When I started Raw few years ago, I tested, DPP vs, PS, vs Capture One, and decided that the great interface of PS beat out the others. I did not notice huge differences in quality. But after looking at recent images on my 5D, I called my Canon rep and said, "what the deal on the black (shadows) with this camera, it's a horrow show of poterization. He said try DPP. I tried this clunky software I had not used in years and the blacks looked fine.
I'm really puzzled. I like the interface of CS3 much more, it's integrated with Photoshop and I have no desire to learn DPP, but, I don't know, I'm real confused right now.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Results, Results! Use what gives you the best results. Learn DPP if you have to. (How's that for a cold slap in the face?) Actuallly, I find I like CS3 better for most cases, but there are a few that I fall back to DPP. In those cases, it's worth it.
__________________ Dennis
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I have tried all of these and have for the last years mostly used DPP with my 1Ds mk2. Batch processing with Adobe wasn't as convenient. C1 has perhaps a better interface but the colour was different when the image was opened in photoshop which meant re tweaking which sort of defeated the purpose of batch adjustments. Now I am using Aperture for most work. At first I thought it was a wierd thing but once you learn all the features you find there is not much it can't do. I only use photoshop for things involving selections or for serious image manipulation.
I have seen posterization but independent of software either when over lightening dark zones or if there are profile issues.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
As mentioned in another thread, what parameters are you using with your CS3 conversions?
While I agree that some aspects of the image conversion are better in different converters, I haven't experienced the inherent (and major) quality differences between CS3 and DPP in the areas you describe. Could you consider putting up some side by side comparisons (e.g., crops showing the problem in one and not in the other), complete with listings of the settings used (or better yet screen grabs)?
Ok, Neil here you go, everything process on default settings, no tweaks. It's huge difference, and I'm seeing this consistently with all blacks in hair, clothes and backgrounds.
Two different sized images only about half overlapping. You think you could have made the comparison any more challenging? Still, I can see what you're talking about... The ACR conversion's response curves appear to go to black more abruptly while DPP's hover around a lighter shade of gray, with only a few black pixels showing. A more proper way to describe this would be that the Adobe conversion brings out more contrast in the dark parts while also making more noise visible.
Your examples beg the question: In the ACR conversion, did you zero out the "Blacks" parameter, or just leave it at the Adobe defaults?
Assuming your answer is "I left it at defaults", I started a whole thread on setting Camera Raw defaults to more reasonable values just to address this kind of issue:
Linear Mode
