Cs4 & dpp

[Disco Stu]

Has anyone noticed the massive different bettween images opened & veiwed with PP & DPP.
For a long while now i`ve been somewhat perplexed at the seemingly poor quality images i`ve been getting from my 5D2 & 24-105 combination. Too the point i was starting to think something was terribly wrong with either my camara or more so my lens.
Running some tests the other day, i thought that i would download my images taken that day, into DPP which has the facility of showing the AF point, therefore being able to check that my focus wasn`t off. To my amazment there it was the quality i have been expecting from my set up.
Pleased with my lot, i then downloaded the same images with Bridge & opened in camera raw 5.3.
Oh dear! the same soft, flat, inspiring images i`ve been experiencing of late. Whats going on? so i decided to open my images in DPP & export them to PP, bypassing camera raw but this didnt work either.
My last resort was to try & acheive, through camera raw & PP, the same results i was getting in DPP. The answer was yes i could, but this took ten minutes or so to do just to acheive what DPP was doing at click of a button & thats before i make any other adjustments.
I hate to think how many images i`ve written off lately that i deemed to be no good. If only i`d have veiwed them in DPP.
So! whats the answer? Anyone?!?!?!

Is it me?

Regard Stu.

[ether]

Dont forget if you have picture styles selected in DPP it will process the image before you see it

camera raw does not

Ed

[Disco Stu]

Hi ether, I only shot in raw, does DPP automaticaly adjust the raw files when opened?

[ether]

to be honest I'm not sure as I shoot in jpeg+raw
the easiest way to find out is load an image in to DPP bring up the tool pallet and check the raw settings


any thing other than Neutral or Faithfull will alter the image

Ed

[ether]

wow! the time given for that post is 1.33 am I'v lost 2 hours

[Disco Stu]

Hi ether,Thanks for taking the time to reply. i`ve opened some raw files in DPP like you said & checked the settings. It seem`s that DPP does adjust automatically. i`ve run various tests on differing settings & it would seem that even Standard, Faithfull & Neutral give a vastly superior rendition to photoshop.
I wonder if it could be that canon are holding codes back so that adobe cannot replicate the same quality. Possibly & more probably a marketing tact. Lets face it, canon aren`t going to give anything away that would affect there sales. I think that probably i have my answer. It`s a money thing.

Thanks for your comments.
Stu

[chris-p]

Originally Posted by Disco Stu

I wonder if it could be that canon are holding codes back so that adobe cannot replicate the same quality.

This is, sadly, true. There is an enormous amount of encrypted information in proprietary RAW formats.
For example, Sony encrypted the RAW files on it’s F828 camera in 2003 and when Nikon released the D2X in 2005 it encrypted it’s white balance data within the RAW files. They weren’t the first or last companies to do this. This is done to stop other camera manufacturers unravelling their proprietary systems.

How much of an effect this has I don't really know. I use CS3 for my .NEF files and nothing else. I might stick some into CaptureNX and see if they look better...

[Forseti]

Originally Posted by Disco Stu

I wonder if it could be that canon are holding codes back so that adobe cannot replicate the same quality.

Well yes and no is the real answer to that one. The more digital editing opportunities available to users (and lets face it, Photoshop is the choice of most professionals) the better it is for camera manufacturers and this can only increase sales of their products. Not all coding is released of course, for example, it is not possible (yet) to see what AF focus points have been used in Photoshop but it is possible in Canons' DPP, using Canons' EOS cameras.

However, camera profiles are available. Have you checked them out in ACR? They can be found under the camera calibration menu as in my screen shot in which, for purposes of example, I have chosen Camera Faithful.

[flake]

The truth is that Adobe ACR is not the same as DPP, I'm not the only one to have noticed that it does change colours and although adobe have never officially acknowledged it Jack Nack has said that they know that it removes hot pixels.

So yes it's different - Canon are not holding back any info I think the whole industry learned it was bad idea after Nikon tried it. All the camera profiles do is make changes to curves and sharpening which is easily possible to replicate in CS4.

I think my 5D MkII may have a problem with a dished sensor as every lens appears to run out of focus at the edges, a chat with Canon tomorrow for me before the guarantee expires.

[KeithT]

I use a classic 5d in RAW set to Faithful and process in CS2 and find DPP handles images from it better than my old version of ACR, but not always. I usually leave it up to the individual image and if I don't like one converter I will use the other.
I will soon be upgrading my computer and will be using CS4 with Windows 7 Ultimate. It would be interesting to know how the latest version of ACR handles Canon files.