The point I made was that ACR leaves artifacts, simply because it does NR itself. This is a user choice, and should not be left to Adobe.
The picasa one, has a much finer grain pattern, which is a better starting point. You can use noise reduction programs, but you get a better result by not using ACR in the ist place. ACR applies by default more contrast and sharpening than picasa does. Hence the different look.
Hence the softer look from picasa.
But what amazes me, is how complacent users can be, when you can clearly see the mess ACR makes of high ISO images. The blame goes firmly to Mr Knoll, who should not even be applying any kind of noise filtering or reduction anyway. The problem ist came to light with LR 1.1, it has been toned down since then..but it has not been fixed.
I am amazed anyone could prefer the ACR one...
There are plenty of other programs out there, for example raw therapee, that show you just how much adobe are playing about with the noise reduction, when they should be doing NONE at all.
The reason for not doing any luminance NR, was to show how different they look. And because I don't dislike a fine film like grain pattern for high ISO images.
And in case anyone thinks it's "just my camera" have a look here.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=30145534I am going to keep moaning until Adobe get a grip on the problem, join me, and let's get something done!