BIG Change in Photoshop CS6's ACR Version 7.1

Every few years, Adobe udpdates the "Process Version" that is the engine behind ACR. They've done that with PC CS6's ACR, version 7.1. It's called "Process Version 2012" (that word process sure pops up a lot!). Here's what's going on, and it may be a deciding factor if you've been thinking about upgrading.

If you are on CS6 or plan to go there, there's a little-known thing in the new ACR 7.1: if you open a raw file that was opened in a previous version of ACR, CS5 or earlier, the raw file actually opens under the Process Version that was embedded in the ACR version at the time when you processed the raw file. The ACR window even retains the sliders that were available at that time. Here's what that means: in CS5 ACR you have a Recovery slider, but the CS6 ACR did away with that and actually gives you more powerful Highlight and Shadow sliders, plus it recovers blown highlights way way better. So if you open a raw file from, say, 2010 that you processed in ACR in PS CS5 or CS4, your highights will still be more blown out and you'll still have the older Recovery slider showing, even though you're using the new ACR in PS CS6. There is an easy way to convert up to the latest ACR Process Version: what you will see in the image in ACR is a small gray button with an exclamation point in the bottom right of the image. That's the new ACR telling you "Hey, you need to reprocess this raw file with the new features!" All you need to do is click on that "button" and ACR will apply the new Process 2012 Version to your image, and you'll instantly have all the new controls plus potentially better-detailed highlights. This only happens if you have previous opened a raw file in an older ACR version. If you have a raw file from days past and you've never opened it, then ACR will open and process the file in the new way. Same thing if you delete your XMP file and then open the raw file, ACR will think it's untouched and open it in the new version.

Also, the noise reduction and sharpening in ACR 7.1 are so good that I don't use Noise Ninja any longer. ACR is really coming of age.

You can click on the Larger Image link to see a screen shot. Hopefully the illustration makes this all make sense. I grabbed the first already-processed image I came to on my drive to use as an example. Yes, I actually shot the logo of a gas pump. Must have been tired that morning...

I love the latest ACR. It reduces processing time in PS. Thanks, Paul.

Here's a tip others may find useful. After I'm done with ACR and processing in PS, I sometimes save the tif and then open it in ACR to use the Clarify slider. Then save and back into PS for masking/opacity/whatever. It can really make things pop on some images.

There's probably a way to get the Clarify effect in PS, but I'm not aware of it and it's so simple in ACR.

There is actually: Open Unsharp Mask and set it to 20/50/0 (Amount/Radius/Threshold), that's basically a full-on Clarity slider. Drop Radius down from 50 to back off on the effect. Usually 10-50 is normal adjustment range. According to Jeff Schewe who works with the Photoshop team, that USM adjustment is what became the Clarity slider.

Great Tips! thanks for posting!