On May 13, 9:34 am, (Johan W. Elzenga) wrote:
Barry Pearson wrote:
[snip]
I’ll give one example. I have had to do simple processing of lots of JPEGs with strict time constraints. (I normally shoot raw, but this was a case where that would have exceeded the time available).
This is possible: load Bridge; select a folder with 115 JPEGs in it; open them all in ACR 4.0 (called from Bridge, not from Photoshop); select them each in turn and crop; select them all and apply a preset; save them all as JPEGs to another folder.
This took me less than 19 minutes end-to-end – about 9 seconds in total per image. That would be hard to do with Photoshop CS3 (which wasn’t loaded at all in the above example).
In the wider case, we are seeing a convergence between the ease that people expect when handling JPEGs, and some of the features that are in (some) raw converters or other photograph processors but not so easily available in Photoshop. That is good – why distinguish between raw and JPEG when it isn’t necessary? Why not have the same ease of setting/correcting the WB with a single click for JPEGs that we expect for raw images? Or the same non-destructive editing? Why make raw processing something different, perhaps perceived as harder or more specialised, for cases where it isn’t?
These are good examples of the benefit of using ACR (or Lightroom), but you do have to remember one thing though: all your ‘edits’ are now Photoshop only edits. Other programs won’t see them.
[snip]
In my example above with the 115 JPEGs, I saved the results of the editing as JPEGs. They were then usable by any JPEG-handling product, (which was the purpose). I agree that had I simply used "Done" I would simply have the original JPEGs with XMP metadata in them (or in the database). But I used "Save as …" to create new JPEGs, and the timing above reflects this, (about 2 minutes of the total).
Yes, there is a problem, (and probably not just a temporary one), that XMP editing metadata is raw converter specific. (ACR & Lightroom are, in effect, the same raw converter). There only appear to be a couple of ACR edits that could accurately be generalised – crop & align. (They record rotation angles and the coordinates of the corners).
IPTC XMP management metadata is understood by Bridge and (I’m told) by iView Media Pro. But as you point out, if they start as JPEGs and "Done" is used, the latter product won’t show the "visual" edits. I think it might be necessary to save the edited JPEG from ACR as a Linear DNG with a suitable preview for it to show the edited version from the preview – is that so? A bit "heavy"!
This is a bit of a mine-field for the unwary. I wouldn’t (yet) have had the confidence to post above what could be done with JPEGs unless I had run the above test myself. But I expect further examples to appear from other people in future.
—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/photography/ 
