+ Camera Raw Feature Requests +

I've gone through most of these posts and I don't seem much mention of B&W processing in ACR. While the desaturate solution + adjust contrast is useful as a quick-and-dirty, it's limited. I know I can export to CS and use Channel mixer or adjust in LAB, but it would be great if I could have access to the RGB channels in ACR and then batch apply a good-enough initial adjustment to a large set of RAW images (I'm raising this as I've just come back with 400 images from a theatre documentary shoot)...

If there IS a way of doing this already in ACR, I'd be gratedful to hear - maybe I'm not double clicking on something!

V Best

Chris Tribble

Douglas, I think we are in complete agreement here.

I've been enquiring about off-the-shelf products that support XMP-within-DNG:
Barry Clive Pearson, "Off-the-shelf products that can access DNG's XMP?" #13, 20 Dec 2005 8:36 am

I've been posting here about the general issue of putting XMP into files of all sorts:
Barry Clive Pearson, "Problem with the copyright box in metadata when batching" #2, 16 Dec 2005 5:07 am

As you point out, the issues span the DNG, ACR, Bridge, and XMP, forums. I don't think many people outside Adobe are addressing ALL of these. One is John Beardsworth, and he has helped me a lot:
http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/
http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/news/index.php?id=C0_11_1

I am trying to track some of the relevant products at:
http://www.barry.pearson.name/articles/dng/xmp_dng.htm

I think there are some aware people, such as Hertwig van Zwietering:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=16200213

Barry:

I now realize your welomed request wasn't limited to the DNG converter.

I do suggest a module that would act as a superset of the DNG converter, ACR and Bridge. Think of ACR as a module that can be hosted by Bridge or PSCS2. Why shouldn't we be thinking of an organizing module that can be hosted in a similar way to organize metadata? I belive this would naturally flow into a professional digital asset manager (DAM) with its attendant cataloging features. I agree with your assessment that we are seeing the beginnings of this feature set in a more or less fragmented way.

My suggestion for a feature set goes beyond this ACR forum becuase it spans across other Adobe programs (and fora) -- like DNG, Bridge, and XMP. I don't yet know how to access the "new programs" wish list forum -- assuming it exists. So I will be brief in this response.

Considering the rich feature set a module could contain, I look to drag and drop for a wide variety of metadata fields. I know more advanced users are comfortable emplying copyright scripting, but I am not at that level and would feel more comfortable selecting dragging and dropping my copyright data. I now input keyword and description infomration using Bridge. Having used these features, I would natually request for more robust keyword options with drag and drop capabiltiy. What first comes to my mind is multi-level keywords. This is a dream b/c I don't even know how/if mult-level keywords would work in XMP. I just know that Adobe has multi-level tags in its organizer (PSE4 for instance). I would like to have this capability in a module which writes this to the DNG file. I want all the image infomation in the DNG and in a manner where a DAM can access. Isn't this the vision of extensible XMP and DNG?

Enough for now in this ACR forum. We can explore what a metadata management module and professional-grade organizer would look like in another forum -- which one is best? There is some disucssion of this topic in the Bridge and XMP fora but I feel that Adobe's response is that Bridge isn't the right program and I don't know if the XMP forum is the correct selction for this topic. Where can we discuss these critical workflow documentation issues without rasing the ire of the ACR forum manager?

Douglas.

ddm: I didn't propose to restrict XMP manipulation to the DNG converter. I was responding to requests for a way of adding extra cameras easily into ACR, and added the bit about XMP as another useful feature.

I too have used Bridge to add my copyright XMP metadata to JPEGs. I'm pleased that I can do so in exactly the way I do it to my DNGs. I am enthusiastic about XMP in everything!

I'm trying to imagine the consequences of your proposal. I've used "File info", "Append Metadata", and the "Keywords" tab in Bridge. (And, of course, both ACR and the DNG Converter add their own stuff anyway). Powerful, but somewhat fragmented.

I wonder if you are suggesting something that acts like a superset of all of those, with a consistent interface? If so, and if it also provided cleaner templates (eg. for copyright) than the current scheme, I would agree with you. There is currently a feeling of "work in progress" in these products.

(Yes, I know I could probably do a lot of it myself, with the various XMP products and toolkits around, but I want off-the-shelf capability).

Barry:

A followup to your post #152.
You stated ----
I would welcome a much richer toolset for reading and writing DNGs, going far beyond this issue. Obviously it would include comprehensive XMP manipulation. (The first thing I do with a folder-full of DNGs is apply my copyright template. But why wait until then? Why not do it at conversion time, which I do directly from the memory card?)

Doing something to ACR is limited. (For example, it would only apply to the latest ACR, not ACR 2.4). Doing something to DNGs is much more powerful. And it would perhaps convince the anti-Adobe conspiracy-theorists to embrace DNG and help bring a halt to the current farce.
-----
I vote for a comprehensive XMP manipulation module (program) that is able to be hosted either by the DNG converter, ACR, or Bridge. There are occasions where I shoot with an older camera in JPEG. I need to manipulate the metadata for these images as well. If the manipulation is limited to the DNG converter or ACR, I would have to find another solution for these images.

There is a need to have a program that allows for comprehensive XMP manipulation -- Bridge 1.0 is a nice start but there are features such as drag and drop, mulitiple ACR options (as disucssed here), multi-level keywords that need to be considered. What do you think?

ddm

Ian,

When will all the rhetorical questions end?

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

Barry,

>Ian, surely the cycle time for ACR releases takes into account more than batching up a set of camera profile updates. There are facility improvements as well, or tuned demosaicing, etc

It was a rhetorical question! ;-)

Ouch, was that an answer .

(A bit too obscure for me at this time of morning).

Barry Pearson said:
>How about a software product that generated DNG files according to [user specified] tuning parameters?

Not a bad idea at all. The user base and/or camera manufacturer could provide the configuration information for each camera as it comes out.

This only one question: who will write the code?

Here's a start:
--- ..- -.-. .... .-- .- ... - .... .- - .- -.-. --- -.-. --- -. ..- - ... - --- .--.

Mike Russell

Mike, you say (#151) "I predict that the first raw handler to actively address the issue of new camera models, and allow fine tuning of existing models, will become immensly popular for just that reason".

Here is a small modification to that. How about a software product that generated DNG files according to such tuning parameters? In other words, instead of being part of ACR, it would be part of the DNG Converter?

Or part of "A" DNG Converter - not necessarily written by Adobe. One of the few things that concerns me about DNG is that the DNG Converter is currently single-sourced. I would like to see an open-sourced version. John Francis' SourceForge project appears to be going nowhere.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openraw/

I would welcome a much richer toolset for reading and writing DNGs, going far beyond this issue. Obviously it would include comprehensive XMP manipulation. (The first thing I do with a folder-full of DNGs is apply my copyright template. But why wait until then? Why not do it at conversion time, which I do directly from the memory card?)

Doing something to ACR is limited. (For example, it would only apply to the latest ACR, not ACR 2.4). Doing something to DNGs is much more powerful. And it would perhaps convince the anti-Adobe conspiracy-theorists to embrace DNG and help bring a halt to the current farce.