DPP vs PSCS2 Raw

[G Lund]

Hey all,

This is probably a personal opinion thing, asking anyway....I have a Canon 5D and shoot in raw, I just upgraded to PSCS2...my pp skills do lack but I am trying     Anyway, if I pull up a raw pic in PS and let the bridge do it's auto thing, then I tweek them to what I think looks good...then convert to jpeg, I get a total different looking pic than if I use the Canon DPP raw converter and tweek to my liking and convert to jpeg...what I notice most is how each seems to adjust the wb differently even if set to the same temp. Anyone else see this? In a type of poll question...which do you prefer of the two? Any other raw programs that are widely used? I would like to stick with one or the other before I spend even more jack.
Before I get slammed here, I know to choose the one I like the best, this is just to see where I am at with others that know more about pp than I...which I'm sure is most of yall.
George

Pic 1 is from pscs2....no retouching, just tweeked in raw and converted.

[G Lund]

Pic 2 is from DPP raw tweeked as above and converted.

[61Dynamic]

Your SPP version is washed out. Both seem to have too much magenta, but then again, I could be wrong on that last item since I just woke up and am drinking coffee.  :o

Different WB results between different raw converters is a common thing. No two converters will give you identical results since they each have a different way of interpreting the raw data.

My suggestion in choosing a primary converter is to find one that strikes a comfortable balance between usability and results.

DPP turns out decent images (though if you pixel peep, you'll see that the conversion algorithms fall a little short when compared to ACR or C1; at least last I checked they did) but it suffers from a poor interface.

ACR is the best overall since it integrates into PS/Bridge/Lightroom and provides top-notch results. My only complaint about ACR is that contrast and curves adjustments are done to the RGB data and not to just the Luminosity data which tends to be quite limiting in some cases.

C1 is the second big-dog in converters but is quite pricey at $500 for the pro version.

And then there are the others. Raw Shooter Essentials (windows only), Bibble, LightZone and Raw Developer.

All of them are good tools each bringing something unique to the table.

[jdemott]

Adobe Camera Raw does not necessarily use the same numeric color temperature settings as the camera manufacturers.  In other words, a setting of 5000K in ACR will not necessarily yield the same color appearance as a setting of 5000K in the manufacturer's software.  To do a valid comparison you need to do both conversions leaving the color temperature "as shot" which should result in a very close color match between the two conversions. This has been confirmed by Adobe, at least in the case of Nikon NEF files and I assume that the same is true for Canon.

ACR does a fine job and many people prefer it for various reasons.  While I think that the ACR file you displayed is the preferable one, you probably should make sure that you are comparing apples with apples before making a decision on what works best for you.