Canon DPP Questions ???

I have had Canon DPP on my computer since 2013 and, sad to say, had not taken time to learn much about it; and, although I have folders upon folders full of RAW files, as of yet I have used it very little.

That being said, I took a bunch of family photos at a Christmas gathering; pouring the rain outside, so all pictures were taken indoors.

I decided these images would be good candidates for me to practice on with DPP.

I was amazed at the clarity and razor sharpness of the images after just the least bit of my fumbling around in DPP; I was sold on using RAW whenever and wherever I can from now on.

I converted/saved my DPP images as 8-bit TIFF on account of my Elements 7 being very limited with what it can do with 16-bit files.

I was really proud of my DPP results; however, when I opened the TIFF files in Elements, they no longer were so crisp and sharp.

They looked plenty good enough, but not nearly so impressive as when viewing them in DPP.

Did I do something wrong to cause this or is it just the way of things ?


Thanks for reading.

I don't use DPP or Elements so I have to limit my comments to your conversion. When you convert an image to 8 bit from 16 you are throwing away a ton of data. Your 16 bit images were being displayed with gamut and dynamic range that may not exist in the 8 bit format, particularly if you have done a lot of editing on those 16 bit images that took advantage of the extra bit depth. There may be other issues at play with Elements that I'm unaware of. Hopefully someone else will chime in who can shed some more light on things.

Heya,

You were probably viewing the profile from the tab adjustments, etc, and when you saved as a TIF instead of JPG from DPP, it didn't apply those things to the file.

The TIF can be worked a lot in your processing software. Otherwise, adjust as you wish in DPP, export as JPG and compare.

Very best,

I too was late to discover the image quality that DPP delivers.

Sharpness should be compared between applications at 100% view, since they use different algorithms for the real time downsizing to full size view on the monitor.

8-bit TIFFs are perfect for the sRGB color space and OK for Adobe RGB (if you don't plan doing big color changes later in Elements). In DPP, only Wide Gamut RGB would demand 16 bits, but then the image must contain some very saturated colors to require Wide Gamut in the first place.

Thanks, everyone, for your input and knowledge.


MalVeauX, are you saying, since I am next taking the DPP image into Elements 7 for final polishing up, I would be better served to save the DPP files as jpeg, rather that TIFF ?

Is there a step I may have missed that would have applied my DPP work to the TIFF file ?

Is there anything special I need do to apply my DPP work to the jpeg file ?


Sorry to be so full of questions; thanks for reading.

When you plan to further edit the image in Elements, it's definitely better to have it in TIFF, since a JPEG file would be re-compressed each time you re-save it, with quality gradually decreasing.

BuckSkin wrote in post #17834733
Thanks, everyone, for your input and knowledge.


MalVeauX, are you saying, since I am next taking the DPP image into Elements 7 for final polishing up, I would be better served to save the DPP files as jpeg, rather that TIFF ?

Is there a step I may have missed that would have applied my DPP work to the TIFF file ?

Is there anything special I need do to apply my DPP work to the jpeg file ?


Sorry to be so full of questions; thanks for reading.

Heya,

No I'm just saying to compare. So change settings on your image in DPP and export as JPG and TIF, and load those in Elements 7, full screen. 100% a spot on the same image in both pieces of software. Compare the DPP "preview" image and compare your output JPG and TIF with a side by side. Look at sharpness, color, etc.

When I do this, you can see a difference. Canon's DPP uses it's own algorithms for reading and rendering. I find the color to be a little warmer in DPP than in my Photoshop CS5 settings, on the same monitor. I find Canon's DPP to show more grain from ISO, underexpose, and it is a touch sharper, than how it appears as a TIF (I don't look at the JPG as compression effects the appearance of sharpness & grain). It's slight. I don't see a significant difference in sharpness, but the grain appearance makes it seem so. But that's at 100% pixel peeping level. At regular view, I see no difference other than the appearance of the grain, they look slightly different to me.

The point is to help you figure out if what you're seeing is different from DPP, or not.

Lots of software display differently and render differently. I find my Photomatrix displays with more contrast than there is. I find my DPP display with a little more warmth than there is. My CS5 seems to reveal that on both.

It'll help ease your mind if you compare.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #17834749
Heya,

No I'm just saying to compare. So change settings on your image in DPP and export as JPG and TIF, and load those in Elements 7, full screen. 100% a spot on the same image in both pieces of software. Compare the DPP "preview" image and compare your output JPG and TIF with a side by side. Look at sharpness, color, etc.

When I do this, you can see a difference. Canon's DPP uses it's own algorithms for reading and rendering. I find the color to be a little warmer in DPP than in my Photoshop CS5 settings, on the same monitor. I find Canon's DPP to show more grain from ISO, underexpose, and it is a touch sharper, than how it appears as a TIF (I don't look at the JPG as compression effects the appearance of sharpness & grain). It's slight. I don't see a significant difference in sharpness, but the grain appearance makes it seem so. But that's at 100% pixel peeping level. At regular view, I see no difference other than the appearance of the grain, they look slightly different to me.

The point is to help you figure out if what you're seeing is different from DPP, or not.

Lots of software display differently and render differently. I find my Photomatrix displays with more contrast than there is. I find my DPP display with a little more warmth than there is. My CS5 seems to reveal that on both.

It'll help ease your mind if you compare.

Very best,

Thanks for explaining further; I better understand now.

agedbriar wrote in post #17834746
When you plan to further edit the image in Elements, it's definitely better to have it in TIFF, since a JPEG file would be re-compressed each time you re-save it, with quality gradually decreasing.

Thanks.

Then TIFF it will be.

I save everything from Elements two ways, PSD and it's matching jpeg; any future editing/manipulating is always done on the PSD; the jpeg is just so I can view it in programs that may not recognize PSD.

? ? ? ANOTHER DPP QUESTION ? ? ?


When I am working on RAW files in DPP, I have noticed when I click "SAVE", it saves my work onto the RAW file almost instantaneously; but, when I select "convert and save", it takes quite some time for it to create the TIFF file.

Can I just save the enhanced RAW files until I get them all finished and then convert them all at a later time ?

If I just click "SAVE", when I retrieve the RAW file later for conversion, will my enhanced version be the one that gets converted or do I need to "save recipe to file" or whatever ?


Thanks for reading.

BuckSkin wrote in post #17834881
? ? ? ANOTHER DPP QUESTION ? ? ?


When I am working on RAW files in DPP, I have noticed when I click "SAVE", it saves my work onto the RAW file almost instantaneously; but, when I select "convert and save", it takes quite some time for it to create the TIFF file.

Can I just save the enhanced RAW files until I get them all finished and then convert them all at a later time ?

If I just click "SAVE", when I retrieve the RAW file later for conversion, will my enhanced version be the one that gets converted or do I need to "save recipe to file" or whatever ?


Thanks for reading.

Heya,

RAW isn't really an "image" file. It's just a proprietary library of data in it's own way. The data is read and rendered by DPP's engine. This is Canon's proprietary stuff though, which is why it's fast, it's optimized to their algorithms. Converting and saving to another file container requires it to be encoded. Converting to a TIF makes it an actual image container, and fills it with data, lossless data, and very generic data so that everything can read it without special algorithms to uncompress or decode phrases, so to speak. So they are huge.

When you save the settings you did to the RAW file, it's just saving the properties, not changing the data. So it's instant because it's just keeping a table basically of properties, but it's not recoding or compiling the data all over. Just that little table. When you convert/save as a different container (TIF, JPG) it completely gets recoded & compiled as something completely different, so that takes time and CPU power and drastically changes file size (up and down!).

You can save all your RAW settings you apply so that later you can convert them without re-processing or re-doing it. And of course, you can also revert back to no settings changed. That's the beauty of RAW. I keep RAW so I can go back and re-process if I want with new technique, or just a new idea, etc. I delete the TIF after I have processed and finalized a JPG. I post JPG. I even print high quality JPG. For critical prints, I print TIF. I then save the RAW's, they're small compared to TIF's, and I keep JPG's since they take up next to no space relative to today's storage capacities.

Very best,

Thank you, MalVeauX; that bit you said about discarding the TIFF and keeping the RAW has made me rethink the plan I was intending to follow.

The way you explained about always being able to return straight to the horse's mouth (RAW), so to speak, is good wisdom; if one always has the original RAW, one can make all the TIFFs and jpegs one desires.

Thanks.