I have yet to order Lightroom and PS, and have just downloaded the Canon software for my 5DIII onto my iMac. What, if any of the programs would I or should I keep one I have my other software?
Digital Photo Professional
EOS Utility (I'm guessing that's a keeper)
Camera Window
Picture Style Editor
Image Browser EX
Coming from a PC, it is interesting trying to learn new software and a new computer platform at the same time. The Mac is slightly less intuitive than I thought it would be. Need some more fumbling around time.
I also have to figure out how to get the firmware update onto the CF card from this machine. When I try to load the update onto the card, I get an error that the computer doesn't recognize the file type and is offering an app for $3.99 to read it. That seems funky. So much to learn.
EOS Utility is useful if you will ever do tethered shooting, as Lightroom still doesn't support 5D III and EOS Utility allows more control of the camera - like manual focus.
In the latest DPP, there's a feature called Digital Lens Optimizer that can do some serious improvement to images taken with certain Canon lenses. Doing the raw conversion in DPP for files made with one of those lenses can yield results that you might like better; it's worth experimenting.
What Ernie said. The DLO is quite impressive with some lenses.
You may want the Canon utilities as well, since they provide access to tethered functions.
I'm not such a fan of LR as most. I actually removed that one.
Great. I appreciate the input. I'm upgrading to Mountain Lion at the moment, but I shall do the trial of LR as soon as I can. I'll let the others hang around a while and see.
Keep. As stated above, disk space is cheap. Windows 7 is very stable and handles high standard software (well-behaved software) very well. Both Windows and Macs try to be smarter than you are, which is a mistake if they don't give you options at every point.
Canon DPP is an excellent Raw converter, but is desperately missing keywording on the Lightroom level (or even the Bridge level). It's UI is a bit clunky, but it gets the job done for basic adjustments in conversion.
DPP now has DLO (Canon's Digital Lens Optimizer) which is very good. The data is "straight from the horse's mouth", as the saying goes.
Arun Gupta wrote:
Disk space is cheap, no need to delete these tools which may prove to be useful sometime or other. No more disk space than a few dozen 5d3 RAW files.
It's not the disk space it's the tentacles the programs send into the operating system.
I'd keep DPP and Camera Window (if you'll use it) and uninstall the rest. For me I just have DPP.
I never use the Canon software - aside from entering some user text that is in my EXIF - but I've left it installed on my computer... So take that for what its worth. :-)
Dan
Dennis M 1064 wrote:
I have yet to order Lightroom and PS, and have just downloaded the Canon software for my 5DIII onto my iMac. What, if any of the programs would I or should I keep one I have my other software?
Digital Photo Professional
EOS Utility (I'm guessing that's a keeper)
Camera Window
Picture Style Editor
Image Browser EX
Coming from a PC, it is interesting trying to learn new software and a new computer platform at the same time. The Mac is slightly less intuitive than I thought it would be. Need some more fumbling around time.
I also have to figure out how to get the firmware update onto the CF card from this machine. When I try to load the update onto the card, I get an error that the computer doesn't recognize the file type and is offering an app for $3.99 to read it. That seems funky. So much to learn....Show more →
Keep the Canon software.
Many prefer Lightroom here, but I like DPP, and as others have mentioned,
DLO is a very helpful feature in DPP for certain lenses.
I am a luddite but use dpp for most processing. Dont use Zoom Browser myself but it has a raw viewer. Heard dpp color preferred by some.
Id keep them all.
I use CS5, Aperture 3.3 and DPP. They're all good tools. With that said, I use Aperture 90% of the time for RAW conversion and basic tweaks and CS5 for heavy processing and printing prep. However, as chunky as DPP is, it sometimes will effortlessly nail a troublesome RAW conversion that bests many minutes of toil in ACR or Aperture. So it's a great tool to keep for when you need it. And, yes, the lens distortion and optimize feature are amazing. Sometimes I use DPP just for those things. I really wish Canon made these features available as PS/Aperture/LR plugin.
Dennis M 1064 wrote:
I also have to figure out how to get the firmware update onto the CF card from this machine. When I try to load the update onto the card, I get an error that the computer doesn't recognize the file type and is offering an app for $3.99 to read it. That seems funky. So much to learn.
Just drag the xyz.fir from your download folder to the CF card image (or window if it's open) You don't need to try to open it.
