Canon DPP4 Cloud Processing was recently introduced without much fanfare (ver 4.12.20). Yesterday I had a closer look and it might be telling us something about the future. At the moment it is only available for 1DxIII users and the only offering is 'high-performance' noise reduction for images with ISO>3200. I am guessing this is some kind of beta-test and that in the future we will see other advanced processing options offered on this platform. I have been unable to log in to test the noise reduction on offer; it may be useful for processing hi-ISO images captured by the new family of small aperture RF lenses that are about to be released. As I understand it, DPP4 sends RAW images to a Cloud processing facility and they are returned after NR in a new Canon format called CIP . At the moment only 1DxIII images can be processed but if successful one would expect it to become available for other Canon cameras.

Interesting. The main issue I have with DPP is noise reduction, particularly a lack of 'smarts' compared to high performance noise reduction packages such as DxO and others. This reduces its usefulness to me as a one-stop-shop for raw processing. If DPP can improve here it becomes a more attractive proposition for me as a raw processor.

Cheers
Simon

Ian

I have just upgraded my DPP and opened a couple of recent files and I have noticed it seems to apply some automatic noise adjustments. I am loading files using the Neutral profile (and I have my camera set to Neutral) and in each case an amount of chrominance and luminance noise reduction is being applied (different in every case, and seems to be linked to ISO). Is this normal DPP behaviour? Obviously I'm not an expert user but I have previously made my own adjustments to noise reduction and not noticed anything applied by default at the neutral setting.

Simon

Yes Simon, DPP4 is usually configured to apply default NR with amount depending on the camera body and ISO. I do not use any DPP4 NR and turn the default off in Tools/Preferences/Image Processing 1. At this location you will find the option to turn off default NR and default sharpening. In the neutral Picture Style the sharpening is already turned off by default but for other Picture Styles there will be some default sharpening applied.

Regarding DPP4 NR, the chrominance NR is fine but the luminance NR is out of date and does not preserve the sharpness of fine detail. For this reason I turn it off and rely on Neat Image for all my NR. As noted in an earlier post, Neat Image preserves the sharpness of fine detail even when strong NR is applied. I expect DxO is using a modern NR algorithm and it too is probably preserving the fine detail contrast. I have tested Topaz AI Denoise and this is also doing a good job on the noise but applies default sharpening even when the sharpening and detail recovery are turned off. In my tests I found Topaz AI Denoise over-sharpens when used in the Auto-correct mode. I suspect most people do not notice this as few photographers know how to measure the system spatial frequency response where over-sharpening is easy to see.

As an afterthought, I should add that the big announcement day for the R5, R6 and new lenses is 9 July. On or about this date we should also expect a new version or update of DPP4 to accommodate the new camera bodies.

Cheers, Ian