ImageBrowser EX or Digital Photo Professional

[RossK]

Hi,
I've just taken my first photos with a Canon 6D and downloaded the software to edit the pictures before printing.
Could someone tell me please if there will be any difference in the results I get by using ImageBrowser EX's edit function compared to Digital Photo Professional's Tool Palette.
Being a beginner, I'm only going to start by adjusting brightness, tone, saturation, contrast - so do both typs of software do this equally well?

I presume cropping (ImageBrowser) as opposed to trimming (DPP) produces the same results if i put 7 and 5 in the custom size for 7in x 5in prints.

The problem when I tried DPP was that whenever I did change something on the image like brightness and then I clicked Save As, while the new brighter version appeared in DPP, there was no sign of the new brighter version of the image in my original folder which contained all my original pictures in the Mypictures folder, nor was it in the desktop folder. And as I don't print my own images - I upload them on to Truprint's site - it's the Mypictures folder that I use to upload them all to Truprint. So I want any edited images I create to appear in Mypictures

Thanks for any tips

[cicopo]

I rarely use DPP but it's for processing your RAW (CR2) files and when you finish your editing you use the CONVERT & SAVE under the Files tab. This creates a jpg without changing the original file. Once you have the jpg you can use whatever other software you like to crop etc. If you don't use the Convert & Save command you haven't saved your edits into a jpg and therefore can't upload it to the many popular share sites or to get prints etc.

[RossK]

Thanks Cicopo.

Do you therefore use ImageBrowser EX to crop and change contrast/brightness etc and find that gives good results?

You're right "convert and save" works.  

Forgive me if this is a stupid beginner's question, but before I used my 6D I went to the menu settings on the camera and chose jpeg rather than RAW.   I read the DPP user guide which had a long section about editing RAW and then a long section about editing Jpeg, and mentioned converting RAW to jpeg, but I thought that as I'd originally taken all my photos with the camera set to jpeg I wouldn't need to worry about anything being RAW or any converting - I assumed I'd be editing jpegs from the start?

Thanks Ross

[cicopo]

Because I don't depend on either of them as my editors (I have Photoshop & Picasa) my advice is to play around in each using the same image to see which you like best, gives a better set of adjustments or simply is easier to learn. To me DPP was always considered a RAW editor & I haven't tried using it with jpg's but any time I get new software I spend at least an evening just playing around with all the sliders or whatever other controls it uses to see what can be done .

[portroad]

Ross,

When you make changes to either a RAW or JPEG file in DPP, the software is storing what Canon calls a "recipe" for those changes in the image. It is never changing the original image pixels but rather applying the recipe steps you've created. So if you use the Save function it is storing the recipe in the image, and when you use Save As it is storing the recipe in a copy of the image, and when you use Convert and Save it is converting to a more "universal" JPEG or TIFF format and applying the recipe to the resulting image so that if you upload the file to a photo sharing site or print it from another app you will be viewing or printing the modified file.

Regards,

Jeff

[RossK]

Thanks Jeff,  That makes sense and I've tried the 3 variations after modifying a DPP image to give it a new recipe.

1.  When after modifying  I just click "Save" (rather than "Save As") it doesn't offer me the opportunity to save it to anywhere.  Just the DPP image gets modified, but the folder one in Pictures hasn't changed - so I don't really see the point in that.

2.  My first post is now out of date.  Now, after modifying when I click "Save As" to save the copy to my holiday photos folder in Pictures, I am now managing to get a copy - but still WITHOUT the modification.  While the copy in DPP does show the modification, unfortunately the new copy in the folder doesn't contain the changes.   so if I upload the folder to the Truprint printing company's website I'm ending up with 2 idential versions of the original, but nothing with my modified improvements?

3.   So I tried Convert and Save.  Like in 2 above I got a copy.  But the copy looked like the original with none of the improvements appearing.

So I can't seem to find a way to get an improved modified image on to Truprint for printing

Regards,

[portroad]

Ross,

The result you got in your point number two (Save as...) is correct. Again, it is just making a copy of the image with the recipe information attached but not performed on the image.

To your third point, Convert and save, when I make changes to an image in DPP and use the Convert and save option, the resulting JPEG that is created has the changes applied. I just ran through it with a test image to see if there was some checkbox or something you might be missing but I didn't see any. Very strange that you would not get an image that has the recipe permanently applied so that the result, when copied to some other place like Dropbox or emailed to a friend, would not have the changes.

Jeff

[RossK]

Hey presto!  Hi Jeff,  I appreciate your "trial" and help - it worked

 I tried again to convert and save and this time there was a copy in my folder in pictures with the changes incorporated.   And the original version was there too so it's a copy - is that what you found, you had the original and the copy?

Just one final question that I asked on the forum earlier but no-one explained.   I took all the photos with my camera menu setting on large jpeg and NOT Raw  (as I thought jpegs use less computer memory).    So why if I took them as jpegs am I now in DPP  having to convert and save as I thought this is for converting RAW to jpeg?

(Now I've worked it out in DPP, I'll have a go using "save as" in ImageBrowser Ex which is a bit quicker and easier but having never printed or enlarged yet, I don't know if the quality of the edits is any worse, or the same as in  DPP.  DPP sounds a bit more professional!)

[RossK]

Actually, sorry Jeff, there was one last question.  It sounds a bit scary converting - as if I might lose something for good - so is there any disadvantages when I do that?
Mind you, although there's still only one image on DPP which looks like the modified one,  in my folder I seem to have the converted copy AND one that looks like the original.  So is the original still there with all the same info should I need to go back to it.  (I suppose this matters most when cropping as sometimes I like to print the original wide angle version, and also crop and print a tighter version).
Really appreciate your help 

[cicopo]

You're line of thinking is correct in that you want to keep the original jpg & create a new modified copy. It's not a good idea to make irreversible edits to the original so once you know how to save the edits as a new file (I like to put them into a new folder) you are safe. When working with RAW files (you have much more control with a RAW file) the software always creates a new file because we can't actually modify the RAW. We see the changes on screen but they aren't applied to the RAW but will be saved as a jpg (which is a compressed file format) or a TIF which is a full file without any compression applied, & they can be very large files.