DPP, Lightoom or Photoshop

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rabaroo

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Hi

I'm an expert in none of these, but have always tended towards Photoshop (as its the best?) or Lightroom (As its simple to use) as opposed to looking closer to home and using DPP.

I've just started looking at a few of my pictures now, and following DPP tools palette it seems quite straight forward to improve my pictures as taken, rather than getting into the very complex capabilities Lightroom/Photoshop have.....

I've managed to produce "similar" results now between DPP and Lightroom, but DPP "seemed" easier and more intuitive to get there.... Lightroom just presents me loads of options and I seem to play with sliders with no real flow through - with DPP I check the white-balance; picture style, then do sharpening, contrast and brightness etc.....

Does anyone else have any views on if DPP is truly comparable to Lightroom/Photoshop, or should I plod on with the latter..... I guess my thought process currently on this is that DPP knows how my specific camera takes the picture and produces the CR2 - so there may be some optimisation there; whereas with Lightroom/Photoshop I create a DNG file that I then have to figure out how to optimise myself.... or is that just a load of b^&^&&&????

Cheers
 
is the DPP the software that came with the canon cam?

Anyway I use that software to import the images in straight from the camera into which ever folder (by date) From here I either:

a) quick check through and adjustments for sharpness and saturation, little tweaks and export these to a folder normally for friend/model as unedited versions.

b) using lightroom 2 I import into a new catalogue ie move and rename the files from the imported ones via DPP to an area for my light room catalogue.

Then I go through flagging and picking ones to work on., once they have been processed I flag them a different colour and export those as editted ones (cross processed, B&W and ones with bigger edits.

i think you can do very similar things in lightroom as DPP and if you come back from a shoot with 600-700 shots lightroom makes the work flow MUCH easier!

thats what have used
 
Don't forget Capture One software, very capable, just a bit quirky in it;s implementation
 
Lightroom and ACR in Photoshop can seem a bit daunting with all the option. Remember though you don't have to use them all.

However DPP in it's latest form does do a very good job, plus it's free. If you don't feel constrained by DPP then why not use it.

I would also say that DPP is a good introduction to RAW image processing. Some people find it does all they want. I'd have a look at some the tutorials that are around on Lightroom to see if the additional controls would be a help to you, if not stick with DPP
 
Off course the main advantage of Lightroom is that you can clone,add gradiants, vignettes and a host of other things to your images and veiw and print them without ever having to produce a second bulky Tiff file.;)
 
I downloaded the trial version of lightroom a couple of weeks ago and to be honest found it a bit intimidating at first but the more I've got in to it the easier I'm finding it, just got to get the funds together for the full version now.
 
I think they are all slightly different tools.

DPP will render your RAW files the best, but you will probably still need to use something like PS to do the final touches.

Lightroom you can stay in the one program from capture to print/output to web, without needing to use anything else. However it is more expensive than DPP.

Photoshop gives you a lot more options that either DPP or Lightroom and is probably more suited to the perfectly process a handful of images, rather than getting loads of images processed and online in the shortest time possible (Lightroom's forte). It is even more expensive than Lightroom.

If you feel DPP works best for your workflow go with that, everyone has a different workflow and it is a case of what works for you, rather than what everyone else thinks is the best for them.
 
I think LR is brilliant, once you have had a little play around it becomes really easy to use IMO. I got Scott Kelbys book along with it to help me learn how to use it best!
 
I was using DPP and I quite liked it, only thing missing is a rotate. So I use LR now. I only use PS for heavy editing but I don't do much of that.
 
matt_wright said:
I think LR is brilliant, once you have had a little play around it becomes really easy to use IMO. I got Scott Kelbys book along with it to help me learn how to use it best!
Click to expand...

Dont get me wrong; LR is an awesome tool and I much prefer it for speed/simplicity to Photoshop.

I think I just found DPP more intuitive for making some basic but significant improvements to my photos - whereas with LR I get sucked into playing with all the options and as a result take more time, understand less and I think produce inferior results.
 
rabaroo said:
Dont get me wrong; LR is an awesome tool and I much prefer it for speed/simplicity to Photoshop.

I think I just found DPP more intuitive for making some basic but significant improvements to my photos - whereas with LR I get sucked into playing with all the options and as a result take more time, understand less and I think produce inferior results.
Click to expand...

Almost a 'less is more' situation?
 
matt_wright said:
I think LR is brilliant, once you have had a little play around it becomes really easy to use IMO. I got Scott Kelbys book along with it to help me learn how to use it best!
Click to expand...

:plusone: for Scott Kelby's book Lightroom 2.

I've used Photoshop for years, played with DPP, learnt Bridge, etc.

For me, Lightroom has improved my image-file management, processing speed and editing consistency. I only very occasionally need to fire up Photoshop now.

Follow Kelby's workflow, superb :clap:
 
Another benefit of DPP is when you shoot in Monochrome, when you download the photos to DPP they open as Mono. When you download direct to photoshop they open as colour. Thats not to say I'm knocking Photoshop because I use CS3 myself and think it's great. I particularly find Batch Processing in camera Raw excellent as it's really fast by comparison wih DPP. However there is no substitute for getting the photo right when shot and keeping image processing to a minimum. Software to do this comes down a lot to personal choice, but don't undervalue what you have and only spend on PS and the like if you feel it's a justifiable investment.
 
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