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Provides: Manipulation of raw, DNG, JPEG, and TIFF images
Format: DVD
Developer: Adobe
Minimum Requirements: Photoshop and its requirements (PowerPC G5 or multicore Intel processor, Mac OS X v10.4.11, 512MB of RAM, 2GB of available hard-disk space for installation, 1,024x768 display with 16-bit video card
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Availability: Out now
Retail Price: Free with Adobe Photoshop
For an application that exists as a plug-in only, ACR is pretty amazing. Adobe Camera Raw has been around for sufficiently enough time that it is now a full, in-depth application; feature rich, with a complete range of power. For those who are already "shooting raw," ACR is already part of their main bag of tools. For those who are not shooting raw, it's time you stepped up to the plate. Either way, not bad for an application that you can't find if you look for it amongst your CS applications; that's because it's a plug-in.
The only way to access Adobe Camera Raw is to either double-click on a raw or DNG image, or to select a TIFF or JPEG image in Adobe Bridge and right-click to select that that image opens up in ACR. The other issue about ACR is that it can be linked to either Bridge or Photoshop. This is somewhat confusing, but what it boils down to is that if you have ACR opening from Bridge, Bridge is busy while ACR is opening. You have access to Photoshop, but not Bridge. If you have ACR opening from Photoshop, you have access to Bridge while ACR is opened, but not Photoshop. While it may sound confusing, this flexibility is very convenient and lets you multitask very efficiently. [To select from where ACR opens, go to Bridge's Preference, General tab, check "Double-click Edits Camera Raw Settings in Bridge."]
[Note: if you've purchased a new CS4 package, it might have shipped with Adobe Camera Raw 5.1 and you need to download the more recent 5.2. When you download this from Adobe, you will receive both the plug-in (which needs to go Library -> Application Support -> Adobe -> Plug-ins -> CS4 -> File Formats) and new Camera Profiles (discussed later in this review) and they have their own installer.]
Now, in this review, I will be focusing on the new features in ACR 5.2. If you want more information on the other aspects of Adobe Camera Raw, I encourage you to read my review of ACR 4.2 that shipped with CS3.
If you are new to the concept of raw images, here's a primer: just about all DSLR cameras can take raw images, some prosumer cameras can, but very few (if any) point & shoot can. What you are looking for is the ability to save your images not in JPEG format, but in "raw" format. The good news is that even if you can only save your images as JPEG, you still can take advantages of ACR.
A raw image is all of the data of the image before it has had any processing. Once you've saved the image in a format such as JPEG, you've locked in a number of dynamics that you may or may not want, such as white balance and/or exposure. Yes, you can change the color balance and exposure of the image in Photoshop, but to lock those changes in you have to change the pixels in the image. When you open a raw image, those are the original pixels and any changes you make are only on the interpretation of those pixels. That is, if I wear red-tinted glasses, the world is not really red-tinted, only my observation of the world. At any point I can change the tinting of my glasses as need be. If I save that tinting on the world (effectively saving it in JPEG or TIFF format), the world would be red-tinted and I'd have to wear compensation glasses to un-tint that color.
As stated, you can open TIF or JPEG images in ACR, but there are several limitations. One problem with version 4 of ACR that's been fixed with 5.2 is that you no longer have to constantly refresh the cache of the folder containing the JPEGs or TIFFs to get them recognized by ACR. Otherwise, the dynamics and restrictions remain the same, as they are inherent with running JPEGs or TIFFs within ACR:
- You cannot select from a white balance preset (as shown below: the raw image on top and a JPEG or TIFF below) because as mentioned earlier, by the time an image is saved in JPEG or TIFF format, the white balance is already locked in.
- You cannot open a TIFF image with any layers—the image must be flattened.
- Any alterations made on a JPEG or TIFF image can only be seen from within ACR. If you open any altered JPEG or TIFF image up without having first been opened via ACR, all you will see is the image without any of the processing that ACR did. If you now save the opened JPEG or TIFF image, an alterations made with ACR are now locked in and are part of the image.
ACR Converter
One application that Adobe does provide for raw images is the ability to convert a proprietary raw image (e.g., Nikon's NEF, Canon's CR2, etc.) into the nonproprietary Adobe DNG format. This is done either when importing the image from the Camera via the Adobe Photo Downloader (part of Bridge) or via the ACR Converter. The ACR Converter application has had no changes in the new release beyond an update to the cameras being supported.
ACR v. 5.2
If you are familiar with Adobe LightRoom, than the new tools available in Bridge should be a welcome surprise. Below is an image comparing the toolbar from ACR 4.2 (on the top) and 5.2 (on the bottom). Of particular note are the three new tools marked in red.
Without a doubt, my favorite new tool is the TAT, for Targeted Adjustment Tool. When you click and hold on the tool itself or right-click when the tool is active while the mouse is over the image you can select from amongst five possible adjustment activities, as seen below. When you select the first option, the Parametric Curve, the Control Panel on the right flips over to the Tone Curve tab, and as you mouse down on your image and drag up or down, you will raise and/or lower the curve at the appropriate of part of the curve on the image you moused-down on.
If you change to either Hue, Saturation, or Luminance, the Control Panel on the right flips over to the HSL tab, and as you drag up or down on the image, the color/shade of what you first moused-down on will adjust. Below, I dragged up on the green, which caused both green and yellow (to a lesser degree) to increase in saturation. As you right-click and select either Luminance or Hue, the sub-tab will self-select accordingly.
Lastly for TAT, if you select Grayscale Mix, the checkbox for Convert to Grayscale on the HSL tab is automatically checked, and now, as you adjust the image, you will be effectively darkening or lightening the appropriate regions on your image to obtain the best possible contrast for enhancing your image.
Now, while all this is great, one of the biggest limitations with ACR in the past (and one of the reasons why it was somewhat frustrating to create (for example) grayscale images in ACR) was that if you wanted your image to be used for both color and grayscale purposes, it wasn't worth it to take the time to create both versions in ACR because you'd fix the image's color. then trash all of that to create the grayscale and trash all of that to create a duotone, then trash all of that to do something else.
Well, no more trashing. Now, there are Snapshots.
The new tab at the end of the Control Panel on the right is brilliant for its elegance and simplicity. When you've got an image you wish to keep, you simply click on the "new page" icon on the bottom and name the image. Once you are done with that snapshot, any later time today, tomorrow, or next year, you select which snapshot to display for subsequent saving into a JPEG or TIFF image for other purposes.
Meanwhile, the next new tool is the Adjustment Brush. Simply, the Adjustment Brush lets you selectively apply parameters of the Basic Control Panel to specific regions on an image. For example, in the image below, I want to darken the sky a tad and reduce the exposure in the dense foliage in the upper right. However, if I increase the saturation of the blue in the sky with the TAT tool (see above), that will also increase the saturation in the blue flower. So, what I did was to use the TAT tool to increase the blue saturation in the sky (if I had used the brush on the sky, I would have also increased the saturation on the reddish branch as well—didn't want that). Then, using the Adjustment Brush, I wiped across the flower and decreased the Saturation. Then I created a new brush (see the 2nd pin) and wiped across the upper right corner and decreased the exposure in the dense foliage.
Note that the Adjustment Brush works just like any Photoshop brush in that it will have a size (diameter in pixels) and a feather, or softness. You can see the amount of softness in the image above with the solid circle within a dashed circle. The dashed circle indicates the edge of the soft brush while the solid circle represents where you are at 100% brush. Flow is just like a brush's flow, the percent of "ink" per sweep of the brush. The Density is the reverse-transparency of the brush. That is, 100% Density is 0% transparency.
The biggest limitation and frustration with the Adjustment Brush is that once you've placed a brush, you can only remove all the brushes you've placed, or none. What really is needed is the ability to right-click on a brush to be able to delete just that one brush. At best, the only workaround I could find was to zero out any settings in an Adjustment brush I felt was no longer necessary.
The last new tool, but not the last new feature, is the Graduated Filter. This is just like using a graduated density filter for your camera lens, but with an endless amount of settings; you can control broad regions of your image with all of the standard parameters of the Control Panel (as seen above) with the exception that brush size parameters do not exist for Gradation (e.g., size, feather, flow, density) because there is no brush.
As seen below, on the left side is the original image. The image is OK, but I felt the sky was too light and the sand was too dark; not an uncommon problem when pointing toward the west in the evening on the Pacific Ocean. I wanted more contrast in the clouds by lowering the exposure and I also wanted to lighten the exposure on the sand. These two alterations were made on the right side of the image below. You can see the two pairs of "pins" with the green and red indicating the active pins. Since these pins are active, I can adjust any of the parameters after having established the region I wished to change at any time.
Like the Adjustment Brush tool, there is no way to selectively remove a single adjustment. You can remove them all at once, or none. The only option you have to "effectively" remove a single adjustment is to zero out all of the parameters in the Control Panel.
The last new feature, like the TAT, only ships with the 5.2 update: Camera settings. Contained within this package are customized appearances for a slew of cameras. More specifically, if your camera can do raw, it probably has customized profiles ready to be installed.
After selecting the Camera Calibration tab from the Control Panel, you select which profile from the dropdown menu list you like the most (see below).That's it, you are done. OK, now for the explanation:
As I've been saying, when you look at a raw image, you are looking at an interpretation of how that image should be seen. There isn't one correct interpretation any more than there's one correct way to sing a song. There are a lot of different interpretations, some of which you may like more than others. When you select from amongst any of these interpretations, you are looking at the work of a number of people who take images from all of the possible cameras and fine tune how the image is created. You will note as you select from amongst these choices that there is no change to any of the settings; all these profiles provide is a point to get started with to initiate any subsequent adjustments you may decide to do.
Also, be aware that these are camera specific. That is, if you have a Canon 30D and 40D, you can have different settings for the two. You can use Landscape for the 30D and Portrait for the 40D. ACR will know which camera any image came from; once you've established which setting you want associated with which camera, that's all you need to do until you actively change the setting at a later date.
To give you a better idea of what could be different, see the image below. On the left you see profile 4.4, which is the default profile for ACR 5. On the right is the Camera Landscape profile. The blues are richer and the image is more vibrant. If you like the Camera Landscape profile, just leave this setting there and you are done. This is only a starting point for any subsequent alterations you make in the Control panel such as exposure, contrast, etc.
It is important to reiterate one special dynamic with raw images; not one thing done to a raw image is permanent. If you are using a native Canon, Nikon, or any other proprietary raw image, any of the adjustments you've created in ACR are applied via a "sidecar" file (that ACR creates) that must be in the same folder as the raw file to function. If you delete that file, or move it to another folder, any of the effects of that file are removed. The raw file is as it was when first opened. If you've converted that file to an Adobe DNG file, than the information is stored within the DNG file, but is still separate from the image itself. Any of the effects can be removed by right-clicking on the image in Bridge and selecting "Clear Settings." This is just like removing the sidecar file and you are back to the original image before any alteration.
In short, ACR rocks. If you want to obtain the best you can out of your images, you do need to first take good images. Do not take photos with the intent that you will "fix it in Photoshop." You can enhance images in Photoshop, but you can't "fix" an image. If you have to fix an image, it's already broken. However, the advantages of enhancing an image in ACR cannot be underestimated. First off, there's the issue that you are working with the original pixels. Once an image has been saved into a Photoshop or TIF image, the pixels are locked in place and any alterations are adjusting what's been adjusted. By the time an image is a JPEG, not only has it been adjusted, but it's also been stripped of a certain number of its original pixels. The less pixels you have to work with and/or the more any previous adjustments have altered the pixels, the less you can subsequently do with the image.
The more you can do with the original pixels, such as with ACR, the less you have to do in Photoshop, which means the more robust the image can be. As long as your photos are good to start out with, why not use the best tool to start any enhancement?
- See our Adobe Creative Suite 4 overview.
___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.
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