New to CC... and confused

I should know this, and it's probably something I overlooked. But...

When I open images in ACR (9.7) some images from the very same camera have the fill, recovery, and brightness. Some don't. Why?

Were they previously processed in LR3 or earlier? Those sliders were from the 2010 process and if an image was processed using 2010 LR won't change it unless you specifically ask it to. LR4,5,6,CC2016 all still contain the old 2010 process engine in case you have an old image you don't want to update.

If you didn't previously process them in the 2010 engine then the only thing I can think of is that you are using a preset that includes the 2010 process.

Dan, thank you for your help. You mention LR but I have never used LR, and don't use it in the new CC install. However, what you say still applies. Until my recent subscribe to CC, I have been using PS CS5 which contains the 2010 process engine. Now that I have a reason, I'll figure out a path. Thanks for your help. Makes sense.

As to the 2010 vs 2012 engines, the jury is still out. I know many users babble about both, but I just processed a RAW in 2012 that had deep shadows and high highlights that formerly demanded HDR processing. Not so... 2012 just pulled highs down and lows up into what is a rather good looking image.

Again, thanks. Your answer fits and makes sense.

In the Camera Calibration tab, the top item controls the Process Version. However there is a caveat. When you convert an edited image from 2010 to 2012, CR will set its sliders in a way that attempts to recreate the previous editing. It isn't always entirely successful because it can't be. There are some very basic differences between the two PVs and if you regret the conversion, you can"t always go back to exactly what it was before. In LR the usual advice is to do the change over initially on a Virtual Copy, especially if it is an important image. But in CR there are no VCs. I am not sure what the best practice would be using ACR, but some googling around for posts from around the time of the release of PSCS6 should produce some answers.

Elle,

Thank you very much. Very useful info. I am doing mostly landscapes, so if converting from 2010 to 2012 doesn't produce good results, I find that just retweaking settings in 2012 usually ends with better results.

I've been playing with some RAWs shot 6 years ago, and so far I am really, really impressed with 2012.

tzalman wrote in post #18190422
In the Camera Calibration tab, the top item controls the Process Version. However there is a caveat. When you convert an edited image from 2010 to 2012, CR will set its sliders in a way that attempts to recreate the previous editing. It isn't always entirely successful because it can't be. There are some very basic differences between the two PVs and if you regret the conversion, you can"t always go back to exactly what it was before. In LR the usual advice is to do the change over initially on a Virtual Copy, especially if it is an important image. But in CR there are no VCs. I am not sure what the best practice would be using ACR, but some googling around for posts from around the time of the release of PSCS6 should produce some answers.

There is one way around this issue, if you really wanted to go to the effort, To maintain the old processing all you would really need to do is rename the xmp file, by simply adding an old, or whatever to the end of the filename. It would be nice to see the VCs in Bridge, and there are several different ways you might do them, you could either simply add additional conversions to the same XMP file, or use multiple XMP files, one for each VC. I don't think it would be very difficult to implement the code in Bridge, and we do now have collections/smart collections in Bridge, so who knows maybe Adobe will give us VCs in Bridge too.

Alan

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #18190430
Elle,

Thank you very much. Very useful info. I am doing mostly landscapes, so if converting from 2010 to 2012 doesn't produce good results, I find that just retweaking settings in 2012 usually ends with better results.

I've been playing with some RAWs shot 6 years ago, and so far I am really, really impressed with 2012.

Yeah, PV 2012 is great and I remember that when I first started using it I felt like a whole new world was opening up. It took Adobe 9 years to get there (from 2003 to 2012) but there finally was a Raw engine that could approach b/w film tonality. My favorite guru, George Jardine, demonstrates here how just switching from 2010 to 2012 can add as much as three stops of DR:
http://www.digitalphot​opro.com …/proper-exposure-matters/
and for an excellent tutorial on the nuts and bolts of PV 2012, I highly recommend this:
http://www.digitalphot​opro.com …r-highlights-and-shadows/

Thanks, Alan. Renaming is not a problem, but another solution may be faster. I'm thinking about creating a sub-directory named OLD XMP and moving them all there. That will create a fresh start on everything.

tzalman wrote in post #18190483
Yeah, PV 2012 is great and I remember that when I first started using it I felt like a whole new world was opening up. It took Adobe 9 years to get there (from 2003 to 2012) but there finally was a Raw engine that could approach b/w film tonality. My favorite guru, George Jardine, demonstrates here how just switching from 2010 to 2012 can add as much as three stops of DR:
http://www.digitalphot​opro.com …/proper-exposure-matters/
and for an excellent tutorial on the nuts and bolts of PV 2012, I highly recommend this:
http://www.digitalphot​opro.com …r-highlights-and-shadows/

Thanks again, Elle. Good info. And I will check the links.

That additional three stops of DR is exactly what I am experiencing, and the source of my elation. As said, the RAWs are 6-years old. I shot them as HDR knowing the DR of the camera and processing at the time. However, with 2012 I am now finding I can pick a mid-rangeer and pull up and pull down with no clipping on either end, or with mild and acceptable clipping. I am pretty well stunned.

I remember reading a few years ago that some lamented a few 2010 controls missing in 2012. I have no idea what their complaints are about. 2012 is hands-down superior to 2010.

Brings up a problem, tho. I pre-ordered the new ON1 RAW. At the time I thought anything could be better than ACR 2010. But now seeing the capabilities of the 2012 engine, the ON1 product is going to have to go a lot further to compete. Due out in a few days. We'll see.

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #18190577
Thanks, Alan. Renaming is not a problem, but another solution may be faster. I'm thinking about creating a sub-directory named OLD XMP and moving them all there. That will create a fresh start on everything.

Thanks again, Elle. Good info. And I will check the links.

That additional three stops of DR is exactly what I am experiencing, and the source of my elation. As said, the RAWs are 6-years old. I shot them as HDR knowing the DR of the camera and processing at the time. However, with 2012 I am now finding I can pick a mid-rangeer and pull up and pull down with no clipping on either end, or with mild and acceptable clipping. I am pretty well stunned.

I remember reading a few years ago that some lamented a few 2010 controls missing in 2012. I have no idea what their complaints are about. 2012 is hands-down superior to 2010.

Brings up a problem, tho. I pre-ordered the new ON1 RAW. At the time I thought anything could be better than ACR 2010. But now seeing the capabilities of the 2012 engine, the ON1 product is going to have to go a lot further to compete. Due out in a few days. We'll see.

The real big issue about PV2012 for some people is that for some controls it is auto-adaptive, so that you cannot really be sure what settings are actually being applied to any particular image. So you batch convert, the sliders all get the same numbers, but the actual conversion will differ from image to image. Depending on what you are doing, and how you feel about things, this might not be a good thing; its not too good for something like forensic analysis for example, where you need to be able to account for every transformation applied to the data. If on the other hand all you are concerned with is getting a good looking conversion, and doing it with relative ease, then PV2012 is almost the best thing since sliced bread. I absolutely loved moving to LR4, I did so with the first public beta release, and at that time I was shooting with my old 300D, and it was an absolute wonder, it really gave that camera a new lease of life. I found that 2006 to 2012 was very good, with new RAW converters coming along regularly that improved the camera's usefulness. Considering that the 300D was pre DPP, and the Canon RAW converter absolutely awful, possibly the worse bit of photography software I have ever used. Since 2012 though Adobe hasn't really improved the basic output from the RAW converter, just added new tools etc, although they are very useful tools. It would be nice to see another significant step in RAW output quality, so that I could have a nice camera upgrade for my current 50D. I would consider changing to a different RAW processor, but Capture 1 is too expensive for me to buy as a one off payment, so for now I am happy with Adobe, since I can afford the CC subscription as a hobby cost, and I really like the LR workflow.

Alan

In ACR, why not use Snapshots? One for current process version, one for 2010 or 2003.

Dennis. Thanks. Not familiar with snapshots, but I will look into it.

BigAl007 wrote in post #18190813
The real big issue about PV2012 for some people is that for some controls it is auto-adaptive, so that you cannot really be sure what settings are actually being applied to any particular image. So you batch convert, the sliders all get the same numbers, but the actual conversion will differ from image to image. Depending on what you are doing, and how you feel about things, this might not be a good thing; its not too good for something like forensic analysis for example, where you need to be able to account for every transformation applied to the data. If on the other hand all you are concerned with is getting a good looking conversion, and doing it with relative ease, then PV2012 is almost the best thing since sliced bread. I absolutely loved moving to LR4, I did so with the first public beta release, and at that time I was shooting with my old 300D, and it was an absolute wonder, it really gave that camera a new lease of life. I found that 2006 to 2012 was very good, with new RAW converters coming along regularly that improved the camera's usefulness. Considering that the 300D was pre DPP, and the Canon RAW converter absolutely awful, possibly the worse bit of photography software I have ever used. Since 2012 though Adobe hasn't really improved the basic output from the RAW converter, just added new tools etc, although they are very useful tools. It would be nice to see another significant step in RAW output quality, so that I could have a nice camera upgrade for my current 50D. I would consider changing to a different RAW processor, but Capture 1 is too expensive for me to buy as a one off payment, so for now I am happy with Adobe, since I can afford the CC subscription as a hobby cost, and I really like the LR workflow.

Alan

Alan,

Majorically I do fine art work. So the final image appearance is all I am concerned about. However, what you say about batch is a concern. I also poop around with HDR and luminosity mask blends which may be a problem. With 2010 my typical workflow was to process one of the batch photos. I would then call all in and use the synchronize feature to consistify them. If that (using Synchronize) in 2012 constitutes a batch, and all images in a set are being processed differently, then that may be a problem.

I'm with you on C1. All comparisons look good, but it is way too expensive. One thing I find absolutely useless is DPP - except with IR (converted 5D). It is the only raw processor that will set the WB low enough. Still, because of ACR's superiority over DPP, I use ACR (and it's minimum WB of 2000) to process IR RAWs.

For your HDR blends I would look at the new RAW HDR option in the latest releases of LR/ACR, by all account it is very good, and you end up with a 32 bit RAW DNG file, so the HDR blend is done before any other processing. I don't usually shoot HDR, but I have tried the RAW Pano tool, and for a 65 image multi row, pano that was shot hand held it produces by far the best results , compared to both the PS tool and MS ICE, again I don't do enough panos to warrant buying specific software. What I liked was that in a scene with a lot of people moving around in groups it attempted to remove as many of them as possible. Again it does the stitching before you do your RAW processing, so what is even better is that you can have the HDR module combine your HDR exposures, then have the Pano module stitch the 32 bit HDR RAWs, so that you effectively start processing from a 32 bit panoramic RAW file as far as actually processing the image goes. I'm planning on going out and deliberately shooting some HDR panos just to test it out. As far as doing batch processes is concerned I believe the whole idea of the auto-adaptive algorithms is to ensure that your batch conversions actually do end up looking the same. LR has a tool called Match Total Exposure, which when applied to a batch of images that were shot at different exposures, say you forgot to change from Av to manual before shooting you pano, it will automatically bring the brightness levels of each image to the same value, although you can end up with all of the images adjusted a bit, it won't necessarily pick one image as the "correct" exposure. I don't think you can do the match exposures with Bridge/ACR though. If it really is an issue then of course you still have the option to use PV2010. Finally in the few occasions where I have shot HDR sets I tend to find that simply using the frame that gives the the correct ETTR exposure will process out and produce just as good a result as running a full HDR blend though PS, since I much prefer a generally natural look.

Alan

Thank you, Al. I did do a couple HDRs from Bridge / ACR and was surprised by the results. Certainly much better than the implementation in CS5 where it is less than trash.

I primarily got CC for the 2012 engine. I got a special discount deal on a year subscribe, so went for it.

Every where I go (including this thread) people are clamoring about LR. I haven't cranked it up yet. I didn't plan to because of all the horror stories I have read about the cataloging system, but perhaps I'll have to look into it more carefully.

As mentioned before, I pre-purchased ON1 RAW and may have a careful look at it before considering LR. ON1 is due out tomorrow (11/23). However, I won't go into stuff about it because it is not the purpose of this thread.

The main question was answered and the thread contains very good info from all posters. Thanks to all who participated.

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #18191138
Dennis. Thanks. Not familiar with snapshots, but I will look into it.

Snapshots can be very handy. Say you want to process an image several ways, once you get the image as you want then go to Snapshots, save as a snapshot and give it a name. Go back and process a different version and again save as a snapshot. The processing instructions are saved within the xmp file.

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #18191439
Every where I go (including this thread) people are clamoring about LR. I haven't cranked it up yet. I didn't plan to because of all the horror stories I have read about the cataloging system, but perhaps I'll have to look into it more carefully.

It's interesting that a lot of people jump into Lightroom without factoring in the organizational aspect (as in "Digital Asset Management"/DAM)!

before Lightroom came out, I had begun shooting RAW and as such was "locked in" to Photoshop with the ACR processor, and as far as the Raw developer it worked fine -- in fact the Photoshop ACR shares the same "engine" as Lightroom uses, so as far as Raw processing, ACR gives you the "goods", and, in fact, new Raw processors have been coming out and people seem happy with them! Heck, even the Canon Raw processor DPP has made strides and has a good number of fans!

However, not just with Raw stuff, but with the whole load of digital photography, I was getting pretty loaded up, going back to older film photos that I would scan (and not be content with just stuffing negatives and prints into shoe boxes) but then the whole realm of digital cameras -- thousands of photos, initially jpegs, but then getting "serious" with DSLRs and Raw shooting, my library grew, and as it did the task of "managing" those photos grew and became, well, burdensome!

Well, during those days I picked up a book, "The DAM Book", which was about the challenge of managing/organizing out digital image libraries. At the time, well, it was a "challenge" because we were stuck with trying to manage things via our as-is computer systems and things would be frustrating. There were some tools, such as keywording, which could be used but the usefulness tended to fall flat...

But then, Adobe announced Lightroom, as a functional DAM workflow setup, and boy, that got us all interested! When the LR Beta came out, I jumped on it but it was pretty "buggy" so I stayed with the Photoshop stuff, but once LR got a stable release, I took the plunge.

As I said, this followed the whole concern about image management, it focused on that because, well, that was the need that couldn't be met by ACR and other apps. It did initially stick with Raw images, because that had become a focus with "serious" photographers and it merged well with the Adobe ACR Raw processor, but LR wasn't "about" the Raw processor, but in giving you integrated tools for managing and outputting your images. In fact, when Adobe integrated other formats such as jpegs, tiffs, and psds into Lightroom, it didn't change things much for us Raw shooters, although sure, we could snap some jpegs or run Raw files through PS and back into LR as tiffs or psds. But the core of Lightroom was its ability to integrate the management and output tools into an efficient package!

So, you refer to "horror stories" about the LR managing tools. Well, one thing I pick up on is the fact that some people just don't want or need such things, and so any such thing is a bother! Of course, when someone has problems/challenges that the LR tools can efficiently manage, but they maybe haven't tried LR out, or most "interesting", they haven't bothered to mess with those tools or to actually read a bit to learn how to use them, well, you got to chuckle a bit!

Anyway, since you have LR as part of your CC package, I'd think it would be well worth you taking the time -- watch a video or read a book, and read the LR Help, which does a good job of walking you through things! 'Course, I could also recommend reading "The DAM Book" if you want to get up to speed on this topic!

As to other apps that have been coming out, I have nothing against good stuff, but since LR is so well integrated and with a top-of-the-line Raw processor, well, I'm not very interested in complicating things with other apps, although I do hear good things about a lot of "plug-in"s that can be used with LR. In fact, Photoshop itself runs as an LR plug-in -- a quick "Edit In Photoshop" click and then by default it returns a tiff or psd that automatically becomes part of the LR library!

Well, have fun!