topic Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom in Camera Software

DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 13:50:33 GMT

Hi everyone,

I have a newbie question for you. I have recently started editing photos with Canon digital photo professional that came with my Rebel. It seems to do everything I want it to do with the exception of maybe ease of editing one particular section of a photo. Would it be worth it to move up to photoshop elements or adobe lightroom? Would I get that much bang for my buck? Thanks!

Wayne

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

shadowsports — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 14:10:12 GMT

HI Wayne,

Why not tell us more about what you feel is missing and maybe we can suggest something. Recommended software is largely a matter of personal preference. DPP, Adobe Elements, LR, Affinity... I like DxO, because of its features and 3rd party lens support. But everyone here has a slightly different opinion often based on their own needs.

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 14:20:27 GMT

Hi Shadowsports!

Thanks for your quick response. Largely I have been happy with DPP 4, and mostly I find I am using the sliders for sharpness, saturation, etc., although I have started using the histogram and curve to get rid of some shadows and clipping. I am wondering about moving up mostly because I sometimes want more control over a segment of a picture. I'd love the sky to be a bit bluer without adding blue to the bird's breast that I am shooting, and I have just taken some pictures of starry nights and I have tried stacking but no success yet (I used the free deepskystacker software which sort of works but DPP 4 was inconsistent it seems in its ability to work with TIFF files). I have had my Rebel T4i for probably 6 years but it is just in the last few months (I had to take a few months off work for a medical reason and there was the camera) that I got off the automatic functions and started taking a lot of shots. Hope that helps a bit.

Wayne

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 15:17:14 GMT

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 15:18:10 GMT

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

shadowsports — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 15:27:14 GMT

Hi Wayne,

Thats helpful.

Any of the apps I mentioned above can do what you need. I know Adobe LR and DxO both have free trials if you want to give them a try.

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

BurnUnit — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 17:30:30 GMT

@Wayne3 wrote:
...I am wondering about moving up mostly because I sometimes want more control over a segment of a picture. I'd love the sky to be a bit bluer without adding blue to the bird's breast that I am shooting, and I have just taken some pictures of starry nights and I have tried stacking but no success yet (I used the free deepskystacker software which sort of works but DPP 4 was inconsistent it seems in its ability to work with TIFF files)...

Wayne

Don't know how deep you've gotten in to DPP4, but have you spent any time experimenting with the Color Adjustment Tool palette? It will allow you to make some pretty specific and narrow color adjustments for some shots. It may take a bit of time though until you start to get a feel for working with it.

Also, later versions of DPP4 (4.10 and above?) now have a Partial Adjustment Tool palette which can be used to mask off areas of the picture that you don't want to edit. It works well for things like lightening areas where someone's face didn't get enough flash fill. But it should also work to "juice up" color saturation, hue and/or brightness in specific areas. And again, you'll have to experiment some with the Blur Radius settings for the borders of your masked area.

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 19:19:08 GMT

Thanks a ton! I didn’t know either that there was a free trial for the software or that DPP4 has a partial adjustment tool. I’ll go deeper into DPP4 first but will try both. I probably have a good picture to experiment with, although I doubt it will ever be a keeper. We are almost at full moon and last night I tried taking a shot of the full moon and the rather eerie lit trees. As you might guess, I had a shot of a perfectly exposed moon and the foreground completely dark and a picture of an over exposed moon and eerie trees. I’ve since read that the full moon is easier to photograph at dusk or dawn when light contrasts are not so extreme. Thanks for helping a beginner out!! Wayne

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Waddizzle — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:23:03 GMT

Another app I have started playing with stacking images is called Sequator.

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:32:30 GMT

Thanks I will check it out. I have never heard of Sequtor before. Wayne

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

jrhoffman75 — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 22:03:55 GMT

StarStax is another program; used for creating star trails. For example - take 30 shots 1 second part and StarStax will interpolate to create trails.

Rick's software recommendations are right on.

A difference between LR and DxO is that LR is a subscription model - $10/month. Some folks don't like that.

An example of what StarStax will do.

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

BurnUnit — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 13:45:33 GMT

@shadowsports wrote:
... Recommended software is largely a matter of personal preference. DPP, Adobe Elements, LR, Affinity... I like DxO, because of its features and 3rd party lens support. But everyone here has a slightly different opinion often based on their own needs.

@ shadowsports

One of these days I'll download a trial of DxO PhotoLab and give it a try. Had DxO OpticsPro on my previous desktop and found it very capable and quicker than DPP4 on the same machine. My newer computer works much better with DPP4 but I'm still curious to see what improvements this new PhotoLab might have over OpticsPro. Maybe they've decluttered the interface a little bit ? ? ?

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 15:29:45 GMT

Just played around with the partial adjustment tool. It will take a little practice LOL. I have these blotches of light I have to remove now. Thanks for the advice. I'll play around with it.

Wayne

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 15:30:36 GMT

Nice pic!

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

BurnUnit — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 22:59:41 GMT

If you're just getting started with RAW editing, don't jump into the deep-end and try to learn it all at once. You can be easily overwhelmed by it. Try taking it in small bites over a longer period of time to prevent getting discouraged. The workflow will start making more sense to you and you'll find that you're spending less time to get better results. Getting the shot as right as possible in the camera is the biggest favor you can do for yourself.

If you need a little motivation here's an example of just how much you can do with RAW editing to salvage the horribly underexposed shot (upper middle). This was done with DxO OpticsPro but you should be able to get similar results with LR or DPP4 when you start to get more familiar with the workings of it.

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

Wayne3 — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 14:48:52 GMT

Thanks BurnUnit,

Wow, great pic! I think I probably am moving a bit too quickly and then forgetting half of it. Not biting off too much at one time is probably good advice. I just went to an entry level photography workshop, and the presenter gave what I now understand is pretty standard advice. Just put your camera on aperture priority, and do nothing but play with depth of field for a week or so. Just that one step. Then when you are used to that, move to manual and play with shutter speed. Just babysteps. It has been fun learning so far.

Wayne

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

alexpilion — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:54:05 GMT

Hello Wayne,

as a fomer starter, 5 years ago, I can definetely reccomend DPP; it is plenty of tutorials / lessons video from canon on how to do the most common things and also it come for free once you bought a Canon camera.

I appreciated a lot that almost every Canon lenses I own has a ready-to-go image correction profile I can easily apply within DPP, except for the an old, but very light and versatile, EF35-80mm f/4-5.6 III

Anyway it depends on your need, for example I recently started to work with focus stacking and I realized that with DPP this is not really possible, despite it has been addedd recently, I think with 4.11 it can be used only if you shot a sequence of pictures with a specific focus bracketing function which is available only on few camera models and restricted to selected lenses.

Please Canon can you add the focus stacking to any set of images taken, i.e. with Canon Camera Connect and manual focus set, that would be really helpful for macro photography lovers

I found this page, despite being over 3 years old, very useful:

https://www.canonwatch.com/canon-digital-photo-professional-dpp-4-tutorials/

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

jrhoffman75 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:54:49 GMT

https://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/canon_software/dpp_video_tutorials.do

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

LittleGuy — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 13:36:50 GMT

One advantage Lightroom has is the catalog feature. I geotag all pictures. The filter capabilities to find particular locations or subjects is awesome. DPP and Photoshop / Bridge offer roughly the same capabilities and is designed for graphic artists. Photographers with lots if images from around the world like the cataloging capabilities. Adobe isn't the only one with cataloging capabilities although they did most of the pioneering. Other software vendors now have cataloging capabilities.

Re: DPP 4 or photoshop elements or adobe lightroom

kjacobs4242 — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 17:15:14 GMT

I use DPP, and it works great. Noise reduction on Raw files is automatic when you edit. If you have a really hi ISO with lots of noise, do this. Convert to JPG, make a copy, put back into DPP edit and you can really smooth the BG out, works well on blurred BGs, where noise is most obvious. You will have to convert and save to JPG again to save the creamy BG. I move both into GIMP and mask the sharp subject into the smoothed copy (with a slightly blurred subject). Here is the original that was really good enuff, and a side by side blown up to 200% to show the difference. The original was about an 80% crop. R5, RF 100-500, ISO 2000, 1/200 sec. I did NOT mask the orig, did the blow side by side to show what is possible if needed. Original, 80%b4 and after masking, 200%