Digital Photo Professional - New release 4.21.30

[March411]

For those that use it it's available here: Digital Photo Professional 

When you use the link it should recognize your OS and supply the correct download. There isn't much in the way of release notes but they can be found here: Digital Photo Professional 4.21.30 for Windows 

I have loaded it and taken it for a spin. Noting much to note although it does appear to load images faster. I always had an issue where the photo would load and then a delay to focus, that time has been reduced.. 

[wq9nsc]

I tried the neural network tool when it was first released but didn't find the results better than I was getting with local processing.  My thought at the time was it was probably a decent option if you were doing work with "dirty" files on a machine with limited resources.  I should give it another try to see if it has improved but at the time I tried it in early  release form, it was just doing in the cloud what DPP was doing locally.

I have Topaz and it probably has the best noise reduction algorithm but I reserve it only for truly ugly files.  Last season I was shooting an away game where most stadium lighting briefly glitched during a TD and as I recall I kept one image captured at ISO 102,400.  But DPP really does a good job with normal higher ISO files out of my 1DX III bodies.  This was a quick sidelines shot of a visitor between plays, ISO 51,200 run through DPP with no additional processing.  DPP with no additional intervention does a great job of reducing noise while retaining decent detail at high ISO.

You wouldn't want to shoot a planned portrait at ISO 51,200 but it is fine for casual sidelines stuff.

RodgerISO 51,200 1DX III with EF 400 f2.8 glass

[Jkarl]

To say this politely most of the time problems like this are due to "the need of better coding" to take advantage of the hardware resources available.  I realize that Canon in offering DPP at no cost must limit somewhat the investment they put into the development, but over all I think that are slowly improving the product.

[johnrmoyer]

I also would like Linux binary of DPP. Some of the gtk libraries developed to make gimp portable should make it easier to create. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTK  Static linking should be enough to get one binary to run on multiple versions of Linux.

DPP digital lens optimizer takes a similar amount of time to run as the Richardson/Lucy deconvolution in rawtherapee "capture sharpening".

I might try the neural network if it were free, but would not have high expectations.

My history with so called artificial intelligence. 

In 1983 I read that LISP was the language of choice for AI and wrote my first program in LISP.

When I started a new job in 2000, I was surprised to find that one of the programs I was maintaining was originally written in LISP and later converted to C++. https://www.ll.mit.edu/r-d/publications/machine-intelligent-gust-front-algorithm  I read the LISP source code. The C++ source code was fragile, but worked so long as doppler velocity was used as a sanity check.

Recently, I have been experimenting with llama.cpp Gemma4 offline running on CPU instead of GPU. I find it very difficult to get it to write good code, but when I ask a question about a subject where I have little knowledge, it gives a convincing answer. Changing the order of prompts changes the code that gemma writes. I have been attempting to get gemma to write code that will use libraw to read a raw file, do a R/L deconvolution on the raw integers as if they represented photon counts, and then write a raw DNG file to be processed by other raw development software. Part of the problem is that when gemma was trained, most examples of the use of libraw demosaiced the data and I want to keep it as raw. 

I conclude that one of these decades, AI will be useful.

There is a good history of AI at https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/history-of-artificial-intelligence  

[johnrmoyer]

---

@Jkarl wrote:

To say this politely most of the time problems like this are due to "the need of better coding" to take advantage of the hardware resources available.  I realize that Canon in offering DPP at no cost must limit somewhat the investment they put into the development, but over all I think that are slowly improving the product.

---

In the past it has been very difficult to write portable code that takes full advantage of the hardware it is running on. One of the problems with portable GPU code is that the chip manufacturers have often provided proprietary libraries to make it more difficult for one to use competitor's chips.

"better coding" is a moving target and takes a lot of resources over time. I also have seen improvements in DPP.

[SignifDigits]

what do you tweak in DPP to get better results?  Just move the slider higher on the Digital Lens Optimizer on the Lens Correction tab?  Or do you also adjust luminace and chrominance noise on the Adjust Image Detail tab? I have the lens data uploaded

[johnrmoyer]

I nearly always crop, change white balance from auto which I use in camera, change unsharp mask, increase digital lens optimizer from what the camera chose, and use DPRAW tool. 

I often make small changes to exposure, dynamic range, saturation.

I occasionally use curves to adjust contrast, make image level.

Here is an example: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2026Apr30_birds_and_cats/IMG_5771c_2026apr03_titmouse.html  web page that lists all edits in DPP and all changes made in other software as well as links to straight out of camera JPG, JPG saved by DPP, JPG made from 16 bit TIF saved by DPP, and difference between DPP JPG and final JPG.

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) in Norman, Oklahoma, United States on April 3, 2026

Camera Model Name	Canon EOS R5
Lens Model	EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM +1.4x III
Focal Length	560 mm
Exposure Time	1/1250
ISO	2500
F Number	9.0
Camera Temperature	30 C
Measured EV	11.88
Measured EV 2	21.5
Focus Distance Upper	18.79 m
Focus Distance Lower	15.15 m
Artist	John Moyer

All of the edits in Canon DPP software

AngleAdj	0.5
WorkColorSpace	sRGB
WhiteBalanceAdj	Daylight
PictureStyle	Shot Settings
UnsharpMaskStrength	1.7
UnsharpMaskFineness	4
UnsharpMaskThreshold	5
ToneCurveOriginal	Yes
LuminanceNoiseReduction	5
ChrominanceNoiseReduction	5
DLOSetting	40
CropRotatedOriginalWidth	8239
CropRotatedOriginalHeight	5535
CropX	1508
CropY	956
CropWidth	4500
CropHeight	3000
CropRotation	0
CropAngle	0.5
CropOriginalWidth	8192
CropOriginalHeight	5464

jpegli is now at https://github.com/google/jpegli  

[SignifDigits]

Thank you.  I don't know what the DPRAW tool is.  I honestly have never used any of the tools in the TOOLS menu.  Is your "DPRAW" "Start Dual Pixel Raw Optimizer" in the tool menu?

Seems that there is still a lot to explore in DPP for me, perhaps.

[johnrmoyer]

---

@SignifDigits wrote:

Thank you.  I don't know what the DPRAW tool is.  I honestly have never used any of the tools in the TOOLS menu.  Is your "DPRAW" "Start Dual Pixel Raw Optimizer" in the tool menu?

Seems that there is still a lot to explore in DPP for me, perhaps.

---

Since the DPRAW two images have a very slight difference in angle of view, they can sometimes be used to get depth information like with synthetic aperture radar.

Synthetic aperture

https://cam.start.canon/en/S002/manual/html/UG-05_Synthetic_0070.html#Synthetic_0070_1 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_synthesis 

https://www.canon.ie/cameras/eos-r5/dual-pixel-raw-mode/ 

Using the free Digital Photo Professional software, the maximum point of sharpness can be shifted slightly from the position used when the shot was taken. This is great for portrait photographers wanting to fine-tune critical sharpness, if a subject’s eyes are not perfectly in focus, for instance.

If one leaves forward/back at zero and increases the amount, it gives the appearance of slightly increasing depth of field.

An example: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2026May31_birds_and_cats/IMG_5919c_2026may14_cardinal.html 

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) in Norman, Oklahoma, United States on May 14, 2026

Straight out of camera JPG: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2026May31_birds_and_cats/IMG_5919.JPG 

JPG created by cjpegli before down sizing: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2026May31_birds_and_cats/IMG_5919c2.JPG ( I was not able to recover all of the clipped reds ) 

Auto metering wanted to preserve shadows and the bird did not stay posed long enough for me to do multiple exposure compensation trials. This one is -2/3 and still reds are clipped. The shadows did not interest me and I did not mind shadows losing detail but I still brightened them slightly using the tone curve.

Edits in DPP: 

ExifToolVersion	13.25
FileName	IMG_5919.dr4
RawBrightnessAdj	-0.67
WhiteBalanceAdj	Daylight
UnsharpMaskStrength	1.5
UnsharpMaskFineness	3
UnsharpMaskThreshold	3
RGBCurvePoints	(0,0) (64,80) (128,128) (255,255)
ToneCurveX	64
ToneCurveY	80
DLOSetting	55
GammaBlackPoint	+0.000
GammaWhitePoint	+1.900
GammaMidPoint	+0.000
DPRAWMicroadjustBackFront	0
DPRAWMicroadjustStrength	8
CropRotatedOriginalWidth	8249
CropRotatedOriginalHeight	5549
CropX	354
CropY	129
CropWidth	7200
CropHeight	4800
CropRotation	0
CropAngle	0.6
CropOriginalWidth	8192
CropOriginalHeight	5464