Count me in too as a CaptureNX fan in terms of rendering .. and now even tho CNX-D has colour control point editing .. I still struggle to come to terms with it(due to many other failings).
Having said that tho, I am starting to use it more.
BUT! (maybe last year, or so) I did end up acquiring DXOs Photolab, when it was initially released as they used CCP editing too. (obviously this was well before CNX-D got it).
So as a fairly quick and maybe not so scientific comparison, I've had a quick try at processing your leaf image with both programs, trying more to replicate the final output, more so than trying to achieve optimal results.
CNX-D
DxO Photolab(v1)
The DxO image does have a bit more detail/clarity in parts of the leaf veins, but this is more so due to the respective differences that the programs' USM tools use .. not so much that DxO is better at it.
I'm sure if I spent more than a few seconds using the USM tool in CNX-D, it'd also pull out slightly more detail in the leaf too.
One major difference is in the way that CNX-D reduced the impact of the highlights on the leaf, and made them less obvious, which I couldn't do in DxO.
in CNX-D I first used -ve exposure compensation, which neutralised the highlight impact, then a single CCP to also try to gain back some brightness, colour and detail too.
Whilst I'm more proficient in CNX-D, the time I took to get to this point was a mere minute or two.
In DxO tho, no matter what tool I used, DxO's result in reducing the impact(ie. contrast difference) of the blown highlights just wouldn't look 'natural'.
In a manner of speaking, DxO seems to have less effect in reducing highlights, in effect to make them less unpleasant.
I'd say it took me twice as long tweaking in DxO to achieve a lesser result.
Having said that tho, this doesn't result in DxO not being an effective and capable editing program.
It has far more traditional tools than CNX-D does.
Only reason I've stuck with CNX-D was simply 'hope' .. that is the hope that one day it may be a usable raw editing/conversion software for NEF files.
Now, after so much time, Nikon finally gave us CCP editing back, so my hopes have finally been (semi) realised.
It's still a horrid software tho .. slow, buggy(I have a major bug, but know not who to report it too!), slow, actually make that annoyingly slow .. think 'pitch drop' slow! .. not glacial super speed by way of comparison.
Having just denigrated CNX-D so emphatically .. I still have to admit that I still use it every so often. It is ever so slightly better at some things than CNX2 is.
And once I update from the D800E(eg. D850, most likely) CNX-D will effectively become my main editor, maybe with some assistance from DxO(??)
So for now tho(for Akira) I'd recommend using CNX-D .. more so because it'll cost you nothing($s) to start with .. and maybe in the future it may become more usable.
ps. when I say CNX-D is slow for me, by comparison I have zero speed issues with ViewNX2 and CNX2 for any D800E image. I updated my PC a couple of years back, have a dedicated SSD for my editing images(longer term images are stored on a HDD, and NAS).
Every operation in CNX2 is instantaneous for me.
No matter what PC tweak I've tried, I just can't get CNX-D to operate at a decent speed.
Would you be happy using DxO's Photolab? .. I'd say "probably" .. then again it really depends on personal preference on lack of or availability of any specific editing tool that CNX-D doesn't have(eg. a brush tool, or whatever).
That is, if you find that you prefer a specific tool type, that CNX-D doesn't have, and DxO does have, then the transition from CNX-D to DxO would be fairly straight forward(due to the use of CCP editing).
In terms of output, I doubt very much you would see any advantage in choosing one program over another. Maybe a few degrees of difference(as I've tried to show with the highlights above) .. but then again DxO may be better at some other aspect of rendering a different type of image.
A weird point with CNX-D 's slower than 'pitch drop' performance .. is that it's batch editing I find is quite fast. It's slow to start up, but once started, the images are processed quite speedily.
ps. if you wonder why I use the reference to 'pitch drop' .. google pitch drop experiment .. 10 years, or more to effect a single droplet! ... kind of speed!
pps. my foray into ACR(mainly via Lr, but a very small amount of Ps too) .. was for all intents a total disaster. I've had edication copies of Ps for a long while, and
wasted my own money on Lr4 and 5 .. never again!
