Raw or not raw? It doesn't matter in CS3

Here is one of the coolest features of Photoshop CS3. You can use the Adobe Raw Converter on file formats like tif and jpg. It’s a bit tricky to find, you need to go Open As under File, then make sure the RAW formats are selected in the drop down. Alas, you can only open up one file at a time. It’s a weird concept (isn’t the idea that you use ACR to convert from a linear capture mode?), but it means all those convenient adjustment tools are available for scanned images and jpg captures now. It’s way faster.

I don’t know how exactly these changes are being saved, as the program doesn’t make sidecar files for non-raw formats, but when you open the file again, it opens in ACR with all your options (including cropping) still open and available. I have no idea if these are truly non-destructive edits. Anyone have a clue?

I had about a hundred scanned images to process today, so I got pretty familiar with the interface. What would have taken me a week in CS2, constructing adjustment layers and such, took me a few hours in CS3. Here are my impressions and opinions.

There is a problem with the size of the ACR window, and it’s not limited to small laptop screens. I have my desktop monitor set at 1024 pixels wide (I’m middle aged, I need bigger text). The only way I can use the program is if I eliminate my Toolbar at the bottom of the screen. The window dimensions of the program cannot be altered.

Using the Fill light slider, on scanned images anyway, is a kind of Brightness setting with more noise. It is less useful than I first thought. It shifts the lower values higher on the histogram, with the attendant degradation. Sliding up the Black slider to compensate only negates the point. This is not a solution to underexposure. But in digital imagery, there is no solution to underexposure.

The Recovery slider, which knocks back clipping in the highlights, needs a subtle touch. It’s easy to gray down the white values, making it look like a bad HDR merge. Again, it seems like a brilliant idea that is less useful than I thought in practice. It still makes sense to first knock back the Exposure slider, then see what cleanup needs to be done in Recovery.

The Fill and Recovery sliders are non-responsive on both my computers. It takes two or three clicks to get them to wake up and obey me. None of the other sliders have this problem. I hope this is a bug that gets fixed, along with the window size problem.

The Parametric Tone Curve is brilliant. Use the middle two sliders first, then adjust the toes, lightlight and shadow, to finish. If you’re really obsessive, you can alter the break points between the various zones.

To finish, I am printing out my day’s work through Lightroom. That program has the smartest page setup and print features I’ve ever seen.

Comments

[guy]

Hi

This is indeed a nice feature of CS3. I would like to add that:
1. You dont have to use the "open as" command. In PS preferences -> file handling, set a checkmark next to "Prefer ACR for JPG" and all JPGs will be open in ACR without the cumbersome "Open As" method
2. You can open multiple JPEGs in ACR, either by ctrl-clicking in the Open as dialog, or setting the "prefer" option above and opening multiple JPEGs from bridge
3. The changes are indeed non-destructive, saved in the camera raw DB - just like RAW changes are saved when you opt not to save changes in XMP files

All of this of course applies not only to JPEGs but rather to all FF now supported by ACR