Converting MkIV RAW in ACR

[Ken Watkins]

I must admit to being extremely dissapointed with the ACR conversion in CS4 as it seems very noisy, I understand that there is a new version for the MkiV in CS5. Does anybody use it and is it better, finally is there any alternative to buying yet another upgrade.

[Jonathan Ashton]

On occasion I use DPP, I know a lot of people prefer it to ACR - have you tried it?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

ACR might look a bit noisier than DPP but it keeps more details, too. If the image is well-exposed, I don't see problems. You could adjust the color noise, it can make quite a difference at higher ISOs.

[Alfred Forns]

Ken also LR 3.0 has the same controls and works well, totally different from anything we had before. Just like ACR.

..... btw it also has a neat way of sharpening images ... something to he used to !!!

[Charles Glatzer]

Ken,

I am also not thrilled at the ACR conversions for the MIV and am looking into alternative RAW conversion software. Thus far C1 is my choice. Reviewing Raw Developer http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/.

The sharpening and processing in LR3 makes the MIV images appear "chunky", and upon magnifing the pixels a disturbing rectangular like appearence can be seen. This does not occur with my 1Ds III files.

Chas

[arash_hazeghi]

ACR might look a bit noisier than DPP but it keeps more details, too. If the image is well-exposed, I don't see problems. You could adjust the color noise, it can make quite a difference at higher ISOs.

Axel, I think you did not use the correct parameters in DPP, I use it extensively and it has not only lower noise but higher levels of detail too. ACR uses generic DCRAW demosaic engine, open source and available for free. Canon uses proprietary algorithms so it ends up being better, no matter how many side tools Adobe provide. In DPP sharpening is applied during demosaic which is better than un-sharp mask method that is used in ACR which is applied post demosaic. Canon engineers take into account the SNR and the strength of optical low pass filter that is used in each image sensor and then apply optimized algorithm for each camera to get the most out of it.

If you have a particular RAW file I can process with DPP and you can do ACR then we can compare and see which one has more detail /less visible noise.

Here is an example with the 5D ISO 1600, default parameters, 100% crop from RAW
http://www.stanford.edu/%7Eahazeghi/Photos/examples/acrdpp2.jpg


DPP's work flow is not as good as LR obviously and apparently it runs slower on Macs but if you want ultimate quality and color accuracy from EOS cameras it is the best choice IMO.
Best,
Arash

[Ken Watkins]

Thanks to everybody for the very useful comments.
Unfortunately I have a PC rather than Mac so it seems that Raw Developer is out of the question.
Capture 1 and DPP are to my eyes noticably better.
I too had no problems with MkIII on PS3 or PS4, I must admit that Adobe is becoming increasingly costly to upgrade every year, and it is not very professional to sell upgrades from CS3 to CS4 around two weeks before the launch of CS5.
Is the ACR version in CS5 an improvement for MkIV ?

[Alfred Forns]

Ken my cow moose was done in CS5, actually LR 3.0 which is the same.

If you want to see how it works just download the free trial version and test, will be good till the update is ready for sale. btw both noise reduction and sharpening are very good !