I use AfterShot Pro 3, so I won't have a COW.
I've used DxO Photolab and it's predecessor DxO Optics Pro since 2006. Nothing compares. rien n’est comparable.
I'm looking to upgrade my processing for high ISO low light images and I'm leaning toward DXO Photolab 7. I'll check out a few others but so far DXO seems to fit my insanity better.
If you have the software (or trials of it), I would suggest using DxO Photolab or PureRaw, then final process in Topaz Photo AI. I've experimented with countless apps, and settled on this process. It helps that they are both automated if you want them to be, so very larges batches can be processed with surprisingly good results.
DXO Photolab 7 has an AI noise reduction process built in.
I hate the process that I'll need to go through but Topaz, DXO and Luminar all have to be tested before I make the plunge.
I need to watch for getting my head up my butt because an application is more easily assimilated. By that I mean DXO is built to work exactly as I already work so I don't want to jump to an incorrect conclusion just because the glove fits.
Oh, I get that. It will be interesting to see which way you go with this.
I'm significantly nuts, and this will be an intense time. 30 days is not enough time to evaluate a professional level application professionally.
I'm also going to try the newly released Nikon RAW converter and consider an old school concept of pure developer concept of RAW conversion with enhancements all done post conversion.
I tried that technique with the Nikon and AfterShot Pro applications on some previously more interesting images and had some solid results with improved saturation, vibrance and RAW noise reduction. The reds in flowers, birds and iridescent blues on birds were improved significantly using software I've had for years in new ways.
All of this is well and good but to get a nice image and motion freeze at ISO 6400 in summer shade requires the new AI noise reduction must be acquired.
MY BRAIN HURTS!
Tell me about it!
With me, it was an ease-of-use case. I used to shoot a lot of weddings and events, and still do occasionally. I have used DxO for a long time and have developed a really good workflow for it. And, you can do some pretty extensive editing in it if you want to. And, I used to do do exactly what you describe, but doing the minor enhancements and cropping in RAW then further editing in Photo-Paint or Paintshop Pro.
Then Topaz came up with Photo AI. I now do all raw conversion in Photolab, using a chosen LUT or template. I then directly export the batch to Photo AI, and let it do its magic. Rarely do I need to touch the image again. It was a godsend. Noise is never an issue, even though I use Micro 4/3rds equipment. It was like I upgraded my camera equipment to medium format. I also use Anthropics Portrait Pro on some portraits, mostly to clean up the bride's face or remove teenager's zits, because that is also a batch automated app.
I only use Photo-Paint and often Painter when I want a drastically one-off stylized image, or when I feel the need for background replacement, etc.
Many programs are not designed to be utilized as the operating system was designed. Folder and file structures are secondary concepts instead of the core of the interface. Many designers develop processes based around POORLY organized applications and it's unknown to them but the lost time is amazing. As long as you use Adobe there programs interface with each other and many applications try to service that but Adobe thinking in many ways is a back a$$wards if I've ever seen it.
My camera shows me that I've taken 80,000 images, file management in the last 30 months add my hobby images to 30 years of professional images that I still archive and it's all file structure or be lost in the woods. Let alone inter application processing.
Now with having time for my wildlife images, I find that experimenting with significantly non traditional methods helps bring out the iridescent colors, feather and fur detail.
I use the Windows folder structure and keywords. DxO will allow me to do this, by showing the folders to choose from. I don't know the number of photos I've taken (but I don't really care about that). I do know how much storage they take, which is on the high side of 12+ TB. I could get a count of them from Windows if I wanted to. I do not like the file management that apps like Lightroom use at all. I was filing photos on my hard drives before this type of thing existed, in MS-DOS, when folders were called "Directories," and I was scanning negatives.
For decades, I've named folders with the date taken as the main folder, then a friendly name such as "frasier_wed" in the subfolders. I even include a little notepad doc with keywords in the folders. Rarely do I have any trouble finding what I'm looking for. I've mentioned that I've used DxO for a long time, from back when it was called Optics Pro. It will honor the OS file system, but now has a built in file manager that I am not required to use, and don't. This is one big reason that I've stuck with it. The other is, of course, the automation, and it just does such a bang-up job at processing raw files--especially noisy ones. Your mileage may vary, of course. The other awesome app in my opinion, is Topaz Photo AI, and that I can directly export the files into it from DxO with no intermediate processing. This just works for me.
My folder structure may seem a little weird, but it works really well for me:
20240319\John-Wed\dxoraw\jpeg\photopaint where the raw files are in dxoraw, resulting jpegs are in jpeg, the ones with further edits are in photopaint. Or:
20240319\John-Wed\dxoraw\photoai\jpeg\photopaint\portraitpro where the same process is followed as above, but the DxO files were sent directly to Photo AI, then the jpegs, then the further "fancy" processing in the bottom folders.
To me, this is the ultimate organization of my photos. But I've done it this way for decades, and I would not want to go back and organize them again in this manner if I hadn't done it from the beginning, lol. That might take a year!
Your way makes sense to me. I started with a general client folder with sub folders for each client/job number/date.
My own hobby images get pulled of the camera card onto the desktop, into a dated shoot folder. They get sorted, (many are trash) the edited images get archived into 2 main folders, RAW archive by sub categories, (birds/species) and edited TIF files by the same structure as the RAW files.
DXO simply working with the Windows file structure is perfect, I just need to make sure the noise reduction is to my requirements.
The only real change I made is I added Notepad files to the folders with keyworks of locations and names of people in the files. That really helps too. I got the idea to do this about 10 years ago and it works a charm.
Keeping track of the work is work.