+ Camera Raw Feature Requests +

The ability to open several files into a Photoshop Stack (with same options as in File>Scripts>Load files into Stack).

Dinarius, are you opening the file in ACR hosted in Photoshop or in Bridge?
The second option is the best, and the first depends on the amount of memory allocated to Ps: do NOT allocate too much memory.

PC/Vista x64/4Gb RAM.

I can open *any* number (OK, I've never tried more than about 70-100) of Canon 1Ds Mklll images in ACR and save them out as TIFFs in no time flat.

I can only open *one* 39Mp Hasselblad image at a time and save it out as a TIFF. If I try saving more than one, I get the dreaded "There was not enough memory." error. (I only use ACR on the Hasselblad files for the Healing Tool. All other processing/editing is done in Flexcolor and CS3, so these files are already 220Mb TIFFs when I open them in ACR.)

No one has every given me a satisfactory explanation as to why this happens.

I note a comment further up from Jeff Schewe (admittedly dated October '07) that ACR is made to handle files up to only 10Mp. So, maybe this has something to do with it.

But, whatever the reason is, it would be great if ACR could save out more than one Hasselblad TIFF at a time without seizing up.

Thanks.

D.

>If you want a stand alone based on Camera Raw get Lightroom...

Yeah!

>Please make available ACR as a standalone application. If not possible, at least please don't force it to be a "Modal dialog window".

It's a file format import plug-in to open raw files into Photoshop so Camera Raw won't be a stand alone. If you want a stand alone based on Camera Raw get Lightroom...

As for zooming, they keyboard shortcuts from Photoshop do work for zooming in and fit to window (command/control 0). The reason that the Zoom tool is by default the selected tool is that nothing you do with the zoom tool can effect the image settings. So, it's by design and you'll need to make a much stronger argument to change it. As for the Workflow Settings, nothing will be changed for ACR 5.x, but the engineers are always looking to improve things so I wouldn't be surprised to see something along these lines in the future...

I have a list of a few very missed features:

Please make ACR to remember the last used tool (I dont use zoom, instead I always use the hand tool so I have to switch to this tool always)

Please extend the zooming shortcuts with Ctrl-0 and Ctrl-Alt-0 functionality as in Photoshop.

Please make available the Color space, bit depth and Resolution settings dialog in the save dialog (too). When the folder is selected and I want to save the file and I see that it's 16bit and I want 8bit, I need to press Cancel, select the bit depth and open the save dialog again.

Please make available ACR as a standalone application. If not possible, at least please don't force it to be a "Modal dialog window".

Thank you!

PCate,

Why don't you just convert to DNG upon importing your raw files into Bridge or LR?

I'd really like to see support for the chdk Canon firmware RAW format. Right now I have to use a separate program to convert the RAW files to DNG's that CR can open.

If you set Bridge to only use the embedded previews, then Bridge CS4 is close to the speed of PM. Tagging the images you need to process out should be pretty easy...picking by rank or label would allow you to keep all the files together for a project without the copying back and forth. You could even rank in PM and have that picked up by Bridge CS4. Then either use the batch Save of Camera Raw (with CS4 Camera Raw can handle 1K of images loaded) and save out selected JPEG right from Camera Raw or use Image Processor or Photoshop Batch to process out the sub-take.

I think you need to examine YOUR workflow to improve it (endless copying of files and sidecars is NOT efficient). But the motivation to produce a low overhead version of Camera Raw that operated without Bridge or Photoshop is not likely because of your use case and the business model that would be required. There's only so much engineering hours available on the Camera Raw team and they are heads down working on the Camera Raw plug-in for Bridge and Photoshop and the Camera Raw processing pipeline for Lightroom. A stripped down version just ain't in the cards.

Bridge CS4 is much faster than CS3 [which was a dog] and CS4 is even faster if browsing using embedded images, which is what Photo Mechanic does to gain its speed - it doesn't actually process the RAW images.

Also you can clear the cached images from a folder by rebuilding cache for that folder if you've emtied it.