DPP wishlist

Preface: The new DPP 3.0.1 is out!

This thread is is where we can all report on and discuss Digital Photo Professional's latest update 3.0.1 for Windows 2000/XP/Vista as well as Mac OS X.3 and above.

Include tethered shooting, the latest CF cards and any Canon DSLR.

What is worthwhile, what has been fixed and what still is missing? Asher



Since DPP is my main RAW converter, I came across a few things I'm missing.
I thought I make a thread out of it, in the hope Canon reads it

If some of them are allready existing in DPP, I'd appreciate a hint: I've missed it.

1) Add IPTC support. Pretty please?
2) Highlight recovery is almost non existant: Blown highlights go 'gray' when pulling down exposure. Fix that.
2a) RIT does a better job with blown highlights then DPP. Fix that as well.
3) Some kind of 'clipping warning' (like in ACR) would be a great help. Either that, or an eyedropper tool that shows a line 'where you are' at the histogram.
4) Make the 'grey eyedropper' 'configurable': Now it samples at pixel size I think. Sampling an avarage of 5x5 pixels would make it actually usable
5) Nice that the color temperature scale goes down to 2500K, but make the steps smaller in the lower end of the scale: 100K is *way* too large a step. The scale should be more logarithmic. Have a look at the Mired scales...
6) While you're at it, make it possible to type in a value for color temp, and white/black point.
7) When using a floating Tool palette display (OSX), and adjusting something there, the program requires 2 clicks when for instance hitting the 'rotate' button. Silly.
8 ) Crop tool should include straightening.
9) DNG support would be nice. If I wouldn't prefer DPPs conversion, I'd be using DNG for workflow reasons (read the DAM book)
10) Could we please make the setting of the monitor profile automatic by default?

Thanks for the attention

Hi René,

Am I to assume that you are using DPP 3.x....

Yes. 3.0.1
I think 2.2 didn't offer a WB scale down to 2500K, but to 2800K. Also, NR changed a bit (Better now IMO).
What stayed is a slight difference in displaying between DPP and PSCS2.
And the things I mentioned above.

Another tiny point: Add a few keyboard shortcuts to toggle 'Before/after comparison" on and off, and "change up/down/left/right"...

Some more opinions in the same thread on a different forum...

Now only hoping the software engineers at Canon read this, and think about at least some points... (Highlight recovery?? Please? That's *the only thing* I'm using ACR for now... )

I'd support some of the suggestions made by Rene. For me the priorities are:

1) Highlight recovery. DPP is very poor in relation to the main competition - ACR and the old Rawshooter Essentials
2) Clipping indicators like in ACR or Rawshooter Essentials
3) Easier control of the brightness of the mid-tones in relation to the highlights and shadows. I don't find the draggable histogram to be very helpful. The ACR "Brightness" control is what I'm thinking of (not to be confused with the Exposure control)
4) Some way of batching up multiple conversions of the same image. I send all mine to the same folder and presently you have to wait until you have renamed the first conversion otherwise it won't create the second as it says the file already exists.

Kim Fullbrook said:

4) Some way of batching up multiple conversions of the same image. I send all mine to the same folder and presently you have to wait until you have renamed the first conversion otherwise it won't create the second as it says the file already exists.

Click to expand...

Got a point there. I usually use this 'workaround':
Say you want to process a file twice (once for shadows, once for highlights or so)

I set everything the way I want it (sharpness, WB, exposure, whatever). Then I set 'exposure' higher, to get the shadows up. I press shift-Cmd-S ('Save as'), and save the file in the same folder as the original, with a suffix 'a'. Then I revert the 'exposure setting.
This gives me 2 CR2 files, which are identical apart from the exposure setting. I can later batch process all files without problems, and delete the copied CR2 afterward...

Rene - I think DPP has some highlight recovery capabilities.
Going from memory, I think the DPP training tutorials talk about highlight recovery in the Luminance graph on the RGB tab. You need to do something to the graph to switch it over to a luminance graph. There you either raise or lower the bottom/top.
That nugget of info is buried in one of the 3 on-line videos under the Tutorial tabs, not one of the tutorial tab videos.
Go to:

http://www.usa.canon.com/content/dpp2/index.html
and watch the videos under the tutorial tab.

OK - its the 3rd one in the Tutorial tab, "Advanced editing of a folder of images..." and there you'll see a video about "RGB Image Adjustment Tab - Luminance Curve"

Phil Marion said:

Rene - I think DPP has some highlight recovery capabilities.
Going from memory, I think the DPP training tutorials talk about highlight recovery in the Luminance graph on the RGB tab.

Click to expand...

That's not highlight recovery IMO: It just makes blown highlights gray. As does pulling back exposure on the Raw Tab.

I believe it's a conscious descision by Canon, to make sure colors don't get screwed.
Has the drawback that even soft clipping can't be restored...