+ Camera Raw Feature Requests +

Its taken a while for me to reach the end here, and I must admit I skipped a few pages, so apologies if these feature requests have been mentioned previously!

1. If i have to edit an image in PS, I open it from ACR and eventually choose to save it as a PSD file. I label the images in Bridge such that I filter out the original and just display the final images that I wish to create JPS from - which ends up as a mixture of CR2 and PSD images displayed in Bridge. I love the ability in CS3 to open TIFs and JPGs in ACR, but wish that this was extended also to include PSD files. Without this feature, it means I can't use the Save option within ACR to save all the files I'm interested in, as the PSDs aren't opened in ACR, meaning I have to use Image Processor to create JPGs from the PSDs. Having the ability to open the PSDs alongside the CR2s in ACR would make saving to JPGs much easier.

2. I'd like an option in ACR which allows me to save all images consistently sized despite the fact that some images may be cropped. I have to supply my clients with all images the same size, but if have cropped some in ACR then my only option is running the images through an action PS to do the resizing - having this ability in ACR would make life much easier!

3. last but not least - I know everyone says that the individual auto settings aren't coming back, fair enough! But what the new auto scheme does not allow is:

a. giving us an indication if a slider is set to auto already - maybe the slider could change colour if it is set to the auto value?

b. copying and pasting specific auto set sliders to other images, like it used to be - so if one of the sliders on the source image was set with an auto setting, the slider on the destination images will also be set to an auto setting specific to that destination image - rather than just pasting the value from the source img as it does now!

Enough from me anyways. Thanks, Paul

Is there a reason why the Help menu is disabled when the ACR window is displayed? I understand that the window is running modally, but it is possible to support menus behind a modal window.

The Adobe Help application can run concurrently with ACR, and I can switch between them. But I have to remember to start Adobe Help before bringing up ACR. A minor annoyance, but maybe one that is easy to fix.

>"Tim Cooper states that the exposure control of ACR works the same in ver 4 as in the previous versions"

>Roughly speaking yes...but the exposure algorithm is actually different (correct me if I'm wrong Thomas) in that now that recovery is decoupled from exposure, exposure can just be used to set the highlight clip. Between recovery and fill light the whole approach for toning an image has changed in CR4. The parametric curves also radically changes the way the final tone curve is arrived at.

As mentioned below, I no longer have CR4 on my system, but as I recall, the exposure control was linear, moving everything to the left or right by a predetermined scaling factor. If the highlights were blown and exposure was used to move the overall exposure to the left, there was some degree of highlight recovery. As I understand the new control, it is nonlinear and affects the highlights more than the remainder of the image, whose tonality may already been OK. We can not use exposure as it should be used, rather than as a de facto highlight setting. would like some clarification in this issue.

>Back to the point that the individual Autos were removed, the way the poster was using it-to try to compensate for ETTR was fundamentally changed in Camera Raw 4 because of the addition of recovery, fill light and parametric curves. Don't you agree?

Yes, I think that the new controls are a marked improvement, but some degree of change in work flow may needed. I removed the CS3 beta from my system because I was getting too much system instability and needed to get some work done in CS2 with the old ACR. I am eagerly awaiting the delivery of CS3, which is on order. I understand that there are some further improvements over the beta.

"In the above situation, if one uses exposure to set the black point, the mid tones and highlights will be too dark. "

You misunderstood what I was saying. Obviously, you don't use "exposure" to "set the black point" Doh...I said you don't use exposure to darken the image...the darkening comes as a result of setting the black point.

"Tim Cooper states that the exposure control of ACR works the same in ver 4 as in the previous versions"

Roughly speaking yes...but the exposure algorithm is actually different (correct me if I'm wrong Thomas) in that now that recovery is decoupled from exposure, exposure can just be used to set the highlight clip. Between recovery and fill light the whole approach for toning an image has changed in CR4. The parametric curves also radically changes the way the final tone curve is arrived at.

Back to the point that the individual Autos were removed, the way the poster was using it-to try to compensate for ETTR was fundamentally changed in Camera Raw 4 because of the addition of recovery, fill light and parametric curves. Don't you agree?

>Well, there is the problem...ETTR is intended to add exposure (move histogram to the right) with the intent to redistribute those lighter tone into the dark regions of the image-in effect, taking an overall light image and darken it...by clipping into the "shadows". You don't use exposure to darken the image so much as set the black point where "black" should be-if you hadn't done the ETTR...

Perhaps I have been using the exposure control incorrectly, but I do not use the exposure control to set the black point. Here is my reasoning. Traditional exposure places the mid tones in the scene so that they are also in the mid tone area of the image: gray in the scene is reproduced as gray in the image. If you have a full scale image (one that uses the entire dynamic range of the camera) and render into a gamma 2.2 space, the mid tones will be in the center of the histogram and the extremes of the histogram will reach all the way to the left and right. In this case, any ETTR will blow the highlights.

However, with a short scale scene exposed in the same fashion with a mid tone reading, the histogram will have room on both the left and right. In this case, one can use ETTR and place the highlights just short of clipping. If you expose to the right by 1 f/stop, exposure for all photo sites of the sensor doubles and there is a linear scaling multiplication factor of 2 and everything moves to the right. In this way the information rich brightest f/stop (which contains half the levels of the raw data) is utilized and the increased exposure improves he signal to noise ratio by a factor of sqrt(2). IMHO, the extra levels in the brightest f/stop with ETTR are nice, but the eye can perceive only about 100 of these 2048 levels in a 12 bit raw capture, and the main benefit of ETTR is lessened noise rather than the increased number of levels.

Now, if this image were printed with no exposure correction, the mid tones would appear too light. One can use an ACR exposure setting of -1 to apply a linear scaling factor to the image and move the mid tones back to the the center. The image may appear too flat since it has no true blacks or whites, and one can set the white point and black point as needed for the best effect. Non-linear editing is required in this case for placement of the black and white points.

In the above situation, if one uses exposure to set the black point, the mid tones and highlights will be too dark.

>You realize that the entire exposure/highlight recovery was changed, right? In CR 4 and LR 1, exposure doesn't do any "recovery"...highlight recovery is a separate control. Yes, it's interconnected...but so are all the rest of the controls. The new Auto Tone in CR4 and LR 1 is actually a lot better at correcting-for an initial round-ETTR images.

In his ACR tutorial, Tim Cooper states that the exposure control of ACR works the same in ver 4 as in the previous versions: it applies a linear scaling factor to the image, moving all points in the histogram to the left or right by a constant factor. In my experience, highlight recovery is still possible with this control. If the highlights are still blown after the overall exposure is set to the optimum value, one can use the highlight recovery to apply a non-linear correction to this area as Tim describes. I think that Deke McClelland used a similar approach in his ACR Beta 4 video tutorials, which are no longer available for free viewing.

On the vignette tab. You cant move the vignette around. I use this a lot and want to move the center around in the image. This feature is a very strong feature but never has been updated. It would be nice to have a point to move.

Well, there is the problem...ETTR is intended to add exposure (move histogram to the right) with the intent to redistribute those lighter tone into the dark regions of the image-in effect, taking an overall light image and darken it...by clipping into the "shadows". You don't use exposure to darken the image so much as set the black point where "black" should be-if you hadn't done the ETTR...

You realize that the entire exposure/highlight recovery was changed, right? In CR 4 and LR 1, exposure doesn't do any "recovery"...highlight recovery is a separate control. Yes, it's interconnected...but so are all the rest of the controls. The new Auto Tone in CR4 and LR 1 is actually a lot better at correcting-for an initial round-ETTR images.

No, it won't "work" the same way...but in my experience, it is better. And better is different, I suppose. But, whatever, it ain't going back, so move on.

I'll clarify. I don't see how any Auto routine can know that that my ETTR files are intended to produce a high tone image, where automatically setting any shadow clipping is completely contrary to the desired effect. However, automatically setting *only* the exposure *is* very useful when initially browsing such images and tagging the ones I want to work up!

"There's no Auto routine that is going to get "most settings correct" for photographers that "expose to the right" as recommended in in Real World Camera RAW"

So, have you tested this on real world images? I have...CR 4 Auto Tone (as well as Lightroom) actually does a very decent job of correcting for ETTR images...it may be a bit aggresive on the highlight recovery and normally, I need to adjust the curves parameters-which weren't covered in the 3.x version of auto anyway.

There's no Auto routine that is going to get "most settings correct" for photographers that "expose to the right" as recommended in in Real World Camera RAW - which is exactly why so many people left only one or two parameters checked.