Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Camera Raw Q&A => Topic started by: Redcrown on April 22, 2020, 03:24:44 pm

Title: Long live ACR.
Post by: Redcrown on April 22, 2020, 03:24:44 pm
Poor ACR, it just gets no respect. LuLa is the only forum I know that has a board dedicated to ACR, and here it sits with no posts since Feb 2. Over 2.5 months. So I'm posting just to give ACR a little love and bump the date.

I suspect old guys like me started long ago with Bridge/ACR and found little use for Lightroom. Our ACR skills are honed to a fine edge, so we don't have a lot of questions to ask. The younger Lightroom crowd, of course, are often dazed and confused so LR gets lots of action across all forums.

The old crowd also grew up on old and quite limited operating systems (anybody here know how to spell DOS?). We were forced to use file and folder names to organize things. And in the beginning, files and folders names were limited to 8 characters. That forced us to become excellent users of abbreviations. We are like squirrels who can find a nut we buried years ago with no help from a catalog.

So long live ACR, the only software that has the fewest questions and needs even fewer answers.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: digitaldog on April 22, 2020, 03:33:53 pm
So long live ACR, the only software that has the fewest questions and needs even fewer answers.
Yes and, as many will see in the near future (wink wink, nod nod), there will be plenty of ACR stuff to talk about.....
Chomping at the bit?  ;D
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: snowrs on April 22, 2020, 04:11:11 pm
I do not even have Lightroom on the machine these days.  I still much prefer ACR even though I often convert Fuji files in Irident X-Translator first.

Hmmm, totally curious as to what 'Digidog' is hinting about!

bob snow
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: elliot_n on April 22, 2020, 05:14:19 pm
Yes and, as many will see in the near future (wink wink, nod nod), there will be plenty of ACR stuff to talk about.....
Chomping at the bit?  ;D

Curious - but I can't think of anything I need.

(Oh, they could freshen up the interface.)
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: fdisilvestro on April 22, 2020, 05:47:36 pm
Well, I can think of a few improvements that can be included in LR/ACR such as:

- Ability to select a specific adjustment brush when you have two or more on top of each other
- Full HSL panel in the adjustment brushes
- Handling of Dark Frames

ACR and the develop module of LR are almost the same in capabilities, so maybe that's why there are not many dedicated sub-forums.

I watched a few videos last week of a "Photoshop Virtual Summit" and ACR & the ACR Filter in PS were heavily used by most of the instructors.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: fdisilvestro on April 22, 2020, 06:03:32 pm
Also, having the ability to see an accurate histogram of the raw data would be very welcome

Dreams:
- 3D Gamut of the output image
- RGB parade & Vectorscope (as in video editors)
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: Peter McLennan on April 22, 2020, 07:50:07 pm
(anybody here know how to spell DOS?).

Nope.  But I can still speak a little CP/M    "PIP D:=C:\images\D800\*.jpg"
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on April 23, 2020, 03:14:04 am
Curious - but I can't think of anything I need.

(Oh, they could freshen up the interface.)

Speed?

Jeremy
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: Chris Kern on April 27, 2020, 08:51:52 pm
I suspect old guys like me started long ago with Bridge/ACR and found little use for Lightroom. Our ACR skills are honed to a fine edge, so we don't have a lot of questions to ask. The younger Lightroom crowd, of course, are often dazed and confused so LR gets lots of action across all forums.

Well, I'm hardly young but I long ago made the transition from Bridge/ACR to Lightroom.  I'm curious, though: is there anything you can still do in ACR that isn't available in the Lightroom desktop version (a.k.a., LR "Classic")?  Or is the only difference the front-end user agent?  I was under the impression―from Jeff Schewe's book, I believe―that, functionally, the two products shared the same raw processing code.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: digitaldog on April 27, 2020, 08:54:03 pm
I'm curious, though: is there anything you can still do in ACR that isn't available in the Lightroom desktop version (a.k.a., LR "Classic")? 
Kind of the opposite; things you can do in LR you can't in ACR. In terms of the Develop module functionality however, AFAIK, they are on parity because folks can bounce back and forth between the two for editing.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: fdisilvestro on April 27, 2020, 09:25:27 pm
You can’t do virtual copies in ACR, as this rely on the database
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: Arlen on April 27, 2020, 10:04:18 pm
Some sort of a history panel to easily go back and forth between adjustment states would be very nice. It's one thing that's present in LR that I sorely miss when using ACR.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: DP on April 27, 2020, 10:09:45 pm
You can’t do virtual copies in ACR, as this rely on the database

in ACR you can have snapshots though ...
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: digitaldog on April 27, 2020, 10:13:07 pm
in ACR you can have snapshots though ...
Apples and oranges; not even close to the same functionality.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: DP on April 27, 2020, 10:27:17 pm
Apples and oranges; not even close to the same functionality.
one can use symlinks to get closer... granted native functionality is better
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: digitaldog on April 27, 2020, 10:40:05 pm
one can use symlinks to get closer... granted native functionality is better

"You can do all sorts of things that are fiendishly clever, then fall 
in love with them because they're fiendishly clever, while 
overlooking the fact that they take a great deal more work to obtain 
results that stupid people get in half the time. As someone who has 
created a lot of fiendishly clever but ultimately useless techniques 
in his day, I'd say this sounds like an example."
Bruce Fraser

And then there's LR's Proof Copies which are honored in the Print module (ACR can't even print).
So yeah, as outlined: You can’t do virtual copies in ACR, as this rely on the database.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: stivemorgan on May 21, 2020, 07:19:51 am
Hi everyone. I also dont have I do not Lightroom so I am ok with it.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: kers on May 21, 2020, 07:54:07 am
Speed?
I am a photoshop user, but like to develop in LR.
it is far more practical in developing series of raw images.

I think LR 9 takes full advantage of al cores of the processor+ uses the GPU;
so i have nothing to complain.

- about LR
the interface could be more refined. Looks a bit 1990's
if they introduce something as small local catalogues - as i use in MediaPro  - i would prefer that .
( media Pro is still the my no1- for culling, remaning and organizing; super flexible and useful)
If they make the enhanced detail part of the normal routine i would encourage that.
Still have problems with the transform module;  cannot get it back to the original state sometimes;

- i am afraid they are going to introduce AI
as much as i see the benefit, ( like topaz denoise AI a lot), i also see problems with AI to make it a standard, because of the stupid mistakes it often makes.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: kimballistic on May 21, 2020, 12:15:59 pm
I'm curious, though: is there anything you can still do in ACR that isn't available in the Lightroom desktop version (a.k.a., LR "Classic")?  Or is the only difference the front-end user agent?

The only thing I've noticed, which has more to do with the front-end UI code:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/we-need-point-curve-feature-parity-between-acr-lightroom-classic-and-a-better-ui

Quote
ACR's UI for point curve manipulation is dramatically better than Lightroom Classic's:
  • in ACR, clicking a point doesn't accidentally move the point
  • in ACR, you can select a point by clicking it, and it remains selected
  • in ACR, selected points can be manipulated with the keyboard
  • in ACR, you can use Control-Tab to move between selected points
  • in ACR, once a point is selected you can edit it numerically by entering specific In/Out values
Additionally, the tone curve in LR doesn't even use the full width/height of the panel, which makes it terribly small on large displays!
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: leuallen on May 21, 2020, 01:05:59 pm
I was unaware of how the curve function works in ACR. Bring it two LR pronto. I have been going out to PS when I need precise curve adjustments.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: Wolfman on May 21, 2020, 07:32:44 pm
The tone curve is also in Lightroom in the develop module.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: kimballistic on May 22, 2020, 12:20:00 pm
The tone curve is also in Lightroom in the develop module.

Correct!

I was just remarking on how brain-dead LR's tone curve UI is compared to how thoughtfully implemented ACR's is.

ACR's tone curve is a precision instrument.

LR's tone curve is a pretty toy.

And what's sad, is that both UIs control the same underlying code.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: digitaldog on May 22, 2020, 01:07:17 pm
Correct!
I was just remarking on how brain-dead LR's tone curve UI is compared to how thoughtfully implemented ACR's is.
Brain dead how? Just what's specifically missing in LR's Tone Curve that you feel makes it a 'toy'?
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: kimballistic on May 22, 2020, 01:38:52 pm
Brain dead how? Just what's specifically missing in LR's Tone Curve that you feel makes it a 'toy'?

Again, it's the UI, not the underlying code that I'm complaining about.  Quoting from my previous post:

The only thing I've noticed, which has more to do with the front-end UI code:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/we-need-point-curve-feature-parity-between-acr-lightroom-classic-and-a-better-ui

Quote
    ACR's UI for point curve manipulation is dramatically better than Lightroom Classic's:
    • in ACR, clicking a point doesn't accidentally move the point
    • in ACR, you can select a point by clicking it, and it remains selected
    • in ACR, selected points can be manipulated with the keyboard
    • in ACR, you can use Control-Tab to move between selected points
    • in ACR, once a point is selected you can edit it numerically by entering specific In/Out values

    Additionally, the tone curve in LR doesn't even use the full width/height of the panel, which makes it terribly small on large displays!
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: kers on May 22, 2020, 01:40:06 pm
Brain dead how? Just what's specifically missing in LR's Tone Curve that you feel makes it a 'toy'?

It works a bit different and less refined than in photoshop.
You cannot use the arrows to move points.
To remove a point it is different as well - in photoshop you just drag the point out in LR it is right click- remove.
I prefer the photoshop curves. It is my nr1 tool.
It is better to have the same tools in both programs.
Title: Re: Long live ACR.
Post by: digitaldog on May 22, 2020, 01:48:19 pm
Quote
CR's UI for point curve manipulation is dramatically better than Lightroom Classic's:
in ACR, clicking a point doesn't accidentally move the point
in ACR, you can select a point by clicking it, and it remains selected
in ACR, selected points can be manipulated with the keyboard
in ACR, you can use Control-Tab to move between selected points
in ACR, once a point is selected you can edit it numerically by entering specific In/Out values
Just be a bit patient, this will mostly be a rant of the past.....  ;)