Raw 5, Lightoom 2, CS3 and 5D-Mark2

[D. King]

I'm getting warnings in LR 2 re some incompatibility with Raw 4 and CS3.  I've just ordered my 5D-Mark 2 and wouild like not to have to update to CS4.  

Should I simply download Raw 5 and install it?  

Thanks.

[francois]

Read the follwing article: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2008/12...ility-with-cs3/

[D. King]

Read the follwing article: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2008/12...ility-with-cs3/

Thanks, that was helpful.    

Re the paragraph:  

CS3, ACR 4.6, and a camera that is NEW since 4.6 - you have to press Render using Lightroom as ACR wouldn’t know what to do with the data.

After spending the $ on the 5D Mark 2 am I going to compromise image quality in any noticible way by not upgrading to Raw 5+?

[francois]

That's correct, if you want to use ACR with your 5d2, then you'll have to upgrade to Photoshop CS 4.

A possible workaround would involve converting your CR2 files to DNG using the latest DNG converter. You loose nothing in quality if you go that route as, according to Jeff Schewe, ACR/Lightroom internally convert raw files to DNG.

[01af]

When you're using Lightroom 2 then you neither need nor can use Camera Raw 5.

-- Olaf

[Mark D Segal]

You can indeed open a raw file in both LR2 and ACR5. One does not preclude the other.

Whether you need to up-grade to CS4 is another question altogether. If you wish to use the Bridge>ACR5>PSCS workflow, then you will need to up-grade to CS4 in order to have ACR5 functionality. On the other hand, if you like the integrative and imaging qualities of LR2, you can do just about everything ACR5 does in LR2 and export the image directly to the version of PSCS you are now using. So in this case the up-grade to CS4 isn't necessary to get most of the ACR5 benefits. The one thing you may miss in LR which ACR5 has is a point curve. For now LR only has the parametric curve. The main advantage of the point curve is that you can adjust the end points. This is not possible with the parametric curve.