Reading blogs of photographers on WordPress, I sense that almost everyone is using some software, such as Photoshop or Lightroom, to edit their photos and improve on their quality. I am no different, except that up to now I have been using the free software that comes with Canon cameras, Digital Photo Professional. DPP is very basic and crude, lacking in many nice features as compared to other software. Not every Canon camera owners use it, and I am one of the very few who does.
Well, that could still change. I am trialing DxO OpticsPro, version 11. Among its features is its renowned noise-removal tools which help improve images shot in sub par lighting. Below are two of the same raw photo that I processed first with DPP, then a second time with DxO OpticsPro.
Black-crowned Night Heron, processed with Digital Photo Professional.
In DPP, I selected and adjusted the settings for colors, lighting, noise reduction, sharpness, gamma correction, and so on. It used to be an arduous undertaking, but after so many years I have become more proficient and can now process each image fairly efficiently. All the photos you have seen in this blog have so far been results of adjustments made solely in DPP, with no other additional software.
Black-crowned Night Heron, processed with DxO OpticsPro 11.
With DxO OpticsPro 11, I just selected one canned preset and within a few seconds it produced the above image, after cropping of course. It is still possible to go into the details of each preset and change or fine tune just like I had to do manually in DPP.
Also, DxO Optics Pro can produce the final JPEG image directly, or can be integrated with other software, such as Lightroom, for even more adjustments. DPP does not offer that choice.
Which of the above two images do you like better?
