Posted by Todd Caudle on June 17, 2010 at 10:44 PM
...Charley and I were messing with CS3 at his house this morning, and I took note of our different workflow preferences. He likes Adobe Camera Raw, whereas I do all my initial tweaks in Canon's DPP before converting and moving on to Photoshop. However, I do like the breadth of options in ACR that are not available in DPP, and on the drive home I remembered hearing that you could open tiff and jpeg files in ACR. Did a little research once I got home, and was glad to find my recollections panned out. For some reason I can't open any of the 5D Mk-2 generated tiff files in CS3's version of ACR (I knew it didn't recognize Mk-2 raw files, but tiffs???), so I went searching through some original 5D images to try. This is one I had overlooked from a hike to High Dune last year. This was taken right at sunset. You can see some critter tracks angling up near the dominant dune crest.
Posted by Pam Colander on June 17, 2010 at 11:07 PM
Cool shot, like the critter prints! From the time I got my 5D I always did my intial work in DPP until someone here recommended ACR. I much prefer that step prior to PS.
Sweet light and nearly flawless 'development'!
Makes me wonder what your original take on this looked like.
Posted by Todd Caudle on June 18, 2010 at 12:15 AM
John, my original take wasn't much different, but I used the fill light function in ACR to bring a little more detail out of the shadows, used a little bit of clarity slider, a wee bit o' sharpening, and that's about it. I just hadn't done anything much with it til I came across it tonight.
This is one cool photograph, Todd. Love the graphics quality.
Joe Rogers
Posted by Todd Caudle on June 18, 2010 at 12:29 AM
Jack, you're right, and I was aware of that. But I thought once I converted a 5D2 raw file to tiff, a tiff is a tiff is a tiff. Apparently there's still something inherent in the tiff that identifies it in such a way that CS3's version of ACR can't deal with it.
"Can't deal with it" has a lot to do with Adobe pushing upgrades in any and every way possible. Forced upgrades to recognize 'newer' RAW files is reprehensible at best. Business is business, I suppose.
I think DPP is a little more accurate with adjusting the exposure than ACR. But the overall functionality of ACR (within its scope of operation) is unmatched to even CS3. The best example is converting to B&W. If you take one image with multiple colors and try to adjust the B&W conversion "color" sliders in CS3 you don't have the same range as you do with a B&W conversion in ACR. Try doing this with a single photo in both ACR and CS3,4,or 5 and you'll see what I mean. That alone shows me that ACR can manipulate more background data than CS3 can, for the specific functions ACR was created for. ACR does have its limitations, though (duh). You can't take an almost black section of a photo and put 100% fill light on it, unless you like noise it your shot. It's easier to do an exposure blend with another image you've adjusted in DPP or ACR and lay it over your dark area. I can't use the latest and greatest ACR because I only have CS3, but I've heard it has more options including a GND filter option that is very accurate.
Thank to Todd for showing me how to make some advanced selections yesterday! Now I can actually do some manual exposure blends with some accuracy.
Posted by Marcy Ugstad on June 18, 2010 at 12:04 PM
Wow - love the dreamy look to this image. The warmth of the colors, the shapes of the dunes, the tracks, shadows, etc all make this an absolutely gorgeous image!
Very nice! Love the light here. I use LR for most of my pp now, it can do much more than ACR or DPP, although there are one or two things that those programs do better than LR.
Discussion
17 repliesMakes me wonder what your original take on this looked like.
Joe Rogers
Sweet colors, Todd. I dig it.
Regarding your file problem - Is it possible that you saved the TIFF file with layers from Photoshop? I doubt that ACR will read a layered TIFF.
I think DPP is a little more accurate with adjusting the exposure than ACR. But the overall functionality of ACR (within its scope of operation) is unmatched to even CS3. The best example is converting to B&W. If you take one image with multiple colors and try to adjust the B&W conversion "color" sliders in CS3 you don't have the same range as you do with a B&W conversion in ACR. Try doing this with a single photo in both ACR and CS3,4,or 5 and you'll see what I mean. That alone shows me that ACR can manipulate more background data than CS3 can, for the specific functions ACR was created for. ACR does have its limitations, though (duh). You can't take an almost black section of a photo and put 100% fill light on it, unless you like noise it your shot. It's easier to do an exposure blend with another image you've adjusted in DPP or ACR and lay it over your dark area. I can't use the latest and greatest ACR because I only have CS3, but I've heard it has more options including a GND filter option that is very accurate.
Thank to Todd for showing me how to make some advanced selections yesterday! Now I can actually do some manual exposure blends with some accuracy.