Hello, and welcome to what I hope will become a very long and popular thread. I am new to digital photography, and the members of this board have been immensely helpful to me in the short couple of months I've owned my Digital Rebel XT. In fact, I got a fix for over 100 Christmas party photos I shot with an incorrect white balance from the folks here, when it was hopelessly beyond reach of my capabilities at the time. You members here are the greatest.
Why am I starting this? Well, digital cameras are selling at such a clip, we're likely getting new members all the time. As a digital noobie (used to be fairly expert with film, but there's quite a learning curve on the change), I know I've been overwhelmed by the information here, so I'm attempting to focus it a bit. Adobe PhotoShop seems to be the big standard here, but Canon cameras ship with DPP and ArcSoft photoStudio, and it's my impression that these programs are fairly powerful for new digital shooters. Notice I did not say, just as good. . .but they are certainly adequate to keep someone learning digital photography happy for a long time. And, having just spent about $3-Large on camera, lenses, printer, and paraphernalia, my wife would take a dim view of my spending hundreds more on post-processing software when I have capable, and FREE stuff already. This thread is not about "my program is better than your program", it's about DPP and photoStudio, because that's what we have.
So here are the rules! . . .
Rule #1 In an open forum, of course, you may post whatever you like. However, traditionally, the starter of a thread is afforded the courtesy of defining the scope of the discussion in a thread, so this is more of a strongly stated request than a rule. This is about DPP and ArcSoft photoStudio, and of course that implies that THIS IS NOT ABOUT ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, RAW SHOOTER, OR ANY OTHER PROGRAMS! This can be a thread for request for help with a specific problem like I had, a request about a technical aspect of either program, a post with a "hey, look at the neat thing I did!", whatever you like. But please don't post about Photoshop here unless it is directly helpful to question at hand . It is, frankly, just annoying. Ask yourself this question, “Will this help the last poster learn how to work in DPP and ArcSoft photoStudio, or will it encourage the last poster?” If not, please discipline yourself to not post anything. That’s pretty simple, isn’t it? Lot’s of “well in Photoshop I’d do this” or “if you had shot RAW in the first place you wouldn’t have this issue” are just clutter to us. Annoying clutter, at that. Thank you very much.
Rule #2 If a person asks a question about JPG processing, please do not chime in with, "Do a search, this has been discussed a million times before" That, too, is unhelpful and annoying. You see, sometimes I do a lot of searching, but because I’m not fully up to speed on post-processing jargon, I often don’t know what to search for, or I don’t understand what I’m reading when I find something. Again, if you’re tempted to post that, at least here, please resist your urge and just click somewhere else. It’s probably OK to say ‘go search’ on simple questions like “What’s a good portrait lens?” But if someone comes here with a vexing issue on a botched JPG that they can’t figure out because all this digital stuff is overwhelming to them, let’s give them an answer, OK?
DPP and photoStudio don’t get the thread traffic that the other programs do, so I think this thread will become immensely popular to what I have to believe is a tremendous number of neophyte digital photographers who have these two free programs from Canon. Thanks in advance for all the help I know you folks will provide.
I’ll start off with the first post in a moment. Let the DPP and photoStudio fun begin!
John
