@RobbieK wrote:
I have just downloaded DPP 4, installed it and tried it out. I have been an avid user and proponent of DPP for years now. It does most of what I need to do, and I rarely have to use Photoshop these days.
It looks really nice. Trouble is, I don't see how I can use DPP4 in its current form.
I have three Canon Cameras - an 350D (Rebel something or other), a 40D and now a 6D. The 40D is a wonderful camera as is the 6D, and I make use of both of them for different occasions. The 350D is my backup.
Two very important things are lacking in DPP 4:
1. Backward compatibility of changes made in DPP 3 and earlier. I have already used DPP 3 to make changes to many 6D CR2 files, and thiose changes don't appear why I open the file in DPP 4 ! I simply can't understand why Canon has done this.
2. The 40D is not supported by DPP 4 (nor is the 350D), so I have to keep DPP 3 .
The whole thing gets really messy if I start to use DPP 4. I can't tell whether a 6D image has been edited in DPP 3 or DPP 4 unless I open it in both versions to see if edits have been made and saved. Add to that the fact that I can only use DPP 3 for CR2 files from the 40D - and I can't tell which camera I used unless the file is opened in either of the versions.
Does Canon expect us photographers to just chuck away all our old images (modified by earlier versions of DPP), along with our "old" camera equipment? I won't be doing that.
Using DPP 4 seems to mean that we have to maintain two versions of DPP, and to cope with the mess maybe keep images edited with the two different versions in separate libraries.
This really is unacceptable, and makes me wonder what will happen in the future.
Will Canon withdraw support for DPP 3?
How would we edit then the CR2 files from earlier cameras?
Will all the edits done with DPP 3 still be invisible in DPP 4 (and later) as they are now?
I'd really like some answers from Canon.
Yeah, you're right, and you didn't even touch on the fact that DPP4 is still buggy and almost certainly has at least one memory leak. Or that its user inferface is confusing and needs work.
But DPP4 contains a lot of nice features that DPP3 lacks, so I use it when I can. Now that DPP4 supports the 7D, I rarely take pictures that I can't edit with it. But it doesn't support my wife's T2i. (I have a spare 7D that she could use, but she says it's too heavy.)
So since I still have to edit with both versions, here's how I handle it: When I have a folder containing pictures from cameras that are and aren't supported by DPP4, I start by opening it in DPP3 and labelling the DPP4-compatible images with check mark 5. From then on, I know not to edit those pictures with DPP3. When I open the same folder in DPP4, I don't see the check mark 5. But DPP4 does indicate the images that it can't edit, so the two editors stay out of each other's way.
You can of course use any check mark as the "don't edit here" indicator. I use CM5 because I use the lower check marks to tell me how many more steps a given image needs. CM1 means the image is fully edited and needs only to be converted to JPEG. CM2 might mean, for example, that redeye correction will be needed, in which case the converted JPEG will get CM1. Etc. YMMV, but it works for me. And yes, DPP3 should warn me that an image can be (or has been) edited with DPP4. But that seems increasingly unlikely as time passes.
Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA
