On 1/7/2017 10:57 PM, ChrisB wrote:
I’ve long thought about this, Moose: I don’t know how you can deal with a
2-step system that ACR must entail. Is it not immensely time-consuming?
I think you misunderstand the work flow. ACR is the front end for PS, just as it is the underpinning for LR. All of the
basic LR functions but some very recent stuff is in ACR, was in ACR before LR existed, just not as pretty, nor with a
catalog. Many folk seldom went further than that, using PS as their editor for the vast majority of their photos. LR
started out as just a catalog and a pretty face on ACR.
My work flow is different than that. I do almost no editing in ACR. When I press the 'E' key on a Raw file in FastStone,
it jumps to PS (which is always open) and ACR opens the Raw file as a pop-up window in PS. I adjust WB and
highlights/shadows when needed, which can't be done the same after conversion, click OK and the image is converted to a
virtual image open in PS. I then do my editing there.
It's really no slower for me than finding an image in the LR catalog and selecting the Develop Module, and once open in
PS, I can do SO MUCH MORE than I can in LR.
LR. Apple Aperture and Capture One provide a single-step process of Raw conversion, requiring that you import the
images to the programme’s library; the Raw conversion is automatic and provides you with a preview and a library system.
I don't know about the others you mention. In LR, you have a choice, import the image files themselves - LR moves them
from your file structure into its own - or add them in place, LR stores a thumbnail and the location of the actual Raw
file in its database, but leaves it untouched. When you open a file and use the Develop Module to change anything at
all, LR saves an .xmp file (also called a 'sidecar' file) in the same place as the image file. The .xmp file stores all
the adjustments you made. When you later look at the file, you see the modified version, but that is a virtual thing,
reading the Raw and .xmp files and applying the adjustments from the .xmp before displaying.
(All this on the fly conversion is why LR is slow at some things. Select a large directory full of subdirectories of
many images and watch it take forever to display fully sharp thumbnails. Go to the Develop Module and wait a moment or
two to see more than a half baked image.)
At this point, there has been no Raw conversion outside of memory. It's when you export the file as .PDF, .TIFF, JPEG,
etc. that Raw conversion becomes real, a particular version of adjusted Raw image takes permanent external form.
ACR in my workflow does almost exactly the same thing. When I've made WB, exposure, highlight, shadow, etc. adjustments
and click the OK button, it saves an .xmp file, just like LR.
Once that is done any other process is fine-tuning and the user has no
further file management to carry out.
Unless the image is to be used elsewhere, in which case a converted and adjusted file must be exported, to disk and/or
the web.
I picture you opening a Raw file in ACR, fine-tuning and exporting the file to your
storage location. I understand that you can do it in batches, but it’s still
2-stage, is it not?
Indeed it is, although it need not be. If all I did was make adjustments in ACR, I would not need to save another
version. Next time I open it in ACR, all the changes I've made are still there, read from the .xmp. When LR started, the
two processes were identical. LR has since added some functions not in ACR. Dehaze is one, the ability to apply an
adjustment to only part of the image is another, so if one does those things in LR, that part of the .xmp will not be
done if you open it in ACR (at least I think not.)
However, in my case, I WANT to save a second version. I work extensively with layers. That's why I find LR so limiting.
I want to save that work as layers, not all combined, so I can go back in and make changes. I could go on at length,
perhaps even with some lyricism, about how wonderful layers are and what they allow me to do that I can't in LR, but
that's another thing. (And no, I don't do it in batches, although I could. As I do all serious editing in PS, and in
layers, batch conversion is no use to me.)
So, rather than an untouched Raw file and .xmp alone, I have those, plus a .PDF file with my layers in it. For those
that I'm going to post on the web, there is also a downsized JPEG file with layers collapsed to upload.
I know that Chuck could never get his head around how LR dealt with its
catalogued files, but for me that is what makes these programmes so useful.
Chuck liked his own file structure, and did almost all his editing in ACR, in effect using LR with a different face and
without the catalog, as he also preferred FastStone and another similar browser, (BreezeBrowser??)
I don’t like LR, having tried it several times,
Nor do I, also having tried it several times. However, I geocode all my images away from home, and the relatively new
Maps Module in LR is pure magic for finding images I'm looking for. I can go to the geographical location, and there are
all the photos I've taken there in the last several years. So I dutifully import all of my new images into the catalog.
I can see there the date and camera - go browse them in FastStone and perhaps edit some. To me, LR is a geographically
smart catalog with a limited editor attached. :-)
When I get an intern, I'll get all those images keyworded, too. :-P
but it must be useful for millions of photographers.
Of course, but so were Instamatics, drug store processing and photo print albums, and so are cell phones, tablets and
web based image banks.
At Home in PS Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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