+ Camera Raw Feature Requests +

In the bottom left hand corner of the Bridge window there is a scroll wheel/% indicator telling you the progress status of whatever it is you are making Bridge do to a folder of images.

No such indicator is present in the Adobe Camera Raw window.

Thus, if you open an entire folder of images in ACR in order to batch apply some change to them, you have to scroll down through the images to see if the little yellow triangle has disappeared from all of them, in order to know that the task is complete. A wee bit annoying.

A progress indicator would be great.

D.

Unless I'm mistaken, it is not possible to save Retouch Tool selections in Save Settings.

It would be grate if that were possible.

At the moment, when I move between folders of images, I have to copy across an image from a previously edited folder in order to apply the Retouch Tool selections.

Simply being able apply saved settings would be great.

Thanks.

D.

Please can I have automatic chromatic aberration correction?

I guess that if it can be done by eye it can be done by software too.

Please add additional color profile options for use in ACR. It would be great if ACR could access all the profiles in the system just like photoshop, instead of the 4 that are predefined. I prefer a visually linear tone curve (as opposed to a gamma tone curve) in my working space profile and it would be great if I could use that in ACR instead of converting to it later.

Yep, that works. Thanks!

I still would like to see that tray at full screen. Photoshop shows it. If I don't want it, I can disable it.

Have you tried taking it out of full-screen mode? Click on the icon next to the Preview checkbox.

I would like to have the System Tray (Windows) available when RAW is on screen. At the moment, RAW takes over the entire screen, which at first seemed reasonable, as we get the largest image possible, but when I am trying out a suggestion from these pages, I want to be able to go back and forth, Info to RAW.

I'd still love a simple levels control, like in Photoshop - with Luminance and RGB histograms that don't change when you move the sliders. Exposure/black point/brightness doesn't cut it at all. The other thing is color - for the moment I'm using DPP because ACR hue shifts EVERYTHING.

Combining RAW + JPEG
An ACR feature request

The merits of Raw are well documented and have been broadly discussed. Compared to JPGs from in-camera conversion, Raw data can easily bear up to approx. 1-stop more of dynamic range. Raw processing allows to recover these highlights e.g. via the Exposure slider in ACR. Also, Raw features a better correction and ex post adjustment of White-balance via Temperature and Tint controls.
Further, Raw data can be processed and released into a large gamut such as ProPhoto RGB (pRGB), thus preserving a major part of scene-referred color saturation. Many of such saturated colors are already within the reach of todays printer; others may require particular attention to avoid posterization.
Image details and sharpening are another aspect. In-camera sharpening is not known to be particularly advanced and therefore prone to amplify noise or to cause artifacts if overdone.

Now referring to JPGs from in-camera conversion, and in consideration of all limitations including tiny sRGB gamut, we have to admit that their look can be surprisingly good if not even preferred. Speaking for myself only and some experience with Canon gear, impression is that image rendition and color appearance with JPGs have much improved in the course of technological progress Same may apply to other brands.
Many user seem to feel the same and often enough a generic Raw converter such as DPP is preferred to access said look, even at the cost of workflow speed and convenience vs ACR. Its sometimes claimed that any of such look can be mimicked in ACR, however, Id like to disagree with this. Even simple in-camera settings such as Contrast or Saturation are apparently following complex and different definitions than commonly known, and also single hues are shifted away from colorimetric accuracy to whatever camera engineers have identified as pleasing.
Further, it can be assumed that in-camera conversions feature a perceptual gamut compression, so theres less channel clipping with saturated colors compared to a straight Raw -> pRGB (RelCol)> sRGB pathway.

Coming to the point:
Many of todays cameras allow to capture Raw + JPG simultaneously.
ACR since version 4.x (iirc) allows to process Raw or JPG.

Wouldnt it be possible to combine and blend both images at the level of linear-gamma ProPhoto RGB (1.0 pRGB) which ACR was reported to use as an intermediate working space ?

All controls which are applied before or during the conversion Raw -> 1.0 pRGB would still act on this transform only. While the JPG is converted to same 1.0 pRGB at 16 bpc, all controls which are applied after arrival in 1.0 pRGB would act on a blend of both images. This is of course just meant as rough description, hoping that Adobe engineers would get the gist while being much more familiar with ACR mechanics.

Basically Ive tried what I suggest by doing such blends in Photoshop, then going back to ACR again. Results seem to confirm the idea and intention in principle i.e. to enhance JPGs by insertion of Raw data information, or the other way round, to enhance the ACR processing chain by inserting a touch of JPG look as conceived by camera manufacturers.

Finally it should be mentioned that the idea is not really new (see Link and White Paper), but maybe todays RAW + JPEG combo could offer an up to date implementation with ACR.
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/cameras/erit/erit.jhtml

Peter

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Olaf,

Re: improved navigation, I assume you are aware that by pressing and holding the spacebar your cursor changes to the hand tool regardless of what tool is currently selected. I think it makes navigation at any magnification quite simple.