ACR v4.1: Canon files being overly smoothed?

Question

Hello,
I prepared a long knee-jerk post about having the ability to completely disable luminance noise-reduction in ACR, as one was (presumably) able to in previous versions of ACR. After working with numerous files from my Canon 30D and Pro1, I noticed that even with all noise-reduction and sharpening sliders at zero, ACR v4.1 still seems to do some significant luminance smoothing, especially on higher ISO files from my 30D and even ISO 50 files from my Pro1 P&S.
I was quite upset by what I had seen and took this as a fundamental change in Adobe's philosophy to raw processing. However I now do believe this to be (mostly) a bug, oddly enough Canon specific, since I have now tested ACR v4.1 with higher ISO shots from numerous other cameras - Nikon D2X, Hasselblad H3D/39 (DNG export from FlexColor), Leica M8 and a Fuji S5 Pro - and found this problem to be nowhere near as dramatic and, indeed, at times not even noticeable at all. In fact, on many of these other tests, files from the H3D/39 in particular, I feel ACR v4.1 is actually doing fantastic job!
Granted, I don't have anywhere near the selection of shots from these other cameras as I don't own them personally (I just have many tests from ones I have access to at work), however I am reasonably sure ACR v4.1 does not have the same problem with those cameras as with shots from the Canons I do own. Again... hoping this is just a bug.
I will be following this post with my original (long) knee-jerk response as I think it is important that Adobe hears such feedback in any case, whether this issue with Canon files is a bug or is intentional.
So, you are warned... the post following this one is long!
Best Regards,
Mike Mander

Answer 1

Hello,
[ Before reading this post, please make sure you have read the one immediately preceding this! ]
First off, apologies, as this is quite a long post. System info: MacBook Pro C2D (3Gb RAM), OS X v10.4.9, Photoshop CS3 with ACR v4.1, Lightroom v1.0. Tests done with Canon EOS-30D & Powershot Pro1.
While there are a lot of things I really like about the image processing in the new version 4.1 of ACR, like the new optional edge-defringing, the more flexible sharpening controls (with no black halos around specular highlights!), less white-speckling in dark areas of higher ISO shots etc., I have come across a very disturbing fact which I believe has already been noted by a few others as well.
The fact being that v4.1 of ACR is now seemingly applying a certain degree of luminance noise-smoothing to raw files that is camera and ISO specific and, as far as I can tell, cannot be turned off. In my humble opinion, this is a bad bad thing! ACR has been known in the past as having one of the most "hands-off" approaches to raw image processing and this new smoothing effect is going against the grain! Pardon the pun... :-)
I first noticed this when I was processing ISO 50 files from my PowerShot Pro1. Being a P&S, even at ISO 50, there was a certain amount of noise texture which I found rather pleasing but with ACR v4.1, even with all noise reduction and sharpening set to zero, images that I post-sharpened in Photoshop had a certain watercolor-like look, somewhat similar to what, for example, Genuine Fractals might give one upon upsizing an image. When I went back to the Lightroom processed versions, which is using the older raw rendering engine, I did not see this effect and indeed, there was a dramatic difference between the two.
I had extensively tested ACR v4.1 with ISO 100 files from my EOS-30D and 20D, and did find that with certain settings, the new sharpening controls would render a similar watercolor type look when one is viewing files at 100%, but when sharpening was dialed right down and the image was post-sharpened in Photoshop, the differences between the old and new ACR, while visible, were not too dramatic and I did actually prefer the slightly cleaner rendering of skies and shadow areas in v4.1.
However after seeing what v4.1 ACR did with my Pro1 files, I decided to look at some ISO 1600 shots from my 30D and compare them to the previous version of ACR. Whoa! What a dramatic difference! There seems to be a considerable amount of luminance smoothing going on, even with all sharpening and noise reduction controls at zero, which wipes out subtle surface textures and can make edges of fine detail sort of "blend" together. Please do note that I realize that on anything other than the biggest prints or enlargements (or viewing at 100% zoom), one probably would not notice the effect of this new image processing, however...
I primarily do landscape photography and for me, preserving every last bit of texture detail is very important in making an image look natural. I much prefer a more "film-like" rendering of a raw file, even if that means a bit of graininess, rather than a smoothed image that looks artificial and more processed. In addition, this new image processing in ACR v4.1 limits the amount of post-sharpening that can be done to an image since too much sharpening starts to bring out edge-artifacts where ACR has made "decisions" on what was legitimate detail and what was sensor noise.
What I will say, is that this new processing in ACR v4.1 actually seems very sophisticated, and reasonably benign in many cases, low ISO digital SLR shots for example, so for certain types of images and applications, it may well be a very good thing, however certainly not for everything. So this brings me to my request...
I humbly request that the developers of ACR put in the option to turn any and all noise smoothing off in the next version of Camera Raw. Just a checkbox in the Detail Pane labeled "Preserve All Texture" maybe, or have luminance smoothing truly at zero when the slider is at zero. As I mentioned, I think the new processing might be preferable for certain types of images and workflow, so I don't want to completely go back to the old system, but I really do want the option to preserve as much image detail as possible when needed. I expect that there are many pros out there that will agree with me.
As a bit of background, I have been working in the professional imaging industry now for well over 10 years, having started off back in the days of the Kodak DCS-420 and Nikon E2. I manage the digital imaging department in a high-end professional camera shop and have extensive experience with all manner of digital SLRs, medium format digital backs, film scanners and so on.
I always have been a strong proponent of shooting raw and, in the past, have always felt that Adobe Camera Raw gave, by far, the best looking rendering of raw files when it came to detail and a general lack of demosaic artifacts. I have experience using a large number of other raw conversion programs available (Capture One, Raw Developer, Canon DPP, Nikon Capture, Hasselblad FlexColor, SilkyPix, LightZone, Aperture etc.), and while I haven't always found the color rendering to be best in ACR, as far as image detail and creating a clean, natural looking file that doesn't look "digital", I have always found ACR to be absolutely top-notch. Color rendering one can fix in post... however when a raw converter does detail destroying smoothing, creates nasty demosaic artifacts that pop out when sharpening etc., well that is something than cannot be fixed or recovered in Photoshop afterwards! Well, at least not without an inordinate amount of work or trying to mask the effects by adding noise etc.
In fact, a number of revisions ago (maybe v3.4?), Adobe subtly changed the raw rendering of ACR and noted at the time that the demosaic algorithm had changed in order to create slightly sharper looking images. At that point, I already felt that a slight step backward had been taken (with respect to generating the most "natural" looking digital images), however with judicious adjustment of my post-sharpening technique, I was able to accommodate that change in my workflow and I think many others did not even notice it. This new version of ACR, however, has gone too far IMO...
Since I have recently dedicated myself to using Adobe Lightroom, I am also quite concerned that the next version will have this same new raw rendering engine. After recommending LR to many other professional photographers, I am now worried at this development since with a new version of LR, there will probably not be any way to downgrade the raw engine as one can with the plugin architecture of Photoshop.
I may not have time to check this forum on a regular basis, so if anyone from Adobe would like further clarification regarding my opinion on this matter, please feel free to email me directly. An email link can be found on my personal website:
http://www.sublimephoto.com
or just email "mander" at the above domain.
Thanks for letting me rant on about this!
Best Regards,
Mike Mander