You need to read up on camera RAW files.
Yes, there is a huge advantage to making some of the adjustments in the ACR dialog.
No, you can’t do the same things inside Photoshop.
Is there anyone out there who can be more helpful and answer my question as to what the difference is rather than just telling me there is a difference. As far as I can tell the only difference is the ability to adjust lens aborations. Color tones, levels, saturation, all seem to be the same.
Dave
David,
I use ACR a LOT with almost all of the studio shots I do. I tend to set my gray balance using ACR (often off a gray card or Kodak gray scale) and I’ll also do a rough white and black point adjustment. I then output to a 16bit file. Sometimes I make use of ACR’s upsampling feature which works **very** well. I prefer the control that layer adjustments offer with 16bit files rather than spend too much time poking in the ACR options.
If I had a LOT of images to process that could be adjusted with only ACR’s tools then I’d create an action and run a batch process. Otherwise I have not yet noted any real advantage to doing things in ACR that I can do more precisely in 16bit with PS using adjustment layers. I’ve also played with other competing solutions such as ‘Nikon Capture 4’ and ‘PhaseOne C1 Pro’ and I can duplicate pretty well any results they offer so I stick with ACR as it’s built in and works great.
‘PhaseOne C1 Pro’ seems especially suited to processing large batches of similar images (eg: commercial portrait studio images). But that’s not the type of work I tend to do so I prefer having more control on an image by image basis.
There may be features in ACR that are really worth exploiting for certain kinds of image. But so far I’m very happy with my workflow and the results it produces.
Russell 🙂
You might listen to Chris and you might also want to post the question in the correct forum for Camera Raw. . .look at the top of the forums. . .and read what’s already there. Asking an often answered question won’t get you much in the way of a reply. . .
David – you need to catch up on a LOT of information about what camera RAW files are and how they work. I didn’t want to type all of it, and just suggested that you go read up on it.
Why was ACR completely omitted in online help and printed manual? This is very inconsiderate of people who like to type short (RTFM) replies. <g>
Dave,
RAW file is not an image. It is combination of raw sensor data and various camera settings. This cocktail needs to be processed before it becomes an image.
ACR is your blender, PS is your dish.
Adjustments you make in ACR will determine how image is formed from RAW data; Adjustments you make in PS (after ACR) are like adding little seasoning to a cooked dish. You cant add enough salt and ketchup to cover up for mixing wrong ingredients.
Some adjustments you make at the RAW stage are simply unavailable in PS with standard tools and processed image.
Thanks,
I wasnt looking for a tutorial just a clue since I have done quite a bit of reading and studying and the conclusion I came up with was that I could use PS for almost everything, therefore I must be missing something but I couldnt tell what. Thank you all for the info.
Dave
Pierre,
Thanks for the links. Very interesting stuff.
Ronald
