+ Camera Raw Feature Requests +

Report · Sep 22, 2005

UPDATE:

We're interested in what changes you would like see in our products. Do you have an idea for a feature that would help your workflow? Is there a small change that could be made to make your life a little easier? Let us know! Share an Idea, Ask a Question or Report a Problem and get feedback from the Product Development Team and other passionate users on the Photoshop Family product Feedback Site on Photoshop.com.

In future it would helpful if you could use this thread as a means to add

"Features" that you would like to see in future releases of Adobe Camera Raw.

Please do NOT create additional new Topics and try not to duplicate requests by other users. Also, be thorough in your description of the feature and why you think Adobe should consider it.

Oh, and if you find it necessary to comment on someone's feature request/suggestion, try not to get into a shouting match. The penalty for doing so is...

b If you're asking that a particular camera is supported in a future release or just taking the opportunity to carp that yours isn't then please do so in another thread!

IanLyons

Forum Host

Report · Sep 22, 2005

The biggest issue with Camera Raw right now is that it's a Photoshop plug-in. It really needs to be made a standalone application, escaping the restrictions of the modal dialog, gaining scripting support, etc. Camera Raw is the product; Photoshop is secondary at this point. Photoshop is basically a plugin for Camera Raw.

At this point, there are only a few reasons I generally take an image into Photoshop: retouching for dust or whatever; LAB mode adjustments; Merge to HDR; and resizing, sharpening, and saving as JPEGs. It's gotten pretty rare that I need anything else from it. I save most of my edited pictures as DNG now, even; no sense in going to a PSD or whatever just to hit "save" and get a file 8 times as big.

So, my wishes for Camera Raw 4:

1. LAB color mode curves. Operating on the image after the regular curves. This sounds non-trivial, since it would mean implementing LAB color in Camera Raw, but man, it would rule.

2. Individual-channel RGB curves. Not that important, but would be nice to have the option.

3. Ability to healing-brush out dust or whatever. This would have to be non-destructive, of course, and saved as metadata in a DNG file, which may or may not be practical. But it would be nice to be able to remove some dust and still have the option to go back and change some RAW conversion settings without re-doing the retouching.

4. Integrated "Merge to HDR".

With all of the above able to be applied non-destructively, I think I'd be in photographic heaven.

Report · Sep 23, 2005

Support for Pentax *ist DL... (still)

Report · Sep 23, 2005

Support for D70s and CS8-I tried the Bridge and won't use it, therefore no CS2 for me.

Report · Sep 23, 2005

Jon, James and other of similar mind

Please read the header message before posting!

Report · Sep 23, 2005

ian ...

may i suggest you -bee- a little more agressive deleting off-topic posts?

Report · Sep 23, 2005

I would really like to see an option to display the camera metadata within ACR (f-stop, shutter speed, timestamp, etc.). This information is visible within Bridge and within Photoshop (after raw import). But I sometimes open files without going through Bridge, when I would like to see the metadata during the raw phase adjustments.

Perhaps ACR already has a function for displaying this info, but I have not found it.

Report · Sep 24, 2005

Julian: FYI, some of the metadata (ISO, f-stop, shutter speed, and focal length) is currently displayed in the ACR title bar.

Report · Sep 25, 2005

I am extremely pleased with ACR, and the subtle UI - I keep discovering hidden gems. I come from a nikon capture background and appreciate an app that always works, and works fast.

One feature (pioneered?) in NC is a more powerful curves tool, that features a dynamic histogram. There is one curve control for RGB and another for LCH. Each curve tool combines the capabilities of the photoshop curve and levels tools, and work on individual and combined channels. The Chroma and Hue channel tools are very effective for making subtle precise adjustments. I find this very useful. As mentioned by freelancer, a LAB curve would also be nice.

Perhaps this is already possible and I am unaware of how to do it, but while making edits, I would like to be able to save the current state, other than by saving all the settings to file, so I can return to that point if the adjustments do not work out. A multi-undo would also work.

I would like to be able to toggle between the current magnification and 100% with a single keystroke and a single mouse click, rather than the alt-ctl-0 or double mouse click, as I do this all the time.

Thomas - thanks for this awesome software - Rory.

Report · Sep 25, 2005

Thanks for the reply, Thomas. I'm embarassed to admit that I never noticed that info in the title bar. It would be nice, however, to have access to more of the metadata (white balance setting, time stamp, etc.) from within ACR.

Report · Sep 26, 2005

I want to put my vote in for a shadow/highlights type feature in ACR.

With the RAW improvements in CS2 (specifically crop, rotate and curves), there are now a high percentage of my images that I can finish without going into PS. When that happens, that's a HUGE productivity improvements for my workflow. If I can finish most of the images in ACR and then just run image processor to make JPEGs from the RAWs, it saves soooo much time and storage.

But, I find that there are a tremendous number of outdoor direct sunlight images that benefit from a little shadow/highlights. Since I can't do that in ACR, I have to bring my images into PS to do it. It really slows down my workflow. Double the image files to deal with. Assigning new filenames to each one. Double the storage. It's doable, but soooo much less efficient than if I had that one function in ACR.

Before I get a ton of emails about how shadow/highlights isn't a normal image transformation feature like a curve or even an exposure adjustment. Heck, it isn't even available in an adjustment layer in PS yet. But, I expect that Adobe could solve that problem if they really wanted to. It's certainly doable - the technical problem is just figuring out how to make it fast enough to work like an adjustment layer without actually batch modifying the stored date and saving the result (like most filters do).

--John

Report · Sep 26, 2005

I wonder if you can manage one post without writing "Heck", followed by a comma. :D

Report · Sep 27, 2005

A pet favourite of mine: more keyboard shortcuts to minimise mousing on Windows please.

-- Robert.

Report · Sep 28, 2005

I'm also wondering, why are there no scroll bars in ACR? If I'm zoomed in, why do I have to change tools to the "hand" tool just to scroll the image? Why are there no scroll bars? It's not a big deal, but a UI inconsistency I've noticed from day one and I'm puzzled why ACR would be different than everything else in this regard?

--John

Report · Sep 28, 2005

Generally, I see no scroll bars in any preview panes (such as when applying filters), and ACR's window is just that, a preview box. I don't see it as being "different", quite the opposite: it's consistent.

Report · Sep 28, 2005

Maybe it's consistent with other filter preview panes in PS. But, still why no scroll bars? And, why make us select a tool just to scroll?

--John

Report · Sep 28, 2005

Holding down the Spacebar causes the active tool to become the Hand Tool. It's the same in Photoshop

Report · Sep 28, 2005

>still why no scroll bars?

Speed.

Report · Sep 28, 2005

So that this thread doesn't become burdened with commentary I will be doing a tidy up tomorrow. Posts number 7,10,11,13 and this one will be deleted.

Thanks for your participation and co-operation

IanLyons
Forum Host

Report · Sep 28, 2005

>Posts number 7,10,11,13 and this one will be deleted.

12 contains a direct quote from 11.

Report · Sep 28, 2005

Thanks, 12 stays as it addresses the point made in 9. However, the quote goes.

Report · Sep 28, 2005

FYI, the reason there are no scrollbars in Camera Raw is that current OSes often draw scrollbars using bright, saturated colors. These bright, saturated colors right next to the image area really throw off users's attempts at color correction. Camera Raw has been prototyped both with and without scrollbars, and I very much prefer it without for this reason.

Report · Sep 28, 2005

Thanks Thomas, that's the first real answer I've seen to this question. I can understand that logic.

On the UI front, I've been using ACR for nearly a year and processed over 10,000 RAW photos. I wish there was a way to make the space bar shortcut more discoverable in the ACR UI so more users know about it. I now realize that it's a convention used elsewhere in PS, but I used ACR for nearly a year, read two books on ACR and still didn't realize this shortcut existed. Food for thought.

--John

Report · Sep 28, 2005

There are two downloadable pdfs available in the Bridge FAQ area that document Bridge and Camera Raw keyboard shortcuts.

Report · Sep 29, 2005

Thanks Ian. I've downloaded those before and looked at them and gotten some new shortcuts out of it, but obviously my brain doesn't retain them all.

This whole issue has probably gotten more airtime than it deserves already, but the point I was trying to make it that real "UI discoverability" means a normal user using the product can "discover" things like this without having to download and study a separate PDF. I'm not a UI designer, but there is a bunch of open whitespace in the ACR dialog where hints like this could be provided to the user to help make them more discoverable. I'm sure there are other ways this could be accomplished too.

--John