Do you prefer DPP or Lightroom

[John_SD]

I haven't tried Lightroom, so I cannot comment on its benefits or shotcomings. I am just starting to dip my toes into DPP, and while I am far from conversant about it's intracacies, benefits and quirks, I feel that for now it will be sufficient for my needs. 

A real benefit of DPP, in my view is that it's free -- and it seems robust in its abilities, of which I haven't yet scratched the surface. But so far I like what i see.

Do you guys feel stongly about one product or the other? If so, why? 

[TTMartin]

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@RobertTheFat wrote:

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@TTMartin wrote:

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@Peter wrote:

In my opinion DPP is a good start because the images look like the ones in your camera. With a few adjustments your images are ready to be exported as jpg. What I really miss with DPP is a good shadow/highlight tool. 

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In DPP 4 use the vertical bars with the white triangles in the histogram to control shadows and highlights.

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That's only the beginning. There are also sliders for brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, and saturation. And you can adjust the color values either globally or with three separate adjustments for each of six colors.

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Most people only try the sliders which give a very limited (fine tuning) range of adjustement. It is the histogram vertical bar adjustments which match what you can do in Lightroom. That is what people unfamiliar with DPP think it lacks compared to Lightroom.

[RobertTheFat]

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@TTMartin wrote:

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@RobertTheFat wrote:

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@TTMartin wrote:

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@Peter wrote:

In my opinion DPP is a good start because the images look like the ones in your camera. With a few adjustments your images are ready to be exported as jpg. What I really miss with DPP is a good shadow/highlight tool. 

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In DPP 4 use the vertical bars with the white triangles in the histogram to control shadows and highlights.

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That's only the beginning. There are also sliders for brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, and saturation. And you can adjust the color values either globally or with three separate adjustments for each of six colors.

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Most people only try the sliders which give a very limited (fine tuning) range of adjustement. It is the histogram vertical bar adjustments which match what you can do in Lightroom. That is what people unfamiliar with DPP think it lacks compared to Lightroom.

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On the histogram, the left vertical bar affects contrast (but usually not as much as the contrast slider), and the right affects brightness. Neither has much to do with highlights or shadows, for which sliders are provided.

[Waddizzle]

"On the histogram, the left vertical bar affects contrast (but usually not as much as the contrast slider), and the right affects brightness. Neither has much to do with highlights or shadows, for which sliders are provided."

Actually, those histogram adjustments have a direct effect on highlights, shadows, and contrast.  The histogram allows you set thresholds, so that you can pick out the areas you want to adjust, while the sliders apply their adjustments to the entire image.

[TTMartin]

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@RobertTheFat wrote:

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@TTMartin wrote:

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@RobertTheFat wrote:

---

@TTMartin wrote:

---

@Peter wrote:

In my opinion DPP is a good start because the images look like the ones in your camera. With a few adjustments your images are ready to be exported as jpg. What I really miss with DPP is a good shadow/highlight tool. 

---

In DPP 4 use the vertical bars with the white triangles in the histogram to control shadows and highlights.

---

That's only the beginning. There are also sliders for brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, and saturation. And you can adjust the color values either globally or with three separate adjustments for each of six colors.

---

Most people only try the sliders which give a very limited (fine tuning) range of adjustement. It is the histogram vertical bar adjustments which match what you can do in Lightroom. That is what people unfamiliar with DPP think it lacks compared to Lightroom.

---

On the histogram, the left vertical bar affects contrast (but usually not as much as the contrast slider), and the right affects brightness. Neither has much to do with highlights or shadows, for which sliders are provided.

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It is actually the midpoint vertical bar that has the most impact on bringing shadows up and highlights down.

edit: you could not adjust the mid-point in DPP 3, that is a change and a big plus for DPP 4.

[Waddizzle]

"Most people only try the sliders which give a very limited (fine tuning) range of adjustement. It is the histogram vertical bar adjustments which match what you can do in Lightroom. That is what people unfamiliar with DPP think it lacks compared to Lightroom"

That is what people unfamiliar with LR think about it.

LR gives you far more nuance and control over light and dark highlights.  The Detail window pane is showing you some of what LR can do when it comes to noise reduction.

[RobertTheFat]

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@Waddizzle wrote:

"Most people only try the sliders which give a very limited (fine tuning) range of adjustement. It is the histogram vertical bar adjustments which match what you can do in Lightroom. That is what people unfamiliar with DPP think it lacks compared to Lightroom"

That is what people unfamiliar with LR think about it.

LR gives you far more nuance and control over light and dark highlights.  The Detail window pane is showing you some of what LR can do when it comes to noise reduction.

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I guess LR's nuance depends on knowing what "clarity" and "vibrance" mean. As it happens, I don't. 

[jrhoffman75]

Clarity adjusts mid-tone contrast

Vibrance affects saturation in a smart method. Does not affect colors that are already saturated and also protects skin tones. 

[John_SD]

Out of curiosity, I went to the Adobe Lightroom site to check its price. I was delighted to see the BUY button at the top right of the page, which I clicked, expecting to be presented with a...wait for it....price to BUY the product.

Instead, I was offered two options:

1. Annual plan, paid monthly

2. Annual plan, prepaid

Option 1 requires rental payments of $9.99 a month.

Option 2 requires a yearly rental payment of $119.88 a year. 

What the hell?

It is this kind of trickery and deception that turns me off. 

[Waddizzle]

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@John_SD wrote:

Out of curiosity, I went to the Adobe Lightroom site to check its price. I was delighted to see the BUY button at the top right of the page, which I clicked, expecting to be presented with a...wait for it....price to BUY the product.

Instead, I was offered two options:

1. Annual plan, paid monthly

2. Annual plan, prepaid

Option 1 requires rental payments of $9.99 a month.

Option 2 requires a yearly rental payment of $119.88 a year. 

What the hell?

It is this kind of trickery and deception that turns me off. 

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Don't buy it directly from Adobe.  I bought LR6, with a stand alone license, from B&H Photo Video.  

If you install a standalone version, I highly recommend that you stay away from any Creative Cloud trials because it may compromise your stand alone license.  I know it did mine.  If you want to participate in a CC trial, then create a separate Adobe account and use an entirely different platform from the one where you installed LR6.

[digital]

I use all 3. DPP, LR and PS.

DPP has come a long way over the years, I never liked it's resizing algorithums but in recent tests I was impressed. I became facsinated with DLO which offers true deconvolution at the capture stage. The downfall is it takes 7 seconds for DLO to do it's thing and another 36 seconds to convert a file. OK for a handful but when you get into a 100 files. There is no way to activate DLO in the preferences. You can in the camera but then you get a reduced burst rate warning. The other option is to create and save recipe and later apply to mutiple images.

DPP does a great job with colour but the highlight recovery and other adjustments are just not as good as Adobe and there are no local adjustments. The one excllent thing about DPP is veiwing and culling using Quick Check and full screen. DPP's full screen sizing has some magic to it. I have yet to find a viewer that looks as good. I always cull using DPP before using it or importing into LR.

LR is the workhorse for multlple fiie edting. I have found that if you match the camera proflle to DPP it is pretty close. It will never be perfect. I just applied some tweaks to the colours to kiil the yellows which are more predominent using Adobe. The setting of personal defualts that auto apply when you import a folder is the cat's meow.                                                                      

I use PS for my hobby shots. I have a custon resizing and edge sharpening action I really like to use. Unlike LR I like to see the final product before saving.    

I use Standalone LR 6.9 and CS6. I will not go subcription. DNG's work just as good if I want to go directly into PS. I can transfer a file to PS from DPP or to PS from LR as well.