Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi SLR Review

The Canon Digital Camera Solution Software supplied with our XSi came on a CD and is version 17.1. The disk contains various software tools for Windows Vista and Apple OS X for downloading, viewing, storing and printing images. After installation my Vista desktop contained 4 new icons.

The software for Vista includes:

• Digital Photo Professional (DPP) 3.3
• EOS Utility 2.3
• ZoomBrowser EX 6.1
• Picture Style Editor 1.2
• PhotoStitch 3.1

• Digital Photo Professional (DPP) 3.3
• EOS Utility 2.3
• ImageBrowser 6.1
• Picture Style Editor 1.2
• PhotoStitch 3.2

The screen caps show below are from the Windows Vista versions of the applications.

Digital Photo Professional (Version 3.3) is an image processing program that enables high-speed RAW image processing, high-speed previewing for real-time image adjustment and support for sRGB, Adobe RGB and Wide Gamut RGB color spaces. Because it's CMS (Color Management System) compatible, Digital Photo Professional allows for easy image layout and printing in Adobe RGB in conjunction with Easy-PhotoPrint and PictBridge printers. It also features the Dust Delete Data Detection tool for cleaner images.

EOS Utility (Version 2.3) for Macintosh or Windows handles the connection between the camera and computer, whenever they're connected via USB. It allows remote controlled shooting from the computer, handles downloading of images from the camera to the computer, and allows seamless linking to either Canon's ZoomBrowser/ImageBrowser or Digital Photo Professional software once images have been copied to the hard drive. Furthermore, it's used to upload settings back into a USB-connected camera.

ZoomBrowser EX (Version 6.1) for Windows and ImageBrowser (Version 6.1) for Mac OS X are the easy, user-friendly options for viewing and editing of JPEG and even RAW image files. Both allow viewing of numerous types of images including finished TIFF and BMP files. Both also have a variety of search options for finding images, allow re-naming of single images or batches of files, and offer a variety of options for printing without using a separate image-editing program.

RAW Image Task (Version 2.8) for Windows/Macintosh software is an integrated component of ZoomBrowser EX (Windows) or ImageBrowser (Mac). It allows processing of RAW images from EOS cameras, including the new EOS Rebel XSi, with a variety of adjustment possibilities. These options, as well as the overall color, contrast and "look" of RAW Image Task, closely mimic the characteristics of Canon's in-camera JPEG processing.

As seen with many of the digital cameras tested recently, I did not have to install software at all to access my photos on the XSi. Vista (SP1) correctly identified the camera and offered to import the images into Window Photo Gallery. Not surprisingly Apple's OS X 10.5 (Leopard) also accessed the files on the camera - however OS X took a lot longer to import the files. Neither of these OS' supported RAW image files - I could preview them but not import or edit them - you'll want to work with the Canon software or another third party application to access your RAW images.