What are your ACR defaults?

[strictlygunners]

I am just curious as to what the majority of you guys use as your Camera Raw defaults.


I tend to zero everything out and apply a mild S curve.

I'm just not sure about what I should be using for Noise Reduction and Sharpening. I've read conflicting statements about using the defaults, or zeroing them out and doing both in Photoshop.

Please share your default setup so I may learn a thing or two


Thanks.

[gene_spark]

Hi

I also have zeroed out everything...but then i have to adjust the Brightnes Slider to the Camera.meter...i Photographed a very exakt lit Greycard and adjusted the RGB numbers to 119 not 128 because the Middle grey of the Card is measured in Lab 50, 0, 0 and that translates in a 2.2 Colourspace like sRGB oder ADOBE RGB to 119...
Now the Konverter is calibrated to your Camerameter...and in normal cases you dont need to touch the Brightness slider anymore...If your Pictures are over ore underexposed you have to change that with the exposure slider... to refine the Konverter even further more you can take a Phot of a Color referenz Chart like the Colorchecker and refine the colors ..but this is explained in Detail by Bruce Fraser:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no....136_89&fsc=-1

this can be automated with a script by tom Fors:

http://www.fors.net/chromoholics/

or a better and faster one by Rags Gardner:

http://www.rags-int-inc.com/

you have to go to the Technology section..there are a lot of interestimg informations and the mentioned Script..

lg.
Gene

[MacBurg]

Mostly I'll use ACR to correct white balance and a light capture sharpen, I often tweak colours through the HSL tab mainly their luminosity and hue. Everything else is handled in Photoshop...

[CJ Swartz]

Since I upgraded to CS5, and watched new Lynda.com tutorials as a reward for my purchase, I found that there are reasons to make more adjustments in Camera Raw rather than Photoshop. The main reasons are 1. all adjustments are non-destructive 2. adjustments are not moving pixels in ACR - they are simply applying instructions for future use in Photoshop, so adjustments take little time to be performed.

I make many more adjustments in Camera Raw now, especially all the large-scale ones, and leave adjustments of small areas to Photoshop.

Deke Mc Clelland has a free video on Camera Raw in which he makes a number of adjustments on one of his photos.

[mistermonday]

The reasons CJ said wrote plus additional reasons:
- There are a number of things you can do in ACR which would take more steps, time, and adjustment layers to do in PS.
- The Clarity slider is not available in PS
- The Orange sliders in the HSL Tab of ACR is a huge time saver for tweaking skin
- The Temperature and Tint sliders emulate LAB (Blue/Yellow; Green/Magenta), so tweaking color balance manually is a breeze and it's like taking a quick trip into LAB.
- The Vignette adjustment is very handy for certain specialized lenses that require it at extreme settings.
- Split Toning is swift and easy in ACR

I have Sharpening turned off and only do it and Noise Reduction in PS.
Regards, Murray

[andrewrodney]

Zeroing out ACR is kind of dumb (sorry). I think I know where this idea came from. Something about how ACR handles data with curves which is nonsense. You want to do as much heavy lifting in ACR or Lightroom, rendering the best possible data and image quality (desired color appearance) before you end up in Photoshop! ACR is a raw processor, it creates optimized RGB pixels using metadata edits. Being sloppy in rendering and trying to "fix" this in Photoshop is a waste of time and quality.

Capture (and optionally output) sharpening in LR or ACR is far more robust than what's possible with simply Photoshop sharpening routines and based on this idea:

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20357.html

[punctum]

I almost do all adjustments on camera raw and use I ps for retouching, compositing, local adjustments etc.

[davecam]

If i remember correctly, when you've finished adjustments in ACR, hold shift key while you click on 'open image'. You can then double click on the icon in layers pallete and you're back in ACR. This can be very useful.
Dave c

[kkamin]

I share the workflow like many others here. I try to do an much in ACR as possible because it is such an elegant program for adjustments. Also you are processing a RAW file, and have image data that extends past the absolute white and black points. Get that data back into the image in ACR because you simply can't in PS. Use the adjustment brush to fix tones in the tricky areas.

And like the last person to reply mentioned, you can open up files from ACR in PS as a Smart Object and easily return to ACR from further editing. Also you can bring in multiple copies of your RAW file in PS at different exposure settings and mask in different parts.

I bring everything I do into PS eventually, but ACR does a significant part of my heavy lifting.

[bakerser]

I can identify with those talking about 'zeroing out' ACR defaults. I once thought about things this way too, wanting to get as neutral a starting point as I could when I worked on each image. Unfortunately, I didn't have all the information.

As it turns out, '0' on some of the ACR sliders is not a neutral value - for most, it is effectively a negative one. Likely because camera makers don't use values of 0 by default in their conversion software either, the decision was made during ACR's early development to use Brightness 50 / Contrast 25 / Medium Contrast (curve) as the 'neutral' (or '0') values. The only value which isn't 'zeroed' as shipped is the Blacks slider, which is 0 in a neutral rendering.

In any case, to directly answer the OP's question, my default values are tuned to camera body and ISO, with color profiles for each body applied automatically and NR set to my preference for the ISO the image was shot at. The remainder of settings are all neutral, though as above not all 0.

[kav]

Originally Posted by andrewrodney

Zeroing out ACR is kind of dumb (sorry). I think I know where this idea came from. Something about how ACR handles data with curves which is nonsense. You want to do as much heavy lifting in ACR or Lightroom, rendering the best possible data and image quality (desired color appearance) before you end up in Photoshop! ACR is a raw processor, it creates optimized RGB pixels using metadata edits. Being sloppy in rendering and trying to "fix" this in Photoshop is a waste of time and quality.

Capture (and optionally output) sharpening in LR or ACR is far more robust than what's possible with simply Photoshop sharpening routines and based on this idea:

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20357.html

I've tried to like ACR for a long time, but I always end up going back to capture one. With canon and nikon dslr files i've been able to get much more workable results than I've obtained from anything originating from a digital back. Have you had good results with anything from say a P30+ or newer? or maybe any of the hasselblad versions via their dng output option? Just wondering. I like how much faster it is. Capture one seems to try not to bog down anything else running on the system, but it can be way more time consuming.

[kav]

Kind of adding on to my previous reply here...... I'm not a huge fan of zeroing ACR. I think before ACR with some of the older ones, Leaf Capture, Capture one, whatever that sinar software was called I can't remember, etc. it was pretty common to get the values to where it looked ok and wasn't losing detail. Processing software was pretty weak at the time, as was version 1 of ACR. I think that's where it really came from, people wanting to ensure they still had something workable once they got to photoshop. Anyway I never cared for zeroed results, but I'm wondering is it ok to make your own curve rather than using something like medium contrast? Also this is kind of aimed at Andrew again but what settings do you adjust primarily if you have a file that starts out pretty ugly at default settings in ACR? I'm thinking specifically of weird color shifts and flat midtones? Do you stick with the base value adjustments more or do some of it with the curves? I've found the curves to be seem more forgiving but I worry that they might mess it up so I've remained with capture one (partly) because of that.

[strictlygunners]

Curves would yeild better results because it allows for more fine tuning rather than just one slider.

I've tried Capture One and I really liked the layout and results of the software, the thing that killed it for me was how the latest version went about creating directories and files all over the place instead of having the cache centralized in one location. This was a deal breaker for me. Until they fix this I will be using ACR & Lightroom for RAW processing.

[ftp-Jeff]

Capture One is by far the best...... When used correctly, it is unbeatable!