Workflow in Adobe Camera Raw vs. BreezeBrowser or YarcPlus

[ac_gordon]

i bit the bullet and got the Adobe Camera Raw ("ACR") plugin for PS7.

i do like the ease of control in setting white balance with the two

sliders on images with no neutral areas. however, when i use yarc or

breeze for conversion, i generally tweak the white balance in curves

or levels with the gray point dropper. is there any benefit in image

quality to setting the white balance in ACR versus post-conversion

with the dropper in levels/curves? even more generally, is there any

benefit in image quality to performing the same edits in ACR that

would normally be done post-conversion in PS7?<p>

also, ACR's built-in camera profile for my d60 is pretty good.

however, i already have a profile for the d60 that i assign when

opening a converted raw file in PS7 after converting in yarc/breeze.

is there any way to use a different profile in ACR than the built-in

one, or is this something that will have to wait until ACR is

completely integrated into PS8?<p>

lastly, the ACR profile for the d60 will, on some of my images, cause

both the highlights and shadows to appear clipped on the ACR real-

time histogram but not on the PS7 histogram (Menu: Image > Histogram)

after conversion. which is more accurate? (i've notice the same

difference sometimes on the histogram shown in Image > Adjustments >

Levels vs. the Image > Histogram; some images appear clipped in the

levels histogram where they are not clipped on the Image > Histogram).

[ellis_vener_photography]

<I>s there any benefit in image quality to setting the white balance in ACR versus post-conversion with the dropper in levels/curves?</I><P>Changing either the levels or the curves is destructive to the information in the file. Try all three approaches and then look at the Histogram afterwards.

[arniemilowsky]

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time playing with ACR on a studio shoot that was shot under carefully controlled lighting conditions. The shoot was done with a D30, lighting checked with polaroids, a white card was shot once the lighting was correct, and the white card used for custom white balance in the camera for the shoot. After the shoot, I had also used Canon's FVU (the Canon raw converter pluging that comes with the camera) in PS to produce images that I compared ACR to.</p>

I found that it is helpful (if not necessary) to set the white point in ACR prior to conversion. If not, the correction time spent in PS was rediculous. I also found that the easiest way to set the "correct" white point for the shoot was to set the white point in ACR using the white card shot, and save the settings (for color temp and tint), and use them for the actual shoot pictures.</p>

The next thing that I noticed was that the default exposure and brightness settings tended to produce blown out highlights once converted into PS. For this shoot, I found backing the exposure off to -0.15 (even though the histrogram indicated that 0 was correct; and the highlights were not clipped in ACR), and reducing the brightness to 40 produced images that were very easy to work with in PS. I also set the sharpening and smoothness settings to 0.</p>

[john_luke]

AC-

 

There was a posting earlier on the Rob Galbraith Forums about someone like yourself who was using ColorEyes to profile his camera, but now that he has bought ACR, it does not recognize that. Apparently for now, its either ACR or your custom made camera profile, but not both. :-(

 

Regarding making edits in post, as long as you are still in 16 bit, you still have the ability to make these moves, as any loss in small amounts of data usually aren't missed when you flip to 8 bit. I said "usually". It would appear to make the best use of ACR by doing it all there. Do it both ways, flip to 8 bit and take a look at your histograms for combing, or the "fingers of death"

[neil]

Has anyone done a side-by-side comparison of ACR vs. the supplied camera software in terms of algorithms and output quality?

 

For example, my Canon software has a "false color filter" that it uses by default. Is this the same as the "moire filter" in Adobe's plugin?

[neil]

I've answered my own question, sort of. I purchased the Adobe Raw converter and tried it.

 

I've found the Adobe tool so useful and convenient, I haven't even wanted to open the old tools again. I love being able to tweak the white balance by number, slider, preset, or by saving and loading settings. And tweaking white balance is fast! With the Canon converters, I had to hope something in my image gave me a reasonable white. Then I'd usually have to hunt and peck, which took forever for each try. This tool, on the other hand, is very fast at showing you the results, and it updates them as you move the slider.

 

This has greatly sped up the process of color correction, and my images now come out better than they ever have. I also really like the many other settings provided by the Adobe tool. This is what a raw converter should be. It is worth every penny.

 

A quick review of the Jpeg2000 tool: It's somewhat useful, but quite slow (I fault the file format, not Adobe). I can now write a lossless 16-bit per pixel image with on a decrease in file size on the order of 1/2 to 1/3. And lossy images look great. I'm still not sure if this format is worth the computing time. When I save one for the first time, Adobe takes me to a preview screen similar to the JPEG one, where I choose the compression level, and it tells me how big the file will be. Getting to this screen takes 5+ seconds, as does any adjustment made here. When I finish, the file is actually saved, taking another 5+ seconds. This is on a 1.2 ghz PC. Image quality for Jpeg2000 is great. Byte for byte, it looks a lot better than JPEG. This tool is more a nice-to-have than a necessity. The Raw converter, on the other hand, is something any serious digital photographer should have.