Participant

Answered

Terrible changes to Camera Raw editing

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
June 22, 2020
35 replies
9606 views

I absolutely hate the updated Camera Raw editing. Very user-unfriendly!!! Please change it back. I was in the middle of working on wedding pictures when the update happened. All of a sudden my workflow slowed to a crawl. To have to figure out where everything is.

PLEASE CHANGE CAMERA RAW EDITING BACK!!!

Camera RAW

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer gary_sc

You can download an earlier version from here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/camera-raw-plug-in-installer.html

However, ACR will not be going back to that form. This is intended to make the transition from Lightroom to ACR and back smoother for users so what you see is what it will be in the future.

I suggest you go back until you your editing and then update to the new one to get used to it. Yes, it's different, very different, but it does have its merits.

Y

yorgecom

Participant

I completely Agree, even several years down the road, I am unable to get used to it and my workflow has been reduced down to a trickle due to this abomination of an update. I am trying to downgrade to the previous version now. Adobe changed the UI back, this is atrocious...

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

The UI is fine, you seriously can't adapt to some tools and commands being moved around?

B

bridge cs6

Participating Frequently

It's fine but not great. It's slower to use. As an event photographer I need the ability to edit fast and the new acr added extra clicks in my workflow thus slowed down my editing significantly. Not happy

MonkDave666

Participating Frequently

I am in a living hell. I just bought a new PC and have updated from Photoshop 2017 era Bridge and Camera Raw to 2023 (I work in a high pressure, fast turnaround industry and retouch up to 800 images a day) and this new Camera Raw is an utter nightmare. The layout has been completely destroyed, and also I now can't just crop an image and arrow down to the next one, as the arrow down MOVES THE CROP. What have you done? How can I get back to legacy layout? PLEASE!!!

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

The revised interface is here to stay. There are some things you can customize, I'd recommend going through the help files and some of the Adobe videos to get yourself aligned. It IS a big change but works well once you get used to it.

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Leonard28550632ce02

Participating Frequently

Can the brushes be configured to stay when we click on the next image?

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tumblingleaves

Participant

I have held off on updating for a long long time but I had to update my OS and once I did that photoshop and bridge no longer worked properly so I was forced to update that too. ITS HORRIBLE! The workflow for a photographer is downright unusable. I have to click open different tabs to adjust the exposure, and access the brush, the images being on the bottom instead of the left hand side completely ruined my flow. I absolutely HATE IT. Its been an entire year of everyone complaining about this and nothing is being done.

M

Mammal

Known Participant

I hear you. The worst part for me is that the adjustment brush does not stay selected when moving to the next image. Unbelievable.

If you control-click(Mac), the thumbnail area you can choose to view the thumbnails vertically to get them back on the left-hand side. Hope that eases the pain a bit.

S

Stan Chung

Participating Frequently

This ACR is a pain to use. The adjustment brush is so f&*king horrible to use. Why why did they lumped it into mask and made the thing with extra steps to click and use? Do they think we edit 5 pictures per session? 50? Try 500-2000! I want the same tool(brush) ready with the same settings when I click on the next picture, not click for the brush again for every edit! This is just beyond stupid. Doesn't look like they have any working professional photographers/editors on their forum panel that has actually used/tested this.

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MaineMike

Participating Frequently

I brought this point up at the recent Photoshow World conference withthe Adobe Photoshop team. Interesting thst I was told how this is a Lightroom issue. Apparantly that team wrote the interface for Photoshop Camer Raw.

I can live the interface but really hope a 'classic' mode will be introduced for the Crop function just as a 'Classic' was added to PS when it got changed. The ACR Crop tool is a real boondoggle as it has significantly slowed the workflow of what should be a very simple operation.

I hope the right audience at Adobe will see these requests and fix this. It has been more than 14 months.

Mike Leonard

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Lumigraphics

Legend

That ship sailed and there isn't anything to fix. Get used to ACR as it is.

M

MaineMike

Participating Frequently

There are a number of people not happy about the new interface - I am one. While I have gotten used to the new format one thing I am not able to easily adapt to is the Crop tool of which I have spoken previously. I remain convinced how there could be a fix made that would accommodate everyone. a 'Legacy' option could be added just as it was in PS. Adobe has been responsive for user input in the past - it's just unfortunate how they have not addressed this need. Having more people articulate their situations should help Adobe to prioritize this as has happened in the past. The ship may have sailed but eventually it must come back to the dock.

J

jmaakestad

Participant

Why is it that every "new" version of Camera Raw get worse and worse. I use to be able to batch write a large amount of RAW files to Jpeg and now my machine just freezes... Oh and this isn't a crap machine. I run a Nvideo GTX 1080 Card on a overclocked i7 with a Scratch Drive that consist of 6 SSDs in Raid 0 that can read and write 1+ GB per second. Adobe you are going the wrong direction!!!!

A

athletic_coder0D4B

Known Participant

Is that why I am having the issues mentioned in my post?

https://community.adobe.com/t5/camera-raw/camera-raw-edits-not-showing-in-jpegs-or-nefs-outside-photoshop-or-camera-raw/m-p/11711819?page=1

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johnsoneric

Known Participant

Everyone – be really, really careful. Myself and others have reported you can roll-back for ACR 12_2_1 and Adobe Bridge version 10.1 to retain the interface we like and use. Somehow – and very mysteriously - my version of Bridge and Camera RAW updated even though I had the auto update feature turned off. And, the earlier versions of Adobe Bridge that use the older GUI have gone away from the Creative Cloud app where you could select previous versions. Bridge 10.1.1 is now the oldest that appears, and that is where the problem started. I had to go to an earlier restore point in Windows 10 to get it back again. And now my Bridge 2017 will not work – which was the last version to work with output templates the way I use them. Really Adobe?? I never expected that kind of underhanded-ness.

NKD

Participant

I luckily followed some instruction in this group a few days ago on how to revert to previous version on both my desktop & laptop. Will do a system restore point now. Thanks for the heads up, if this is true.

J

johnsoneric

Known Participant

Did anyone else have their Bridge and ACR update to the latest versions with a Photoshop update? It happened on my Windows 10 machine and my Macbook Pro - and both were set to NOT update Bridge or ACR.

M

Michael5F96

Participant

gary_sc , all due respect, it has zero merits above what we are all used to. That's a very bold comment from you, fraught with a lack of understanding of what your customers actually want out of Photosop. Adobe has been on this spiral downwards for years and I feel like this is yet another reason why I'm hoping for a cheaper Adobe alternative to break up the monopoly. I hate your comment, stunning level arrogance and lack of awareness going on here. Typical Adobe.

gary_sc

Community Expert

This is long and is a two part message, this is part 1

Hi Michael,

First off THANK YOU for your politeness. Some people think that rudeness will get you someplace, it's great to see someone who shares my feelings that it never hurts to be polite even when one disagrees.

Let me first say that I do not work for Adobe. I'm on these forums because I like to help folks with problems. All of the comments below are mine and mine alone. I have used Adobe products for about 25+ years now. I started working with Photoshop v. 5 and I started working with Acrobat around v. 2. Bridge and ACR from their onset. Am I a master of everything Adobe? Far from it but I can hold my own for most basic operations.

I have to answer your question with comments which I know is not an answer.

I do not know if you use Acrobat but when version X was released, it was a nightmare beyond belief. If you look at the previous ACR and the current ACR, Acro X was vastly vastly more of a change. However, part of the problem was that Acrobat had not changed its general shape and/or dynamics since it was first released. Over the years, new features were added, some features were updated, some were removed. But the only people who were quick and agile with it were the people who had been using it for years. So the Acrobat team pulled the bull by the horns as it were and did a complete redesign. The first version was a disaster on many accounts. Now, several versions later, I love the new design because if I do not know where something is, I can figure it out where to look and most of the time my guess is correct.

Now, does that mean that subsequent updates of ACR will make things better?

This is more complicated because the intent of this update was to more match the design and layout of Lightroom (not Lightroom Classic).

gary_sc

Community Expert

And now part 2:

Keep in mind that all flavors of Lightroom all have the same internal engine, just different "faces." What's astounding to me is that this attempt to keep the same face has also put the ears and nose in different places: "Crop" is "C" or "R" as one example depending on which application you are using. There is no justifiable reason for that to happen from the same company. It's bad enough to have different commands doing the same thing with Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, but to have different command keys for the same product just different "faces?" Absurd.

Nonetheless, the whole point of merging the ACR interface over to Lightroom-Desktop was to make things simpler for new folks. Who does this hurt? Well, us, folks who've been using ACR since day one. But change is almost never easy. It almost always is. However, one of the things you do see in this version is a tighter organization of the parts. If you want to change the physical look of the image, go to Crop where you can crop, rotate, level, flip. Those were almost all in different locations before.

Did I like the new layout when I started working with it? Well no, it was different and that was uncomfortable. Am I completely comfortable with the new one now? Well, not completely but it's much better than the first few days, they were rough.

But the reality here is that there is more chance that Covid will go away tomorrow at noon forever than Adobe will return ACR back to the previous layout. You do have choices though:

Go back to previous versions that look the way you want them to and use "Convert to DNG" so future cameras can be used and watch out what system updates and/or computer updates do to what you are using
Change to one of the many other products that can do what you want with a "look" that is satisfactory to you.
Learn to work with the new "look" and see how it works for you or against you and if you feel you must, do #s 1 or 2.

I guarantee you there will be future changes and hopefully some of these will improve the product and other changes will be worse. That's what's going to happen. But when anyone goes on to a forum and says "this is garbage go back to what you had," you will be ignored. On the other hand, if you take something specific and comment on that (e.g., "please make the keyboard shortcut for "Crop" the same in all Lightrooms") and that will be looked at and maybe even considered.

Oh, and one last thought/comment: when you speak of "Adobe," you have to focus on the fact that there are divisions within Adobe: There is management, marketing, engineers, product managers, and all these folks work (sort of) together. And just like in the book 1984, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." My point being that at any given time, someone in one of those groups will make a decision and it will win out regardless of the decision's value or quality.

The only way you can avoid that is to have a company of one person.

This has been far too long an email and everyone can justifiably find errors and/or omissions contained therein. To each their own.

NKD

Participant

Please revert ACR to the best layout the ever existed.

10 years of workflow that adapted for speedier outputs (until this latest update ~6months old)

There are so many tutorials online & paid for tutorials that reference the old layout.

It was intuitive and buttons & tabs where placed well for 2k & 4k monitors.

ACR > PSD for architectural photography daily edits, just starting back shooting & editing after Melbourne 6 month lockdown.

The new layout, is a gimmick. Please keep new layouts updates to LR, seperate from the ACR users.

Give the old-school layout back to the pros for efficiany.

I work on multiple computers / laptops & on set.

There needs to be an option to set to olschool layout,

We also need updates to support new camera released & lens data

M

michaelgfx

Participating Frequently

This update is a TOTAL NIGHTMARE. I deliberately never installed or used lightroom because it is _Vastly_ inferior in workflow speed and logic. Now they force lightroom upon all ACR users. I'm going to switch over to an other raw converter if they don't offer a solution for this. Absolutely 100% absurd.

This is not an upgrade, this is a DOWNGRADE. Do people at adobe actually use ACR? Or they just use lightroom?

S

SheaWinter971

Participating Frequently

Best thing everyone can do is switch to Capture One! The interface is changeable; you can set it up exactly like Camera Raw 12.2. And even better, you'll find more leverage when processing RAW images. I'm using a Canon R5 and it's impossible to edit the files Camera Raw 12.4 without pulling my teeth out. But I made the switch to Capture One, watched all their tutorials, customized my interface, and love it. Would highly recommend the same: https://www.captureone.com/en/explore-features

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