ACR vs Lightroom

Does anyone have a comment regarding Lightroom vs ACR for initial raw capture?

Specifically, is the raw converter in Lightroom the same as the one in ACR?

 

After two years of buying / trying all of the different software I think I'm down to Lightroom and Photoshop CS3. I've gone 6 months and only opened those two.

 

They seem to like each other and work well together and creates a workflow that makes sense. camera > card reader > LR import > LR Library for initial raw & batch processing > Develop module for fine tuning > CS3 for touch-up > back to LR for jpeg conversion and export. I have played with iPhoto and Aperture but I just don't have the energy to learn a new suite of software.

 

I use a macbook pro with 4megs of ram and a D300.

 

Andy

They are the same, although Adobe updates the applications independently so there's an occasional mismatch between the two.

 

Even though ACR is shared between the two, the feature sets between the two applications differ greatly. Lightroom doesn't offer the scripting interface that PS does, so automated calibration software for ACR doesn't work. I calibrate in PS and then transfer over the settings into Lightroom for use. Even that process is a hack since Lightroom doesn't support the camera profile files that PS uses. What I do is save the PS settings into an image, then import that image into Lightroom and derive my profile from its metadata.

 

I view Lightroom as a compliment to PS even though you will likely do most of your adjustments there rather than in PS. Occasionally, there are things you may really want to do that are beyond the scope of LR.

I calibrate in PS and then transfer over the settings into Lightroom for use. Even that process is a hack since Lightroom doesn't support the camera profile files that PS uses. What I do is save the PS settings into an image, then import that image into Lightroom and derive my profile from its metadata.

 

Thanks,

 

You lost me on the metadata. I'm not going to ask you for a tutorial, so where can I reference this process? How does metadata transfer into a profile? Is it like "sync" ing in LR?

 

I have heard people call Lightroom "Bridge for serious photographers". I haven't used Bridge enough to know it's full capabilities. I forced myself to use it on one or two projects just to see how I liked it, but like I said, I just don't have the energy to learn new stuff if what I'm using works for me, unless there is a clear advantage.

Metadata just means data about data. In this sense, it refers to the information associated with an image other than the image itself. All the settings that ACR uses for an image get saved by ACR (including the camera calibration stuff) so when you import a RAW image into Lightroom that has been preconverted by ACR in Photoshop, all the ACR settings will simply transfer over. I doubt there's any tutorial that specifically discusses this though perhaps I'm wrong. Why you might want to do this is another question ;-)

 

Lightroom is far more powerful than bridge for the process of selecting and converting RAW images. It offers only a couple of tools that do spot manipulations, otherwise every adjustment applies to the entire image. It does not have a rich set of plugins, so popular tools like noise reduction and sharpening are limited in Lightroom and Photoshop will still be occasionally necessary. Lightroom is a program for managing your catalog of images and is optimized for raw shooting.

 

I don't think you should consider Lightroom a replacement for Photoshop, although I think you will find that most of your need for Photoshop will be eliminated once you switch over. Using ACR in Lightroom is far better than doing so in Photoshop since in Photoshop it is a modal dialog where settings cannot be adjusted without reopening the file. All ACR settings in Lightroom can be changed at any time without loss in the image (that is true for all settings in Lightroom).