Irritated RAW

[Rory]

I know what you may think, anyone who can buy these cameras should stop whining and pony up the $200 every 2 years for an upgrade.

It's good to get a rant off your chest every now and then Sam.  However, life is short and tilting windmills is hard work  So, just reward adobe for their good work.  At the rate you buy cameras it is only about $50 per camera  Oh, and go buy lightroom, then it will only cost you $100 every 2 years...

Rory

[Chris_Brown]

. . . and tilting windmills is hard work . . .

 

And how would you know this tidbit of knowledge?

[Piboy]

DNG converter downloaded, ACR 6.3 and CS5 upgrade shortly thereafter, maybe LR3 soon although old workflow habits die hard.  Windmills tilted.  Thanks for talking me off the ledge everyone.

[Philmar]

Another possible avenue is to purchase Lightroom. The bi-annual upgrade for it is cheaper than Photoshop.

I too am an enthusiast and was sick of paying bi-annual upgrade fees for Photoshop that equalled about one third of the program's initial cost. I felt the incremental improvements did not warrant such a steep upgrade fee. Sorry Jeff - ust my opinion. In the long run I think LR's cheaper upgrade costs will save me money. I only lost the ability to use smart objects - but the easier use of presets in LR seems to trump that loss.

[Enchanter]

I'm glad YOU understand this but...the understanding is not universal as most people complain that Adobe doesn't retroactively update Camera Raw/Lightroom for file formats that didn't exist when the software was released. Adobe provides free updates for currently shipping software which at this point means ACR 6.x in Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3.x.

Beyond that you need the free DNG Converter to convert new raw file formats for backwards compatibility.

Adobe could of course provide retroactive update Camera Raw/Lightroom for file formats that didn't exist when the software was released. However, why should they spend time and money doing this? It's better business practise to encourage people to buy the latest version of PS. Adobe are not the good guys or the bad guys, they're in business, like any other well run company, to make a profit not a loss.

[Lataxe]

Enchanter,

You opine, "Adobe are not the good guys or the bad guys, they're in business, like any other well run company, to make a profit not a loss".

So true; nevertheless one may still take the customer point of view and make suggestions about what we'd prefer them to sell us rather than what they make us have.

Personally I'm happy to pay for upgrades which have required Adobe to make investment & effort, especially one as good as the upgrade to ACR 6.  What makes me unhappy is Adobe's naughty packaging of photo-editing products.  I cannot buy the photo-related subset of Adobe functions that I want without either getting a package that lacks several features (Elements) or that contains graphics-related bloat I do not want (Photoshop CS).  Even Lightroom has a better workflow/file handling aspect (than Bridge) but lacks a number of Photoshop's photo-related tools.

When Lightroom first appeared I did hope it was going to be "The Photographers Subset of Photoshop".  But the Adobe marketing rascals prefer us to buy both so leave those teasing lacks in one product that can only be satisfied by buying  t'other!

Of course, like others, I do vote positively with my wallet and so have CS5.  It still seems good value for what it does (but it could be even better value).

I notice with annoyance that CS5-Extended contains a single tool I would like to have but haven't got in "basic" CS5 - the facility to eliminate noise by stacking identical multiple images.  To obtain that one desirable tool Adobe want me to pay £300 to upgrade CS5 to CS5-Extended.  It might be worth £300 to those who can use the other few hundred bells & whistles of CS5-Extended but for me 99% of that extension would just be more Adobe bloat on my disk.

Lataxe, not that tame a customer.

[PierreVandevenne]

You can stack images with the standard version as well.

http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/calibration.htm

A slightly faster, but probably less accurate (in terms of obtaining real averages) method goes as follows

etc...
superior layer 3 opacity 25% (4th image)
superior layer 2 opacity 33% (third image)
superior layer 1 opacity 50% (second image)
base layer (first image)

You can easily create a macro that will do everything, with the blending options you prefer, especially if the images are properly registered/aligned in the first place which is probably the case if you are shooting on a tripod. And a slight pixel misalignment can actually provide bonuses in terms of aliasing and smoothness (dithering)

Last but not least, you could use the DeepSkyStacker astronomy dedicated freeware

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

without using its "astro" features.

[Lataxe]

Pierre,

So much useful information in a single post!  I have fetched out the tripod in anticipation of some high ISO image stacking and an hour or three of happy Photoshop play.

Thank you very much for those pointers.

Lataxe, getting very comfy in this forum.

[milt]

You might also want to take a look at PhotoAcute Studio.  It has this function.

(In addition, it has a 2x resolution function, which I use all the time.  It lets these old bones carry a crop DSLR up into the mountains and yet come home with nearly MF resolution.)

--Milt--

[hazmer1]

The default Camera Profile in ACR 6.x (CS5) of 'Adobe Standard' has a considerable magenta shift. I didn't notice this with the defaults in ACR 5.x (CS4).
Now that I am aware of this change, I have used the 'Camera Standard' with very good results.  I have also created a Custom Camera Profile for my camera, Duplicate File Cleaner and flash using DNG Profile Editor with excellent results.  My Custom Profile and the Camera Standard Profile are quite close - although both are vastly superior to the Adobe Standard - which is just plain inaccurate.

After seeing the noticable problem with the Adobe Standard Profile, I am now wondering how this somehow became the ACR 6.x default. I am also having a hard time finding any information on this issue from Adobe or anywhere else.
Anyone having info on this issue would be helpful.  Thanks in advance.

[stamper]

Are you sure that you have ALL of your sliders set at neutral when you try the two settings? I looked at ACR and selected the eyedropper tool and used it on an image. When I changed between Adobe Standard and Camera standard then there was a change in the eyedropper settings but the three channels changed in sync with each other. There was little change overall between them and no magenta shift. There is a tint slider. Is it set at 0. Are you sure that you aren't doing something wrong?