Advised to use DPP over LR by Canon

I recently attended a seminar run by canon. (Experience Seminars).

This was for users of the 7d.

The comment was made by the lecturer that there have been reports of the 7D photos being grainy (which I have found).

He commented that that all programs except for DPP stripped out canon specific information - and implied that this was the cause.

Any comments?

I shall have a go myself to see if I can see any difference using the LR converter & DPP (which I never use)

At an aviation photography symposium I attended back in March, CPS told a room full of professionals exactly the same thing (although not 7D specific....)

Long story short: Canon does not give Adobe all the company secrets.
Canon Camera, Canon Chip, Canon File, Canon Processing Software = The absolute best results.

Personally, I've been ok with second best which is LR...

Well, Adobe and other "third party" processors won't apply in-camera settting for noise reduction and such. If you shoot a lot at a high ISO/low light scenario, it should pay to play around and find what works for you.

Lightroom does, though, offer some powerful tools.

So, to me, it pays to have both DPP and LR installed and running -- I meand, what can you lose? That way, you can choose betweesn the great tools of LR for highlights and shadows and color channels, sophisticated NR and sharpening and whatnot or, when it meets the need, you can go to DPP for the goodies that come in-camera.

I looked at one of the raw files at 100% in DPP and the amount of grain was negligible - while it looked very grainy when viewed at 100% in LR.

This was at 640 Iso.

interesting.

Though whether it will make much difference at the printing stage I don't know.

I don't print any bigger than 12 x 18 in.

So, when it comes to noise the question is does Lightroom/ACR add noise, or does it simply not apply in-camera noise reduction? I myself would just as soon do the noise reduction myself, although as I've said before, I have DPP up and running for quick clean conversions.

hania wrote in post #11050545
I looked at one of the raw files at 100% in DPP and the amount of grain was negligible - while it looked very grainy when viewed at 100% in LR.

This was at 640 Iso.

interesting.

Though whether it will make much difference at the printing stage I don't know.

I don't print any bigger than 12 x 18 in.

With what DPP settings?
With what LR settings?
What version of LR and what Development Process?

Just saying "I looked at it in LR" is meaningless.

hania wrote in post #11050545
I looked at one of the raw files at 100% in DPP and the amount of grain was negligible - while it looked very grainy when viewed at 100% in LR.

In that case, DPP was (very probably) applying NR...

tonylong wrote in post #11050631
So, when it comes to noise the question is does Lightroom/ACR add noise, or does it simply not apply in-camera noise reduction? I myself would just as soon do the noise reduction myself, although as I've said before, I have DPP up and running for quick clean conversions.

Well, in a sense it does, although I'm not sure if "add" is the right word. The demosaicing algorithms can have a very important influence on noise. The process determines the color and luminance of every pixel and the choices it makes can be tuned toward more smoothness of tonal transitions or more detail extraction. (I once even had a RAW converter for Minolta files that allowed user interface through a smoothness slider.) Of course, with greater detail and sharp edges you get more noise also. Recently the LR design team changed their "philosophy of demosaicing" and went for a new conversion engine in LR3 which puts the emphasis more on detail/noise than the LR2 engine which did a great deal of smoothing. So in the past people complained that LR was doing auto N.R. that couldn't be turned off and today they say LR is noisy. So is LR adding noise or merely realizing noise that is already inherent, or at least implied, in the RAW data and electing not to suppress it by default?

tonylong wrote in post #11050631
So, when it comes to noise the question is does Lightroom/ACR add noise, or does it simply not apply in-camera noise reduction? I myself would just as soon do the noise reduction myself, although as I've said before, I have DPP up and running for quick clean conversions.

It's common sense if you think about it. NO camera manufacturer is going to release information that reveals every R&D / hardware / software aspect of their hardware. Once Nikon releases theirs to adobe, canon has it.

I exclusively use DPP for raw conversion. Works best for me. But like Tony, I also like control over what I do and for that reason, do not do noise reduction or sharpening in DPP. I have found other tools do a better job and offer more control.

The features in LR3 outway the slight advantage DPP offers for RAW files. I love LR3 and find DPP rather basic and crude.

I have been 100% satisfied with Aperture. I don't think that there is so much the RAW file that canon is hiding, that the results are going to be worth the loss of features at all. Not even close I would imagine.

I sometimes wish Canon would just make a full-featured editor and be done with it (but still offer the basic DPP software for free).

I used LR3 and Elements 7 when I had the 7D, and I would sometimes get a maze or criss-cross pattern in RAW files.

DPP consistently gives me shots that are most similar to what they looked like on the rear LCD.

tzalman wrote in post #11050635
With what DPP settings?
With what LR settings?
What version of LR and what Development Process?

Just saying "I looked at it in LR" is meaningless.

true - shall check what settings used.

LR 3.2 and DPP 3.8.1

5Dmaniac wrote in post #11050928
The features in LR3 outway the slight advantage DPP offers for RAW files. I love LR3 and find DPP rather basic and crude.

I agree (once I got over the trauma of LR3 crashing my mac & having to format the drive).

I'm a fan of DPP 'cause it's so quick and easy. And, no surprise that someone from Canon would recommend DPP over Lightroom. But will I stop using LR?...umm...no...