Exposure Technology

How DxO Lighting works

To overcome these problems, DxO Labs has developed DxO Lighting technology, a unique local exposure and dynamic range optimiser. DxO Lighting automatically replicates the manual techniques of dodging and burning involved in traditional negative printing. This brings out contrast in specific areas of an image while preserving highlights, textures, colours and a ‘natural’ look.

In conventional photography, these techniques require considerable skill and patience. In the digital world it’s possible to achieve the same effects with image editing software, but it’s still time-consuming and requires precise masking skills.

Figure 1: Masking technique with variable contrast paper

DxO Lighting automatically recreates the darkroom skills of the experienced photographer. It breaks down the image into areas based on luminance ranges and processes each to best reveal tonal detail through automatic localised contrast adjustment. Generally, lightness and tone curve slope are increased in dark areas. This brings out shadow detail but avoids highlight clipping that a simple gamma change would cause. A colour correction check then ensures consistency with the original colours.