Canon software?

[chetan83]

Are there any benefits to using Canon Photo Professional, Zoombrowser, or any of the other 'in box' Canon programs if I currently have Lightroom 3? I'm a beginner photographer and I'd like to 'streamline' my learning and not get redundant with learning different types of software.

[Waddizzle]

---

@chetan83 wrote:

Are there any benefits to using Canon Photo Professional, Zoombrowser, or any of the other 'in box' Canon programs if I currently have Lightroom 3? I'm a beginner photographer and I'd like to 'streamline' my learning and not get redundant with learning different types of software.

---

It would depend upon which camera you are using.  If you are using a camera that was current when LR3 was released, then I don't see a problem.  If what you already have works for you now, then why change it?  Right?

On the other hand, if you decide to upgrade to a more recent camera body, then you may discover that you may need to updgrade Lightroom in order to get the most current version of Adobe Camera Raw, which would includes the most recently released camera bodies.

The same is true for the Canon software.  More recent releases are compatible with the most recently released hardware.

[Ray-uk]

---

@chetan83 wrote:

 I'd like to 'streamline' my learning and not get redundant with learning different types of software.

---

You are more likely to end up redundant by sticking to one software package, many people do this and consequently never realise that there are alternative software packages available that will do just as good, sometimes better.

I strongly recommend that you try Digital Photo Professional even if you eventually decide not to use it

[BurnUnit]

In theory, and probably in practice as well, Canon DPP should be able to get more and better results out of the Canon RAW file format. Third party software has to "reverse engineer" Canon's proprietary RAW format to develop their product while Canon has full access to every bit of code that's used in their RAW files. How big of a difference you might see in your editing between DPP and say LR is debatable.

That being said, some computers run Canon's software more efficiently than others. It seems that at least some third party RAW editing software will run pretty smoothly on some computers that tend to get bogged down with DPP. With a more robust, powerful machine the differences in software speeds will likely be less noticeable.

At least try DPP and see how it works for you. It may be all you need. But there's no reason not to at least try LR or some of the other third party software. A few years ago I ran DxO OpticsPro on an older Win7 machine and was very happy with the results. But now on a newer Win10 desktop Canon DPP works much more smoothly than it did before.