ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 The new ACR (4.1) as incorporated into LR vs 1.1 has a new 'feature' added. There is a horrendous amount of noise reduction/smoothing being applied to high iso files. This is confirmed by Thomas Knoll who writes ACR as describes it as a feature. It can also not be turned off period. I thought that it was just a feature of the new sharpening as as I have mine set to 'preview only' had been ignoring it, albeit using the original CS2's bridge to check for sharpness given how much smoothing was applied. I then came across a bunch of threads on the Adobe forums complaining about this new 'feature' which according to the tests is being applied even to low iso files. The changes are applied to all files whatever the ACR settings. I shoot with a brace of 5D's like so many other wedding shooters because it is a great wedding camera, it provides high iso files which I'm happy to use without noise reduction for even large portraits of the B&G where the quality is needed. Not wishing to insult but ACR 4.1 makes my canon files look like the equivelent iso Nikon files, huge amounts of smoothing and the resulting harsh edges, completely killing all the fine detail that you want to capture. I've rolled back to ACR 4.0, that originally shipped with CS3, I have the plugin available to email to anyone who asks as the only other option is reinstalling CS3. You lose the new sharpening tools (why are you sharpening in ACR anyway?) and the new clarity tool that I actually quite liked. However you don't get your 13 megapixels turned into 8 or so due to over smoothing at high iso's. If you haven't noticed it and still have access to a previous version of ACR I beg you to do a comparison and bear out what I'm saying, I have had 4 weddings processed with the new ACR 4.1 and will be replacing 4 sets of digital negatives that were included in the package... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michelle a. Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 Ben... do you have a link to an article or other relevant article that discusses this issue? Would love to look into it further as I am using LR 1.1 and CS3 with updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 12, 2007 Author Share Posted July 12, 2007 http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bb6a869.3bc45755/0?@64.asBvhbIMwtF@ has links to all the other threads and some in depth detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vlad khavin Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 Oh wow... Ben, thanks for posting that. Here I thought it was just me, but apparently... it's not. Hopefully, they will fix this. My hope is that Adobe will not force their idea of how smoothing should be done on the world. If they do just the nominal amount that the thread you posted said they've been doing all along, I can live with that. But ever since I actually updated to Lightroom 1.1, I've been wondering what was wrong with all of the high-ISO shots. Now I know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronald_moravec1 Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 Adobe needs to fix this asap. Why just not have one auto button and let some programer do everything with one mouse click. Then we would not need the rest of CS3, just one magic button. Now I am rethinking the upgrade to CS3. Nikon NX is looking better and better. There is also bible or whatever and raw therapee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 Thanks Ben. I have to check that out as I had not noticed it. I also upgraded to PS3 and cannot get Bridge 3 to work at all, even after the updates were downloaded. It loads but just sits there for an eternity. Unusable. I don't have time to track down a solution right now. Grrrr : -( PS3 itself has some nice features but some genius moved the feather function into a sub menu so you have to perform an additional step to get to it. But I think it now has a key command, so I guess I'll have to retrain myself to use that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 12, 2007 Author Share Posted July 12, 2007 You're right about Bridge CS3 Marc, I'm still using the original Bridge for all my editing, culling, renaming, etc, the new one is just horribly slow and clunky. I use the new one for the new ACR but that is it. What I could really do with though is for them to put a dodging and burning tool into ACR though, I would kill for that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ned1 Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 Back to Bibble for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timberwulf Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 I'd like the ACR downgrade please. :) My email is requestable through profile. Thanks a ton for posting this. I thought something looked odd. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 13, 2007 Author Share Posted July 13, 2007 you have mail.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Ben, so you still have CS2 bridge on your computer? I thought that leaving CS2 on my computer might have been the problem with my CS3 Bridge. But it seems not. I cannot use CS3 Bridge at all. It just doesn't load right, so I can't access ACR through it. It's a real mess. I have to have Bridge 3 so I can load the new MKIII files due to the latest version of ARC which supports the MKIII only works with Bridge 3. PS3 works okay, no slow downs or anything. Just Bridge is the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michelle a. Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Marc I had numerous problems with CS3 Bridge not working properly and I too still had CS2 installed. Bridge would crash or just not load at all, constantly. As soon as I uninstalled the previous version.... CS3 Bridge started behaving and working as it should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michelle a. Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Ben thanks for the link.... so if I'm understanding this correctly, this is primarily a Canon user issue? I'm a Nikonite.... somewhat relieved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 13, 2007 Author Share Posted July 13, 2007 Not really, it's just that the canon files are so good at high iso that smearing them makes the changes very very apparent. Marc, I had a problem of ACR not working in the new bridge, also widely documented on the Adobe user to user forums. I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled it, working fine now. I installed CS3 and then CS2 which seems to help with the computers confusion. Bridge CS3 is still hopelessly buggy, won't recognise random RAW files, takes more than an age to provide thumbnails, etc, etc. Don't know how Adobe had the cheek to release it in that condition. The original Bridge was slow but this is glacial.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Thanks Ben. Well. I sure the heck am NOT going to reformat my hard drive just for this version of Bridge. It's astounding that they would release it so screwed up. Plus, I'm caught between a rock and a hard place because the latest version Lightroom is required to open the RAW files from the Canon 1DMKIII. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 13, 2007 Author Share Posted July 13, 2007 It isn't actually, if you use the DNG conversion program that was in the ACR 4.1 download currently available from Adobe, you can batch convert all your 1D mkIII files to DNG then open them in any version of ACR back to 3.0 or indeed the original LR. Yes it's a pain but to my mind having that amount of smoothing applied to the super clean files of the mkIII would be a crime! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Thanks Ben, I'll try that. It occures to me that I actually don't know what a real MKIII high ISO shot looks like since I've only processed the files in this version Lightroom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 14, 2007 Share Posted July 14, 2007 Really weird. I can load a bunch of MKIII files in a desktop file and see the thumbnails. If I click/open one of them it'll open in the new version of ACR and it works fine, but I can't use bridge 3 to sort them. I can even select 20 files and they'll open in ACR in the filmstrip ... So I did a conversion to DNG and that works in CS2 Bridge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 14, 2007 Author Share Posted July 14, 2007 and now what do you think of the high iso? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 14, 2007 Share Posted July 14, 2007 FABULOUS !!!! even better than I thought it was. ISO 6400 is actually usable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652 Posted July 15, 2007 Author Share Posted July 15, 2007 iso 6400 and f1.2 lenses, hell who needs light anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 Actually Ben, I'll still use flash to balance out everything the way I've always done. Now it just extends the low light ability even further. Flash will virtually be fill in just about all circumstances. I will rarely use the ISO 6400 ... but the 2500 and 3200 settings are quite amazing. Here is another thing I've discovered. The live view feature is much more useable than I initially thought. For example when shooting the actual ceremony I often use a tripod. I can enact the live view and 10X zoom to focus. The LCD image is much brighter than viewing through the viewfinder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 Ben, I've experimented more now and all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. Convert to DNG ( a bit time consuming) and use Bridge CS2 as the browser, I cannot believe how clean the ISO 2000, 2500, and 3200 MKIII files are ... and many of the better exposed 6400 files look very good also. I can now see that Lightroom default was messing with the files too much. I also experimented with shooting high ISO (2000 & 2500) in brighter conditions which allowed me to stop down a great deal while maintaining a high shutter speed. Looks like ISO 500 or 800 from some of my other cameras. Also shot some f/1.2 in better light using ISO 2000 - 3200 ... pushing the shutter speed to 1/8000th. Thanks again. Now I hope they straighten out the new Lightroom. What's really confusing is that with CS2 open as the browser, and PS3 open, the Bridge 3 symbol appears on ACR window when I open a thumbnail from CS2 Bridge. It's all so weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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