Unable to upgrade Camera Raw with CS4 in Lion...

Question

Hi All,
very frustrating; I have been unable to upgrade Camera Raw despite several attempts.
I've downloaded the latest version as an upgrade; I've done Software upgrades through PhotoShop, but for some
reason these do not seem to have taken, ie., the version of ACR in Bridge preferences remains 5.0.
This makes it impossible for the computer (a brand new MacBook Pro) to read or convert to DNG raw files
from a Nikon D300S.
Oddly, ACR 5.0 converts raw files from a D700 just fine.
Also puzzling is that my attempt to upgrade to ACR 5.7 in a 5 month old iMac have been smooth as silk (OS 10.6.7)
Help!
Stu Rosner

Answer 1

At one point, I was one of the most vocal critics of camera raw in the CS4 / Lightroom v2 days. In short, I felt that there was not enough control over noise reduction and fine detail rendition when processing digital camera raw files, especially at higher ISOs, although I had been quite pleased with earlier versions. That all changed when CS5 / LR v3 was released. You now have an enormous amount of control over exactly how much sharpening and how much noise reduction will be applied to an image. The amount of fine detail one can extract from a low-ISO raw file is extraordinary. When you crank up the ISO and an image gets noisy, you now can choose whether or not you prefer a smoother look at the expense of some of the more subtle texture details, or a slightly grainier look where one has a feeling that no significant fine details are lost from the original capture (what I prefer). The raw processing defaults in Adobe's latest software are good starting points, but for my personal tastes, I generally do modify them a bit with less NR and slightly more sharpening at a smaller radius.
Even out-of-camera JPEG files will benefit from the new processing engine. I find that turning down the sharpening and NR in-camera, and then applying some subtle tweaking in LR, for example, makes for much better looking images even when starting from a JPEG. If you are a raw shooter, like I am, then upgrading to the latest Photoshop and Lightroom is absolutely 100% worthwhile in my opinion!
I personally feel that the quality of raw conversions in Adobe's latest software are pretty much the best there are. I have used many other raw converters (Capture One, Aperture, RAW Developer, Silky Pix, Canon's DPP etc.), and while each have their strengths, overall I far prefer the look of the final image from Adobe's latest software. Sure, I might find the colour rendition slightly better, in some cases, from some other raw converters, but colour I can fix. Poor detail rendition or heavy-handed/crude noise reduction I cannot.
EDIT: Also should mention how good the lens correction controls are. Not only are there automatic lens corrections available (possibly of limited use with an M8 due to potential lack of lens EXIF information), but the manual corrections are extremely useful. Chromatic aberration, vignetting, highlight fringing and distortion control all work extremely well and are minimally harmful to image quality, unlike performing those same corrections in Photoshop after the raw conversion stage. You also have excellent perspective corrections that, amazingly enough, seem to have very little impact on image quality even when fairly dramatic adjustments are made.
Lastly, I own both Noise Ninja and Topaz DeNoise and since upgrading to Adobe's latest software, I don't think I have felt the need to use either of those two third party NR plugins once. Purely from a noise reduction standpoint, upgrading to CS5 or LR v3 is almost like getting a new camera, almost like moving from a cropped sensor to a full-frame as far as high-ISO image quality.
I would suggest you download Lightroom v3 and give the 30 trial version a whirl. Spend some time in the Detail section of the Develop module and make sure that for each image you are looking at, ones that you may have edited in previous versions of Camera Raw or Lightroom, that you have "2010(Current)" chosen in the "Process:" section of the CameraCalibration tab in Develop. That will ensure that you are fully benefitting from the latest raw conversion engine. Zoom in to 100% before you tweak the Detail settings to make sure you are seeing actual pixel-level detail. I think you may be amazed at what you can do...
Regards,
Mike Mander