Do you do everything in PS or still something in ACR?

With all the adjustment tools in ACR available in Photoshop CS5, do you do all your editing in PS or still some adjustments in ACR? Please elaborate on your reasons. Thanks

I use ACR for initial tweaking such as exposure, blacks, and WB correction, then use PS for what ACR can't do, such as sharpening, layers, Gaussian, etc.

I'm still a complete newbie to PS and ACR, though.

95% of my images never go into PS, they go straight from ACR to jpeg. ACR can do all the basic adjustments, quickly or in batches, and CS4 up can do some complex stuff too. I use PS only for removing objects, swapping eyes, that sort of thing.

ACR is faster as it can work on batches of images at a time.

Well, I'd say that anyone who owns CS5 owes it to themselves to learn how to use them to get the most out of their photography. There is a learning curve to each -- for a time you may spend more time in ACR, then more time in Photoshop, and in time each of us can settle down to what works best for us as a workflow.

As you see above, many of us have settled into the Raw converter for the bulk of our workflow because for the type of photography we do, a good Raw conversion is all we need for nearly all our images. But I think you'll find that many of us who have been doing photo processing over a number of years have put plenty of time into Photoshop -- we know what it's capable of (even though some of us have settled on an older version and are "skipping" all the fancy new stuff).

So, if a lot of people check in here you'll get both points of view/workflows, neither is "better" then the other, as long as you learn to get the most out of what you have. There is a reason why those of us who shoot Raw frequently stay in the Raw processor, and that's because we love to bring the best out of our images, what we actually capture, and Raw and Raw processing is all about that. And there are reasons why so many people who love Photoshop spend a lot of time in their, because Photoshop can work "image magic" that goes beyond the capabilities of a Raw processor, and do things that would otherwise be, well, not possible!

So, I may not have answered your question -- I myself am a 95%+ Lightroom user (it shares the same processing engine as ACR) but I have Photoshop at the ready, whether to "play" or to get something "serious" done.

Photoshop used to be the main tool for photographers, but over the past 5 years it's really moved to ACR/Lightroom. Working in batches is a HUGE time saver, even just not having to open files individually is really really helpful. If I had to process files one by one i'd probably stop taking photos.

tim wrote in post #11197074
Photoshop used to be the main tool for photographers, but over the past 5 years it's really moved to ACR/Lightroom. Working in batches is a HUGE time saver, even just not having to open files individually is really really helpful. If I had to process files one by one i'd probably stop taking photos.

Heh! Remember the "good old days"?

The old days come faster in the digital world. People in my local professional society were surprised to hear i've never shot a frame of film in an SLR. Well, actually, one frame with my flatmates camera to say I had, but none professionally.

mrmarks wrote in post #11195904
With all the adjustment tools in ACR available in Photoshop CS5, do you do all your editing in PS or still some adjustments in ACR? Please elaborate on your reasons. Thanks

I think it's the other way around actually: lot of the PS adjustment tools now appear in ACR...

IMO, anything that can be done in the raw converter, should be done in the raw converter.

mrmarks wrote in post #11195904
With all the adjustment tools in ACR available in Photoshop CS5, do you do all your editing in PS or still some adjustments in ACR?

You've got it backwards.... I do all the fundamental adjustments in ACR, but with every new version of ACR, I'm able to do more and more creative work in ACR that formerly was only possible in Photoshop.

I don't use LightRoom, but I know this goes even more so for LR vs PS.

mrmarks wrote in post #11195904
With all the adjustment tools in ACR available in Photoshop CS5, do you do all your editing in PS or still some adjustments in ACR? Please elaborate on your reasons. Thanks

ACR is getting more and more tools. Color adjustments, curves, brushes, clone, spot removal, quality sharpening with masks, lens and camera profiles, etc. I use the photoshop tools for image conversion, but launch them from bridge.

Mike