Photoshop - Camera Raw Filter

unlike these other built-in filters. ACR does not have a handy way to pull the image stack data out of Photsohop and present it in the UI.

Hi Mark,

we don't need the whole image stack-data, but only two things in the »Camera Raw-Filter«:

1. a merged stack in Camera Raw (no problem, can even be solved with an action),

2. transparency-information of the currently targeted layer, which ACR already supports, and which makes sure, that only the non-transparent parts of a layer/Smart Object are changed.

The merging could be scripted (e.g. hold down Alt while launching Camera Raw to use this workflow) and the merged layer could also be discrard when leaving the filter.

So there is "only" one thing to solve in the »Camera Raw-Filter«: Replace the displayed checkerboard transparency with the merged layer, but handle the current object like before. And that would open up the whole power of the great masking-tools and their workflow for compostiting. I am no engineer so I have to believe you if you say, that this seemingly simple viewport option was hard to realize. 😉

We did a little investigation into this; the ACR filter is a fully separated plugin, unlike these other built-in filters. ACR does not have a handy way to pull the image stack data out of Photsohop and present it in the UI. Not an unsolvable problem, but one that is more complex because it bridges two teams, and the ACR team has to balance Ps integration needs against all the other things that live around the ACR ecosystem (eg, Lightroom, Express, PsWeb).

@Olaf Giermann 

Right. You got me there 😉

There is a "backdrop" checkbox in Liquify that I had completely missed (probably because I almost never use Liquify). Yes, the ACR filter could have something like that:

On the other hand, the ACR filter is somewhat special in that it "jumps into" the actual Camera Raw processor pipeline, borrowing a part of it, so any addition might have to be in the full processor. I don't know.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me in the right direction with "backdrop". That will be helpful.

(I was just trying to figure out what to call these two separate sections in the Filter menu. I landed on "new" just because most of them are, relative to the others. Don't read too much into that).

Not every other filter. The "traditionsl" filters (green below) have a Preview function like you describe.

 

The "newer" filters (yellow below) all have a modal dialog where only the active layer is visible, and you don't see the composite result until you commit and return to the document.

OK, then let's do some real wise-cracking. 😉

• Yellow: Vanishing point and Liquify both show the layers beneath. Their comp-view is essential for their use.
• Yellow: To call the Filter gallery, Adaptive Wide Angle and Lens correction NEW is brave. 😉 They are barely needed anymore by most users and also don't profit from a comp-view.
• Green: Some "traditional" filters don't even have any preview, those are probably never needed these days anymore.

So, what I wanted to say, is that all important filters do have a comp-view. And the »Camera Raw-Filter« should also have one, because that would be a real gamechanger for compositing.

Not every other filter. The "traditionsl" filters (green below) have a Preview function like you describe.

The "newer" filters (yellow below) all have a modal dialog where only the active layer is visible, and you don't see the composite result until you commit and return to the document.

Yes, I do agree that a full composite preview would be desirable.

But functionally they are all identical: they work on the targeted layer only.

It would be an absolute game-changer if we could see the other layers (at least below the active one) like in every other filter. I have been begging Adobe for this composite-view for years. 🤷‍♂

All filters are layer specific. That's how filters - and layers - are universally expected to work

You need to look into smart objects. This is a big part of why smart objects were invented. This lets you take any number of layers and treat them as a single layer, which can be filtered and modified as one.

For this requirements you can use the masking in CameraRAW. On the other hand you can use also the Photoshop tools to adjust the sperate layers.

So I don't seee the necessary of using layers in CamaraRAW.