Digital Photo Professional?

[kitschenalia]

As recommended by some of you I've been playing with this, editing all my fave shots. Getting the hang of it, but all I seem to be able to do is the following:

White balance
Automatic tone curve assist
Brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness
Cropping
Stamp tool (no idea what this is)

Also I see that I can move lines on the histogram for different effects although don't understand these yet.... so - is this it? I can't edit individually areas of a picture, e.g. selective colouring?

thanks

 

[purpleclouds]

DPP allows you to edit the basics with RAW files and a bit less with the JPEG files.

You will need a separate editing program like Photoshop, Elements or GIMP (free) to actually manipulate them

 

[kitschenalia]

thanks so much Purpleclouds. I've been shooting in standard format but must remember to switch to RAW as suggested by someone here. So - that's the diff between edit/manipulate then Dare I ask how much Photoshop or Elements are? Is GIMP any good (despite it's terrifying name)?

 

[Chaz Photos]

ACR will let you do a lots more with CS4 you can ad filters like Grad NDs, spot healing, cropping, whitelight, selective colour adjustment converting to B&W and much more

 

[purpleclouds]

Editing (at least how I'd define it) is modifying any of the parameters you point out (so white balance, sharpness, contrast etc), whereas manipulating would be doing non-standard or unique work such as selective colouring!

Photoshop: Hundreds
Elements: Tens
GIMP: Used it once or twice and it seemed good, but I've always had access to at least Elements! Download it from here and give it a go

 

[kitschenalia]

Purpleclouds, will give that a go, thanks!

Chaz, embarassingly, I don't know what ACR or CS4 is (please don't all give up on me now!).

 

[kitschenalia]

Oh Purpleclouds what a shame, I just get an Error message when I hit download!

 

[purpleclouds]

Purpleclouds, will give that a go, thanks!

Chaz, embarassingly, I don't know what ACR or CS4 is (please don't all give up on me now!).

ACR comes in to play when you shoot in RAW format, and is how Adobe CS4 (the current range of programs) reads the image file... don't worry about that right now!

 

[purpleclouds]

Oh Purpleclouds what a shame, I just get an Error message when I hit download!

Me too actually, try again in a few hours they might be updating or something!

Edit - You can download a 30 day trial of Photoshop from here too

 

[kitschenalia]

Ah ok, so Chaz means that I can do a wider range of editing with Raw files I will try again soon - thanks!

 

[coldpenguin]

Gimp is a very powerful editor.
However, as I am used to photoshop, I find it a little counter-intuitive.
If you have no knowledge/preference to start with, it might be worthwhile giving gimp a really good stab.

 

[kitschenalia]

thanks coldpenguin

 

[Chaz Photos]

Purpleclouds, will give that a go, thanks!

Chaz, embarassingly, I don't know what ACR or CS4 is (please don't all give up on me now!).

Yes sorry ACR is Adobe Camera Raw and is shipped with Photoshop CS4 the current version of Photoshop

 

[kitschenalia]

thanks Chaz

 

[donky7]

i started with ellements 2 a few years ago, a loverly program for tinkering around...

since then i've got 3, 5, 6 & 7...........

pm sent.

 

[kitschenalia]

thanks donky - will go look now