Any Adobe (beta testers) with ACR 6.x info

[Raw shooter]

Love to hear any tidbits, changes, or upgrades in ACR or Bridge  - from Photoshop CS5.
Specifically, any improvements in output sharpening or printing directly from Bridge. (all hopes!)

[Schewe]

The real beta testers are STILL under NDA embargo until April 12th...

In terms of "tea reading" what will be in ACR 6, download Lightroom 3 Beta 2. LR and ACR share the same processing pipeline so the image quality (the big story in LR 3) found in LR 3 will be found in ACR 6...has to or the pipeline would get broken.

[AFairley]

But the $64,000 question (actually, morel ike a $200 question) is not what ACR 6 will be like but whether it will be backwards compatible with CS4 (not that I expect to find out until April 12).

[madmanchan]

If history is anything to go by, major versions of Camera Raw (e.g., 4.0, 5.0) are tied to major versions of Photoshop (e.g., CS3, CS4) and do not work in earlier versions.

[jjj]

But the $64,000 question (actually, morel ike a $200 question) is not what ACR 6 will be like but whether it will be backwards compatible with CS4 (not that I expect to find out until April 12).

New versions of ACR have always had improvements that cannot be implemented by previous versions.
Just like PS adds items like say layer styles that cannot be utilized by versions of PS that did not have those features.
And this is the way of software improvement that is near universal when it comes to files made with new features.

Why would you need backwards compatibility unless someone else is processing images for you in a more recent edition of ACR, which you then wanted to re-edit in an older version?
An unlikely situation. If you have the new version, why bother with the older less able variant.

[KeithR]

But the $64,000 question (actually, morel ike a $200 question) is not what ACR 6 will be like but whether it will be backwards compatible with CS4 (not that I expect to find out until April 12).

ACR 6 is not a seperate program that can be purchased/downloaded but rather part of CS5. If you want ACR 6, then you have no option but to get/upgrade to CS5 when it becomes available.

[Peter_DL]

ACR 6 is not a seperate program that can be purchased/downloaded but rather part of CS5. If you want ACR 6, then you have no option but to get/upgrade to CS5 when it becomes available.

I would be willing to pay the full price for the CS5 upgrade,
if I could limit the installation to ACR 6.x while leaving CS4 in place "as it is".

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[KeithR]

I would be willing to pay the full price for the CS5 upgrade,
if I could limit the installation to ACR 6.x while leaving CS4 in place "as it is".
--

You can have both versions of installed at the same time. I (and others) have done this in the past to make sure that things are going well before jettising the older version, so you will be able to have CS4 and 5 on the same machine. The downside is that you can only have one running at a time.

[digitaldog]

ACR 6 is not a seperate program that can be purchased/downloaded but rather part of CS5. If you want ACR 6, then you have no option but to get/upgrade to CS5 when it becomes available.

Or purchase Lightroom who’s develop module has historically (for good reason) updated its functionality for parity with the latest version of ACR.