The software CDs that came with my rebel - yea or nay?

[Stilltime]

Should I install them? Right now I'm viewing my pictures in picasa 3 which allows me to do minor edits (like cropping). I have photoshop c3 but I find it over whelming. I can do very basic things with it, so I'm wondering if the canon CDs might be easier for me and better than picasa?

They're -

EOS Digital Solution Disk, Ver. 18.1

And..

Step Up Photography, Accessories to Enhance Your Photography

In terms of preserving the image quality in case I want to ever print them, what should I use?

 

[Samanax]

I use Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert my XTi RAW files to JPEG. I do some PP work with it (some white balance adjustment, play with Picture Styles, noise reduction and lens aberration correction), but most of my PP work is done in Photo Shop Elements 6 (PSE 6). I find that DPP does a better job with RAW conversion than Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) in PSE 6.

 

[Josh66]

I used DPP for a long time before getting Lightroom. After using Lightroom I don't think I could go back to DPP, but it's not too bad - just a little limited.

As far as preserving the image quality, just make sure you do your edits on a copy of the original.

 

[RebelTasha]

I used DPP for a long time before getting Lightroom. After using Lightroom I don't think I could go back to DPP, but it's not too bad - just a little limited.

As far as preserving the image quality, just make sure you do your edits on a copy of the original.

I use DPP for 99.9% of my PP, just to make my pictures less flat..
Lightroom do you think I would like it if I use DPP as my main editor.
Does this cost a lot of money? Is it very much like Photoshop I really can't be doing with too much ar**ing around...

 

[Josh66]

It's somewhere between photoshop and DPP. Way more capable than DPP, but not as much as Photoshop.
If you're used to DPP, I think you would love Lightroom.

It costs around $300, you can download a free trial from Adobe though.

 

[cfaulds]

or you can download it from a torrent for free

 

[Josh66]

or you can download it from a torrent for free

Which is illegal... (Not to mention a good way to get viruses on your computer.)