+ Camera Raw Feature Requests +

Harvey see my request a few posts above and Ian's response.

I would like a switch to disable the auto-resolve naming feature or a save-as button so that I can overwrite an existing DNG.

How about having the program sort and display thumbnails in cronological order. Right now RAW seems to process and sort images in the side bar randomly. This is a real pain if you are keeping track of frame numbers...etc. for shooting long-roll jobs.

But seeing as 'Sort' in Bridge is quite annoying in use, that's not what I'm after, I'm afraid Ian. But, it may well have to do for now. Ta.
Hiding 'Sort', a very frequentlty used tool down in menus which often means two trips as 'ascending + 'Descending' often needs to be altered too. I've mentioned it on Bridge requests, but doesn't harm to mention how annoying it is yet again. Hint Hint! Other programmes use the tool bar for tools, why can't Bridge? Lots of nice empty space there.

As for ACR, it would still be useful as one isn't aleways aware how best to sort images for tweaking until one is in ACR. So my request still stands. It would be very useful, as using various sorts from within ACR could aid workflow enormously. Place sort type in a drop down menu just above Thumbnails and ascending/descending next to it. And it would make my life [and others, as I doubt I'm unique in this area]a lot easier. I'll try Ian's work around for now, but it is a work around and most certainly not a solution. Not blaming you Ian, so thanks for the tip anyway.

Though possibly LR may make all this moot, if it ties in with PS and Bridge properly.

Camera Raw takes its cue for sort order from Bridge.

When one opens a bunch of images in ACR it would be very handy to be able to do a sort by exposure. Say for arguments sake, I decide to take some photos at EV6 and some at EV7 in the same lighting and when I'm in ACR I find EV6.5 is the best tweak, if I've alternated between exposures I have to do lots of separate adjustments or select each shot at EV6, tweak. Then select each shot at EV7 and tweak. Whereas if I could sort by EV then it would be a doddle to do.
Plus occasionaly I find when shooting manual, the shutter or Aperture setting can be accidentally altered when moving camera around and the odd shot is a different exposure.

1) Support multiple sets of global raw params per file with ability to tag them with meaningful names. for example, exp -2, exp -1, exp 0, exp +1, exp +2 tags would be useful for sets combined into a single HDR composite.

2) Ability to apply separate conversion settings to selected areas within an image, including selections within selections. This might be an alternate way to handle HDR images. You could brighten shadows, apply more contrast to clouds, tone down burned out reflections, apply accurate white balance to individual areas, soften some regions while sharpening others, remove color and limunance noise locally, etc.

Basically #2 is CS2 adjustment layers applied to selections in the raw image at the appropriate step in the conversion from raw to RGB data.

3) Multiple cropping sets per file to support different output aspect ratios: 2x3, 3x4, 5x7.

If at least #2 and #3 were supported, DNG could more easily be the true master file for all images taken in raw format. There are still things that would require a PSD master file like multiple combined images in layers with special masks, special adjustment layers with masks, etc.

I think it would be easier to track images through a single file than through multiple files, and it would save significant disc space.

As a Canon user I would appreciate the option to display focusing points in ACR (show red rectangles in locations wherethe image was focused).

I would also like to see the ACR update incorporated to the automatic updates that CS2 products have.

I think you are doing fantastic job with ACR and it is great that you listen to users.

I would like the Calibrate tab in ACR to become a fully fledged Hue/Sat feature, as in CS2. i.e. I would like a drop down menu of colours (Reds, Greens, etc...) to edit and a Lightness slider.

This would permit total colour correction (e.g. using a Gretag CC as reference) to be performed less destructively within ACR before conversion.

The current Hue/Sat feature in ACR is 'Mickey Mouse' to put it mildly. As Fraser admits, you can only get close using it. In CS2, I can get precise RGB values for each patch.

The problem is that in CS2, I can only take 4 colour samples, whereas in ACR I can take 9.

In summary, neither program is fully set up to cope with this workflow.

D.

In addition of post 235

It would be very nice that adding any chancing to multiple images at once in the correction window would real mean adding in stead of giving the same settings from the first image to all the next.

For example, I'm used to put a light and dark version of the file together for a wider Dynamic Range. After making the global settings for each photo (they are very often made in different lighting conditions) I start brighten the images.

Save this bunch and start over again and darken it. Now I have to go through this again at each photo. Select all and ad my settings the earlier settings are set the same as the first file, instead of automatically ad for instance 4 shadow etc to the existing settings.

By the way, don't know if it's only my System but I find ACR 3.5 working faster in background than 3.4 :-)

regards

Omke