LR vs DPP - Workflow

Hi,

I used to shoot in JPG only. When I started shooting in RAW, I had already moved over to Lightroom so I never really used DPP. By not using DPP, am I missing something? Should I process my RAW files in DPP, create the XMP files and then import them into LR? I have already imported Canon Picture Style profiles into LR so I guess I can mimic what camera would have done if I was shooting in JPG.

Thanks.

LR will not read changes made in DPP (and vice-versa.) You must decide which RAW converter you want to use.

What version of LR are you using... the latest (2.1 and above, I think) have the Camera Matching profiles loaded already (nothing to import)... you access them through the calibration tab in the develop module.


Really, its up to you what you use. Obviously, LR has many tools DPP does not. Most people make the decision between the two BEFORE buying LR, as raw processing is one of its primary uses... some prefer the simplicity (and color) of DPP. With the profiles (and a little tweaking to the defaults) LR does excellent as well.

I'd say if you've already invested in LR, are using it to catalog your images... continue with that and not fragment your workflow if you don't really need to. If you're curious about DPP, go ahead and try it out (I usually experiement with each new version of DPP myself... just out of curiousity... but LR is my primary tool.)

I'd repeat what David said, but why bother?

If you are an LR user, no reason to just jump over, but DPP is a good reference tool to compare your LR results with what an in-camera jpeg would look like in the various Picture Styles.

If you're already comfortable with LR then I'd stick there. It's a great editing suite as well as IMO the best photography workflow suite.
I haven't done much testing on the RAW converter, but unless there's a significant difference I wont move.

Thanks guys. Like I moved from images from picasa style tools and jumped to LR. I now use LR 2.6 and also shoot in RAW. Even though I have been using LR since version 1.x, I still have tons to learn. I did not know about the camera profiles in LR.

I won't beed putting DPP now into my workflow as I like the way LR does pretty much everything I need it to do with Photoshop as a backup for bigger modifications. The only wish I had was for my to be able to access Lightroom from multiple computers (not at the same time). I like to have all my images etc on my server along with my catalogue so that everything gets backed up but I don't want to sit front ir my server all the time to use LR.

Thanks again.

Baadil wrote in post #9945207
Thanks guys. Like I moved from images from picasa style tools and jumped to LR. I now use LR 2.6 and also shoot in RAW. Even though I have been using LR since version 1.x, I still have tons to learn. I did not know about the camera profiles in LR.

I won't beed putting DPP now into my workflow as I like the way LR does pretty much everything I need it to do with Photoshop as a backup for bigger modifications. The only wish I had was for my to be able to access Lightroom from multiple computers (not at the same time). I like to have all my images etc on my server along with my catalogue so that everything gets backed up but I don't want to sit front ir my server all the time to use LR.

Thanks again.

I run LR from both of my computers. A good way of sharing between the two is using an external drive to hold your catalog and working images and just moving it to the other computer -- I know it's a hassle, but.

By design LR is not made to share a catalog over a network, but the above solution can help ease the pain.

tonylong wrote in post #9945309
I run LR from both of my computers. A good way of sharing between the two is using an external drive to hold your catalog and working images and just moving it to the other computer -- I know it's a hassle, but.

By design LR is not made to share a catalog over a network, but the above solution can help ease the pain.

Thanks Tony. I thought about doing that but my catalogue and images are sitting on a RAID 5 array on the server which gives me great hard disk performance and reliability that I won't get from my external hard disk. Also, I fear of losing everything on the external drive if this drive fails and I don't have an up to date backup.

For now, I use remote desktop to access it if I am on my laptop. It works ok for basic stuff.

Ah, the remote desktop is certainly a workaround, but at a performance hit for sure.

Typically, I just use my laptop for very quick and convenient things that I can do just by copying a shoot over with a CF card. My desktop workstation is for my "real" work because it's better for the display (unless I hook up an external monitor) as well as the performance. Also I have desktop drives networked/shared with the laptop, but sharing a catalog is something else again.

Baadil wrote in post #9945381
Thanks Tony. I thought about doing that but my catalogue and images are sitting on a RAID 5 array on the server which gives me great hard disk performance and reliability that I won't get from my external hard disk. Also, I fear of losing everything on the external drive if this drive fails and I don't have an up to date backup.

For now, I use remote desktop to access it if I am on my laptop. It works ok for basic stuff.

I've used an ancient laptop (Win2K, P4) to remote desktop (over my WiFi LAN) to my Windows 7 machine (Core2 Quad, 6GB RAM, blah blah) and run Lightroom, and it's fine for doing sorting/culling. Editing is a little tricky mainly because of the small display on the laptop.