows the progress of processing jobs and lets you open the full application view. However, I wish it could act as a drop target so that you could drag raw photo files onto it for processing.

(Credit: DxO/PCMag)

Noise Reduction: Almost the Best

DxO’s noise reduction does a better job than most competitors when it comes to keeping details sharp and eliminating speckles. Noise reduction tools from Adobe and other software developers usually blur photos a bit. And then, when you sharpen the image after applying it, you end up sharpening what should be a blurry background. DxO reps told me that PureRAW improves bokeh as well, to which cameras tend to add graininess.

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The amount of detail in DxO-processed images is impressive, as you can see from the split-screen, before-and-after view of the hummingbird above. Below is another example, a portrait showing the original noisy raw CR2 image, DxO's DeepPrime 3 result in the middle, and its DeepPrime XD2s result on the right. Both are vast improvements over the original, but the XD2s process reveals more detail in the fine eyebrow hairs.

(Credit: PCMag)

Now that Lightroom has AI-assisted automatic noise correction, it's worth comparing. Here's the shot with corrections in Adobe Lightroom on the left and DxO PureRAW using DeepPrime 3 on the right:

(Credit: Adobe/DxO/PCMag)

The DxO process yields more detail, for example, in the cheek freckles, while removing more luminance noise. The Adobe-processed photo still suffers from the problem of producing a blurrier image. I should note, too, that the Lightroom DeNoise took significantly longer to process than PureRAW on the same laptop.

PureRAW with DeepPrime XD2s (right, below) is good, but doesn't quite match Topaz Photo AI (left, below) in detail recovery:

(Credit: PCMag)

Night-sky photography (aka astrophotography) is always a good candidate for noise reduction, so here's an example of PureRAW's impressive work on that genre in a split-screen, before-and-after view:

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Local Adjustments: Limited Tools

Sometimes, you might want to apply denoising or sharpening to just one part of your photo. For these cases, the latest version of PureRAW has local adjustments, complete with masks and layers. However, I think this adds unnecessary complexity to a tool that appeals specifically for its automatic processes.

(Credit: DxO/PCMag)

Furthermore, a key capability from most other photo editing applications is missing—automatic selection. You have to go in and brush over areas you want to treat differently, though you at least get feathering with the brush tool. Another minor quibble is that you can't use Ctrl-Z to undo brush strokes, as you can in most other apps. A final strange aspect of this tool is that it only adds to the processing of the whole photo; you can't, for example, leave the unmasked area noisy for an effect. All my complaints aside, the tool does work as advertised, and I got the little hummer (below) looking very sharp.

(Credit: DxO/PCMag)

Other Ways to Use PureRAW

Below, I cover the experience of using PureRAW outside the context of its dedicated app. This is a major selling point if you don't want to change up your photo workflow.

PureRAW in Lightroom Classic

The first time you run Lightroom Classic after installing PureRAW, you see an explanatory notification like the one below:

(Credit: Adobe/DxO/PCMag)

When you want to process noisy photos with the plug-in, you first select them in Lightroom's Library mode and then go to the File > Plug-in Extras menu. Then, pick Process With DxO PureRAW. You get three choices here: Preview and Process, Process Instantly, and Process Directly Using Previous Settings. The first two open a DxO window and a dialog box, respectively, but the last choice keeps you completely in Lightroom Classic.

(Credit: Adobe/DxO/PCMag)

When the processing completes, a message pops up thanking you for using the plug-in, and a new Collection called DxO PureRAW appears in Lightroom's left panel. The improved image appears in the new Collection with DxO_DeepPRIME3 added to the original filename.

The beauty is that you never have to open the PureRAW program for it to work. Even better is that most of the edits you apply in Lightroom (aside from those in the Detail and Lens Correction sections) remain, as does metadata, such as EXIF data, IPTC fields, keywords, and star ratings. It's possible to make further edits to the new image file, too.

Alternatively, you can just use the Export function at either the preprocessing or post-processing stage to open the optimized photo in your photo viewing app of choice.

PureRAW in macOS Finder and Windows File Explorer

DxO PureRAW can add menu choices to macOS's Finder and Windows' File Explorer, but each requires an extra step. On macOS, go into System Preferences > Extensions and allow the program's Finder extensions. On Windows, you likely need to reboot your machine for the DxO context menu to appear when you right-click on a supported raw file type. In Windows 11, the options don't appear on the first context menu; you need to tap Show More Options to see them.

(Credit: Microsoft/DxO/PCMag)

You get four options (above) as well as seven output format options (DNG, JPG, 8-bit or 16-bit TIFF, and so on). If you need to download lens and camera profile modules, the menu to allow that appears. A Processing progress timer bar appears in a small dialog box with an estimate of how long it will take. When it's done processing, your corrected image appears in a subfolder named DxO, with _DxO and the process you chose appended to the original filename.