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Archive 2010 · DPP Workflow questions

  
 
Jeff Kingston
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · DPP Workflow questions


I am hoping that the pros on this site will have some wisdom to share.

I shoot a 5DII and 7D mostly with L lenses (or "as good as L" such as the TS-E90 tilt shift). I shoot raw 100% of the time. I have come to favor DPP for raw processing. Yes I have Lightroom, but the difference in the way the shots look on my 23" monitors between DPP and Lightroom is enormous. I can only guess that Canon knows its own raw format better than Adobe. But the difference to my eyes is just huge--color, detail, noise etc all much better with DPP.

Here is my question. I have come to hate the fall off when the images are converted to jpg. My goodness when viewed on a big high def monitor it really is painful to see the loss going from raw seen in DPP to jpg with Windows viewer (and I can look at things side by side as I have two 23" monitors hooked up to my computer). So what to do? Keeping everything raw seems rather dumb. Convert to tiff? 16bit tiff is out of the question as a single 5DII file is 120MB!

So what are the practices of the pros out there. For the moment I am keeping most images as jpgs and offloading the raw files to a network attached storage device for safe keeping (pack rat that I am, I hate throwing them away).

Advice welcomed.

Jeff



Jun 14, 2010 at 12:03 PM
RDKirk
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · DPP Workflow questions


Here is my question. I have come to hate the fall off when the images are converted to jpg. My goodness when viewed on a big high def monitor it really is painful to see the loss going from raw seen in DPP to jpg with Windows viewer (and I can look at things side by side as I have two 23" monitors hooked up to my computer). So what to do? Keeping everything raw seems rather dumb. Convert to tiff? 16bit tiff is out of the question as a single 5DII file is 120MB!

Windows viewer? What do the JPEGs look like if you bring them up in Lightroom?

Be sure you have DPP set in preferences to use the same monitor profile as your operating system is using.



Jun 14, 2010 at 12:46 PM
LightShow
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · DPP Workflow questions


Keep your RAW files forever, for mainly 2 reasons,
Improvements in raw processing and new file formats that will replace jpg.
I hate jpg, can't wait till it's replaced.
As for DPP, I don't mind using it at all, but then my monitor is my laptop for the next while.



Jun 14, 2010 at 12:54 PM
BluesWest
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · DPP Workflow questions


the difference in the way the shots look on my 23" monitors between DPP and Lightroom is enormous

Jeff, with RAW files from my 7D, I get excellent conversion using either ACR 6.1 or Aperture 3. The resulting images are easily equal to what I get from DPP, and in some cases better. I think the latest version of Lightroom uses the same conversion algorithm as ACR 6.1, so I don't understand why you are getting better results from DPP.

JG



Jun 14, 2010 at 12:54 PM
dhphoto
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · DPP Workflow questions


RDKirk wrote:
Be sure you have DPP set in preferences to use the same monitor profile as your operating system is using.


Indeed.

There is something very wrong here.

The converted jpegs (providing they are saved at approx 80-100% quality) should look effectively indistinguishable from the way the shots look in the DPP editing window.

This sounds like user error to me.

As far as the choice of converter, that's personal preference but LR3 is very very good and has a much better workflow and a HUGE number of useful features DPP does not have



Jun 14, 2010 at 12:55 PM
rscheffler
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · DPP Workflow questions


I don't know about Windows Viewer, but on the Mac system, if you use an app such as Preview, it will apply some sort of anti-aliasing or smoothing to images at certain magnifications. Could something similar be happening on Windows?

As for Jpeg... my preference is to output Tiff files from DPP, do additional adjustments in PS if necessary, then convert to Jpeg. I'll convert one set of untouched 'raw' Tiffs to JPEG at PS quality 12 as well as a fully processed set at a quality level of 10 or higher depending on the end use and trash the Tiffs (but I keep the RAW originals). I agree with dhphoto that at a decent Jpeg quality level you shouldn't see a huge difference compared to a Tiff conversion.



Jun 15, 2010 at 03:26 AM
Pixel Perfect
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · DPP Workflow questions


dhphoto wrote:
Indeed.

There is something very wrong here.

The converted jpegs (providing they are saved at approx 80-100% quality) should look effectively indistinguishable from the way the shots look in the DPP editing window.

This sounds like user error to me.

As far as the choice of converter, that's personal preference but LR3 is very very good and has a much better workflow and a HUGE number of useful features DPP does not have


+1

A full sized jpg saved at good quality should look almost the same if not the same (without extreme pixel peeping).

LR2 was about as good as DPP for IQ (IMO), LR3 fixes up the main weakenesses of NR and fine detail extraction and sharpening. The workflow differences are chalk and cheese. DPP is a great fall back when a new camera is released and no other RAW converter works yet.



Jun 15, 2010 at 03:33 AM
Gochugogi
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · DPP Workflow questions


I always output tweaked 16-bit TIFF from DPP. The file is robust and stands up well to additional processing in PS if needed. After additional processing in PS (mostly levels & minor color), I resize, sharpen for target size and "save as" JPEGs for web galleries, email, etc. The TIFF remains and serves as a master image. I can come back to it and use it as the basis of a 12x18 print or low rez web image. Just need to resize and sharpen as the main adjustments are done. Not much reason to shoot RAW if you're going straight to 8-bit JPEG masters. Sorta a waste of such high rez/bit rate gear too. You lose a lot of image information and the image goes south quickly with repeated edit/save cycles.


Jun 15, 2010 at 04:21 AM
dhphoto
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · DPP Workflow questions


Gochugogi wrote:
Not much reason to shoot RAW if you're going straight to 8-bit JPEG masters. Sorta a waste of such high rez/bit rate gear too. You lose a lot of image information and the image goes south quickly with repeated edit/save cycles.


I don't agree. I just keep the RAW files and the Lightroom or Capture One folders with all the adjustments, then I can go right back to the adjusted RAW file in a few seconds and I don't have to store huge tiff files.

Most of the adjustment is already done in my converted jpeg and I don't feel there's a significant quality loss if I save at a high enough quality setting.

David



Jun 15, 2010 at 04:48 AM
Pixel Perfect
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · DPP Workflow questions


LR allows you store adjustments in a small xmp file, so you can come back at any time and still have the adjuste settings available you used last time you opened the file. I only use 48 but tiffs as the intermediary for PS, then save as level 12 jpg. Sometims for certain files I'll save as an 24 bi tiff.


Jun 15, 2010 at 05:17 AM
Antje
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · DPP Workflow questions


Here's my workflow:

- Tag images in BreezeBrowser, then rank
- Convert the best ones in DPP to 16 bit Tiff, AdobeRGB
- Apply corrections, clone dust, whatever in PS
- Convert to 8bit, save as full size JPG (file looks different from now on in PS because it's a different colour space, I could change that, but I don't care)
- Convert to sRGB, resize to web, save as JPG
- post to Flickr.

In BB, the JPGs, Tiffs, and RAWs look the same if I didn't correct colour, levels, or exposure or whatever. Oh, and I store all my RAW files on two hard drives.

Antje



Jun 15, 2010 at 06:55 AM
Alan321
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · DPP Workflow questions


Jeff, I suspect that your Windows Viewer is not colour managed or is using a different colour profile to your DPP. That would account for an obvious difference between DPP's raw view and Windows' jpg view. As others have said, they ought to look pretty much the same.

I believe that the Windows 7 viewer is colour managed but I have no personal experience with windows 7. Prior versions were not colour managed and so you'd be lucky to ever get the right colours. DPP is colour managed but can be set to use the default Windows colour profile for your monitor or a specific (perhaps out of date) profile.

Also, I don't think Windows is too good at profiling two monitors simultaneously. It wasn't on earlier versions. Macs can do it nicely but I think you'd need to run two video cards on the windows box. If the monitors are different and are using the same video profile then comparing jpgs on one with raws on the other will give you colour errors.

- Alan



Jun 15, 2010 at 09:55 AM
dhphoto
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · DPP Workflow questions


Get Breezebrowser and/or the Faststone Image Viewer


Jun 15, 2010 at 10:53 AM
Gochugogi
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · DPP Workflow questions


dhphoto wrote:
I don't agree. I just keep the RAW files and the Lightroom or Capture One folders with all the adjustments, then I can go right back to the adjusted RAW file in a few seconds and I don't have to store huge tiff files.

Most of the adjustment is already done in my converted jpeg and I don't feel there's a significant quality loss if I save at a high enough quality setting.

David


While I can get many of my basic adjustments done in Aperture, I will often go back and work the image over in PS layers and mess with masks and plugins. Wouldn't want to be stuck with a JPEG for such work. If all your adjustments are done in LR and you never touch PS, a JPEG is fine. Not how I work...



Jun 15, 2010 at 04:32 PM





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