I’m pleased to report that Camera Raw 4.2 (download for Mac|Win) and Lightroom 1.2 (Mac|Win) are now available for download from Adobe.com, and via the Adobe Update Manager (choose Help->Updates within Photoshop or Lightroom).
These releases add support for a number of cameras (and yes, 40D shooters, you can stop stuffing the feature request form now ;-)):
Canon
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Panasonic
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Fuji
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Pentax
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Leaf
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Phase One
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Olympus
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Sony
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It’s possible to use these cameras in older versions of Photoshop by converting their proprietary formats to DNG using the new version of the free DNG Converter. In case you want the full details of what’s new & improved in these releases, read on for this post’s extended entry.
Camera Raw 4.2 Notes
- Camera Raw 4.2 does not support the Canon EOS 1D Mark III sRAW format at this time
- Lightroom and Camera Raw will be updated together to ensure raw format and settings compatibility.
- Noise reduction adjustment for all cameras with Bayer Pattern sensor: The base point noise reduction applied at the demosaic stage of raw processing has been reduced. The resulting effect is that images with zero luminance noise reduction applied in Camera Raw 4.2 will contain more noise than the identical settings in Camera Raw 4.1 but less noise than identical settings in Camera Raw 4.0.
Lightroom 1.2 Notes
Lightroom 1.2 includes corrections for the following issues:
- Lightroom 1.1 catalogs with user-specified sort order could not be imported into another catalog
- Lightroom 1.1 for Windows could at times display gray boxes instead of image thumbnails
- The preference to write XMP metadata automatically in Lightroom 1.1 could attempt to write metadata indefinitely for offline images causing significant performance problems
- Images could be dropped from the Quick Collection upon reordering of the source folder
- Catalogs could not be exported to drives smaller than 250MB
- The Web Module was not accessible in Lightroom 1.1 on the Macintosh platform when Lightroom was installed on case-sensitive volumes such as the Case Sensitive HFS+ (Journaled) volume
- Errors occurred exporting to a Linux SMB network volume
- Scroll position in the grid view was not maintained when changing the view option using the J shortcut key
- The tokens for image number and image count were not displaying properly in the Slideshow module
- The metadata panel could display incorrectly on Windows
- Slideshows on the Macintosh platform did not display properly when a 256MB ATI graphics card was connected to 30 " LCD
- The Lightroom 1.1 Web module export did not position the copyright tag in the same location displayed in the preview
- The auto-eject functionality on Windows ejected the card reader device in addition to the card
- Noise reduction adjustment for all cameras with Bayer Pattern sensor: The base point noise reduction applied at the demosaic stage of raw processing has been reduced. The resulting effect is that images with zero luminance noise reduction applied in Lightroom 1.2 will contain more noise than the identical settings in Lightroom 1.1 but less noise than identical settings in Lightroom 1.0.
- 1:1 previews were not discarded according to the timing set in the Lightroom preferences
- 1:1 previews are not built for an entire set of images when requested after import
[Update: In response to Jan & Andy’s questions (below) about language preferences, this info from the Lightroom team may be helpful.]
John,
I hope you guys are working on a much better noise reduction for Lightroom and ACR, because the new Canon/Nikon cameras have really exceeded Adobe in this matter. We (or I) are obligated to shoot JPEG as a result.
Please do something about it.
Two things for Lightroom:
1. better noise reduction – just buy or license the NeatImage engine 🙂
2. more flexibility with catalogs… currently you can’t load a catalog located on a network share for example.
I just installed the Lightroom Update to 1.2 and it installed the german version for me even though I selected “english (usa)” during install! I have a german version of Windows XP so I guess it somehow detected it on its own but so far I had no problems running the previous versions of lightroom in english. Is there any way I can change the language back to english??
Is it just me or is there a problem with the lightroom download. It downloads in 20 seconds but when I click lightroom.pkg it opens amd closes pretty quickly and nothing happens.
1. better noise reduction – just buy or license the NeatImage engine 🙂
Yes, I’m a proud owner of NeatImage too. Adobe could assign a few developers to make it a bit faster and all would be well.
Are we going to be able to adjust grayscale by clicking-and-dragging in ACR too ?
John,
after updating Lightroom to version 1.2 on a German Windows XP, the language of Lightroom’s user interface changed involuntarily from English to German. I deliberately bought the English version of Lightroom and didn’t encounter such problems when updating from version 1.0 to 1.1. Even selecting English as preferred language during the installation process didn’t change the end result. I would find it rather iritating to work with a German Lightroom user interface since I became used to the English version, which actually works much better with my workflow that incorporates mostly English language software (i.e. Photoshop Extended with an English user interface). Moreover I couldn’t find an option like in Bridge where one could select the language of preference in Lightroom. Hopefully this will become sorted soon.
All the best,
Andy
@john,
Wait a minute, you shoot jpegs because you don’t like the noise reduction in LR/ACR? That makes no sense at all to me. By doing that you just throw all the flexibility of RAW and LR out the window. Plus what do you mean that “the new Canon/Nikon cameras have… exceeded Adobe”? If the cameras don’t have noise (I assume that is what you mean) than what is the gripe?
I noticed the sRAW files from an EOS 1D Mk3 aren’t yet supported. Do you know if there is some sort of technical hold-up on this? If so, it’d be nice to hear. I’ve a few hundred sRAW files and the Canon software’s workflow is horrendus.
Claiming noise reduction is so important a person will shoot nothing but jpegs is like the sheriff in “Blazing Saddles” holding a gun to his own head and telling people to stand back…
I would love to see noise reduction like Neat Image or my choice, Noise Ninja, in ACR. But until then, I’ll be happy doing it in post-processing. My Mac Pro blows through 1Ds Mark II photos in NN like I go through popcorn at a Jet Li movie.
Boo said:
I hope you guys are working on a much better noise reduction for Lightroom and ACR, because the new Canon/Nikon cameras have really exceeded Adobe in this matter. We (or I) are obligated to shoot JPEG as a result.
The low noise images coming from Canon and Nikon’s cameras are not due to fancy new noise reduction algorithms, but rather from more sophisticated CMOS censors which do a better job of capturing high ISO images with less noise to begin with.
Nothing wrong with shooting JPEG in general, but in this case it seems silly and counter-productive.
John,
You state above that “It’s possible to use these cameras (in my case, the Canon 40D) in older versions of Photoshop by converting their proprietary formats to DNG using the new version of the free DNG Converter.” However, every link on Adobe’s web site to a free DNG Converter takes me to Camera Raw 4.2…which doesn’t work with CS2. Is there something I am missing? I only purchased CS2 this past winter and think it is extremely unfair to be required to upgrade to CS3 to read the RAW files on one camera.
Thanks for your time.
Jonathan
By using the newest (4.2) DNG Converter you will be able to convert the new RAW files into DNG and then use the older CS2 to open it. You will not be able to directly open the CR2 file into CS2 however.
/wj
Guys, don’t you see, Canon and Nikon have invested lots and lots of resources to come up with a very good noise reduction algorithms. Both DPP and Nikon Capture are producing excellent results compared to ACR or Lightroom at high ISO. My only problem is that I don’t like to use DPP or Nikon Capture. I love Lightroom and I love using it, but with high ISO the results are embarrassing.
I don’t want to use noise ninja or neat image, I’d like Adobe to develop some good noise reduction algorithms. As of today, to get good results quickly and to use Lightroom at the same time I shoot JPEG with the MKIII (which is being set to NR ON). Lightroom results at 1600ISO from the MKIII are simply old fashioned.
Speaking of noise reduction. . . . With the exception of color noise, I don’t consider luminance noise to be such a terrible problem and happen to think that denoised photos (even those processed through NeatImage) look worse that noisy ones. It’s a pet peeve of mine along with people who over-sharpen images. I would actually really love for Adobe to add a tool to add monochromatic gaussian noise to high ISO images as a better, more aesthetically appealing way to improve on the harsh digital noise they often contain.
Jonathan Henderson: I know what you mean.
When I used the indicated downloads, I just got ACR, in spite of what Adobe claimed. (It is a bug on the website that I have reported in a forum).
Click on “New Downloads”, then you can get the combined download.
John,
Quick bugs I’ve found. Now with 1.2…Lightroom does not recognize my memory card. I have to import by dragging and dropping.
Also, I am now unable to change the lightroom icon in my dock.
Odd little bugs.
Any thoughts?
I’m on Mac OSX 10.4.10
Thanks!
[I’m not sure, Pete, but I’ll see what I can find out. –J.]
Thanks John,
to clarify…Lightroom still recognizes my cards automatically. It is able to detect it.
But if I want to manually hit “Input from Device” it just never lights up as an option anymore.
Thanks for your time.
Is the feature open JPG in CR 4.2 disabled?
[Not to my knowledge, and it seems to be working fine on my machine. What behavior are you seeing? –J.]
Good product…But would be nice to be able to but Catalog on a network drive…and is this a bug…I cant arrange my pics in the order i want by dragging them in a slide show
Hi John,
I’m no longer able to open JPGs in CR 4.2 either. It worked when I first downloaded CS3. Now the File>Open in Camera Raw line is grayed out when a JPG is selected, even though I have Preferences set to open JPGs and TIFFs in CR. (Raw files open with no problem.) I’m on a Mac OSX 10.4.10
It’s a great feature; I hope you bring it back.
Hi, to put catalogs on a network share you can “fool” Lightroom by using the command prompt “subst x: \\network\share”
Regarding the card reader issue mentioned by PJZ: LR 1.1 opened whenever I put a card that was inserted into a reader into a USB port. With LR 1.2 that does not happen; when a card with a reader are inserted, nothing happens. IF LR 1.2 is open and running and I insert a card reader, nothing happens. Is the “Import” dialog box supposed to appear? I have the box checked that says “Show import dialog when memory card is detected.” Is this a bug?
Wow.. that sure sound like a great product! I hope that it will be mine one day
Being a bit of a dummy, I have tried converting my .CR2 files from a Canon 40D to .dng but they will still not open in CS2 – I have used the new camera raw and dng convertor – I cannot find simple instructions in what to do and so struggle. Any help would be much appriciated
I have the same problem 40D raw + photoshop cs2 . it’s a shame to paid 800$ for a software & get only support till another version come out.
Hey Adobe! Please help us !
[Converting your CR2 files to DNG will make them smaller, more portable, and more future-proof. The converter is free and takes