DxO Labs launches new website for RAW users

Provides "objective RAW-based image quality data"

18 November 2008 15:21 GMT / By Verity Burns

DxO Labs has announced the launch of its new website, that will provide key objective metrics of sensor performance for a variety of cameras measured directly on the RAW image.

Dxomark.com is available as a free online resource and makes it possible for the first time to assess the intrinsic quality of a camera before the impact of any RAW conversion.

"There are many valuable resources reviewing the image quality of digital cameras, but none of them consider the actual RAW signal straight from the camera sensor," explains Nicolas Touchard, vice president of marketing, DxO Labs Image Quality Evaluation business.

"Demanding photographers who shoot in RAW should only care about the genuine quality of the RAW image, yet until now they have had to rely on measures based on converted RAW images, obviously biased by the processing applied to them, whether embedded or performed offline with a software RAW converter."

He added: "Furthermore, as RAW converters evolve and improve, the latent potential of RAW images can only be gauged by analyzing the RAW images themselves, projecting the potential quality achievable with the ultimate RAW converter. This is why we believe that our approach will dramatically change the way photographers evaluate digital cameras."

Dxomark.com provides in-depth measurements of all the relevant characteristics of a sensor, including actual ISO sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), dynamic range, tonal range, color depth and sensitivity and metamerism. It already covers 50 popular cameras, with more planned to be added all the time.

Camera performances will be easily compared, as all the measures tested by the website will be put into a simple scale, which can then be compared side by side with the results of other camera.

The website is now ready to be used, so head over there to test it all out, as well as read a range of technical articles written by DxO Labs scientists.

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