I'm courious about the point of the local ajustment brush in ACR. I can see the point of it in Lightroom as theres no other options for localised ajustments, but in Photoshop with it's existing options for localised ajustment is there really a need for it at the "RAW" stage, and it there any advantage in doing it then.
If the idea is to keep the ajustments with the RAW file then why not add all the basic ajustment options, like recovery etc that are missing now?. Wayne
There is always an advantage of doing things at the RAW stage, that is the point of RAW! You're working with the RAW data and as such have much more quality than doing it afterwards. For example if you have a blown out element you can recover it in ACR but once it's in PS, even as 16 bit, unless the information was sent to PS it isn't there!
Which is missing the point really, Bridge and ACR give an extremely superior workflow tool, IMO superior to LR. I can work through 1000 wedding photos, process half of them, without having to enter PS once and apply superior adjustments such as the local brushes, taking seconds rather than the minutes it would take in PS.
BTW, Recovery and Fill Light, plus the targeted adjustment tool, gradient tool and a whole bunch of others are in ACR already. The idea of ACR is to get the maximum done with the RAW data before entering PS and hopefully without the need to do so in many cases. Not just as a conduit to PS.