Are you opening the image directly into Photoshop, or into Adobe Camera RAW first? tv.adobe.com/search


DPP is great because it is free and works well for out of the box rendering of RAW files; simple adjustments, and conversions.


Camera Raw is more powerful giving you more control with more capabilities.


Version of camera RAW prior to the latest released with CS4 and then CS5 didn't do such a great job and people often did or still do prefer DPP for that reason. The new version of Camera RAW included with CS5 does a much better job, and IMHO, does a very good job of reproducing the colors out of camera. Better than DPP!


If you have Photoshop CS5 I recommend the following work flow.


Open Adobe Bridge for downloading and organizing your files. From Adobe Bridge open your files into Adobe Camera RAW to make those adjustments you are looking for, and if necessary for more complicated adjustments, editing and manipulation you can send it into Photoshop from there.


Or you can open Photoshop, open the Mini Bride; select the photos you want to work on and send them into Camera RAW and back to Photoshop. You can do all this seamlessly without having to open DDP, Convert your files, close DPP, open Photoshop and then open you converted files.


Either way these programs work together. Adobe Bridge and Photoshop are separate Applications but can be accessed directly from each other. Camera RAW is a plug-in that works from and can be accessed directly from both.