No, not really. Not even like PE, but very nice in its own way.
What I did not like in ACR CS2 was the color rendition. It was sort
of flat and dead - just like from Olympus (haha, ok kidding).
Part of what makes digital SLR photography is great is that the colors are configurable for each shot on the fly, whereas with film you have to choose by the roll. So if you start with Portra you have to finish it out, even if a killer landscape pops into view that would call for another film. I wouldn't trade that ability for the world. This is why I love the calibrate feature in ACR 3.6 at the end of the tabs list. It allows you to adjust hue and saturation and shadow tint for each color and then save the profile. It makes color management for most files easier because I can save a good starting point.
Of
course, you can always bring it up when you know what you want, but
looking back it seems it never looked right.
Yeah, I think the default ACR 3.6 palate from the previous generations (including 3.5 but not 3.3 which was slightly richer IMO) seems to go for that National Geographic subdued look. It is a good starting point I guess but I am so deep in it that I have all sorts of custom profiles (one for portrait, one for color landscapes with greens and blues, one I am working on for sunsets, all with custom curves etc) which means unless I want to lose that work I have to upgrade to 4.0. I have kind of locked myself in, in that way. It isn't so bad because Adobe does make quality stuff.
Or maybe it is just me
- I am never satisfied
The CS3 is much better, very fast, slick,
and joy to use. I do not know what they put for ACR in there, but
this whole thing (with bridge) does look and feel very different,
and colors are just superb.
I wonder what ACR 4.0 does different then if the colors look better. I know one ACR 4.0 feature that I want is something I read about . . the ability to boost saturation without affecting luminosity so you can crank the saturation up without clipping the channel this should be good as far as features go. Or perhaps that was a lightroom feature. I should recheck that. . . because it is a selling point for me.
Another program I heard few people in Nikon forum were raving about
is DxO Optics Pro. I think they have full version for 30 days
Download. I hear it also renders and corrects colors very well
right from the RAW, but I never tried it.
DxO is famous for having a very comprehensive lens correction suite. Their programs for correcting distortion are supposed to be top notch. I hear. However, Klaus Schroiff said that DxO is very poor at extracting resolution so it would be a big hit from ACR.
For NEF (Nikon format) I really like Capture NX. The problem is
that it works only with Nikon format (and TIFF), and it creates
huge files when exporting. But their U-Point technology is really
cool - and it works. Check out the second tutorial as an example;
http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/software/capturenx/nxsp/tutorials.htm
Some people say it is the best program for NEF files, but I think
there are pluses and minuses everywhere.
Yeah, I just read an article by a Nikon shooter that actually takes you through the Capture NX workflow from beginning to end. While it may not be as tightly wrapped adn marketed as the Adobe offerings, I think the Canon, Olympus, and the others could learn a thing or two from them and outsource their upper level software for development. It really adds value when you think about it to include a competent RAW converter on the shelves even if you have to pay for the upgrade it is CO is still way better than BB or OS, IMO.
I would not be spending money on Lightroom, but I would definitely
go for PS - it covers everything. If you are student you should be
able to get good discounts in the University book store. I remember
in Cal State we used to get all kinds of discounts. Something like
10-30 bucks for the whole MS Office to copy from the store. The
deal was that we had to return the disks. I guess MS also knew what
they wanted.
That is a good idea. I just found a version of lightroom for $99 so I wonder what the upgrade to CS3 would be. Also, some of the lightroom features (it is really geared toward batching and archiving which are two things I try to avoid) are really for very heavy shooters like wedding professionals and photojournalists. If I could get a CS3 upgrade for around that price I would be there, especially since you say the colors look better.
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Comments are always welcome.
Zach Bellino
'Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.”
-- from 'I Remember, I Remember'
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
