Lightroom’s RAW processing is definitely not the best. This is a big bonus if you use Lightroom, for example. The difference is that the Lightroom rendering is noisy, soft and at its limits, while the DxO rendering is clean as a whistle and ready for more. Both of these are RAW files in Lightroom with all the flexibility that RAW offers. Lightroom integration The Lightroom RAW rendering is on the left, the DxO rendering is on the right. With PureRAW’s DNG files, though, you’re getting DxO’s corrections and processing ‘baked in’. Normally, you are at the mercy of your software’s own RAW demosaicing and processing, and the quality can vary considerably from one program to another.

They behave just like regular RAW files in Lightroom, Capture One or other RAW processing tools, with all the extended tonal range and color information you’d expect, but they’ve already been corrected and processed by DxO. PureRAW 3 produces ‘Linear DNG’ RAW files. The clever part is, as well as outputting JPEG images and, in this version, TIFF files, it can also produce DNG RAW files – and this is where it’s likely to be of most interest to photographers. Instead, it’s like a kind of pre-processing tool for your RAW files. You feed it RAW images and it outputs fully-corrected image files ready for sharing or further editing. PureRAW 3 takes your original RAW files and applies DxO’s own lens correction profiles and DeepPRIME noise reduction processing to produce images which are sharper, clearer and so noise free that you will probably re-think what you imagine your camera gear to be capable of. – Exported DNGs 2-3x the size of RAW files + Excellent lens corrections, including edge softness

Dxo raw review