Using Adobe Camera Raw 4.6

[KicknGuitar]

I am using Adobe's Ps Camera Raw 4.6 because it is the latest version which is supports CS3.

Are there any adjustments I should not touch (due to "quality" loss in this lossless format OR because you've found post-RAW adjustments work much better)?

Also, I am specifically curious about the "Basic" tab's Clarity and the "Detail" tab (Sharpening/Noise Reduction). I've found he Clarity adjustment can give a nice push to "detail."

But if you have general comments about it, lay them down here to.

[McQ]

My understanding is that the "clarity" slider is very similar to the technique of local contrast enhancement using an unsharp mask. While it can be great to give that extra punch/kick to your photo, too much of it can mess with the tonal heirarchy that our eyes expect to see -- causing the image to potentially appear more two dimensional, almost like some paintings. Like all things, great in moderation...

[Davey]

I personally like the experimentation approach of if it looks good do it. That's what you're after at the end of the day. The actual raw isn't modified so don't worry about loss, you can't lose actual raw data. The modifications are either stored in a side car file or in the acr cache. I personally use the cache (have it set to 2Gb at the moment) because it keeps things tidy, and i can back up the image adjustments easily and share the acr cache as needed.

If you clear this though you will clear all the stored adjustments, also if you pas the raw file to someone else manually without the cache file they won't see your adjustments.

I suppose you can consider acr as an initial raw post process, step 1 of the pp if you like. I generally tell it to open the images with some standard settings, ie. apply light sharpening to preview AND opened image (a bit soft out my camera) (I apply selective sharpening afterwards for bits that need more and noise considerations etc), 16bit, prophotoRGB space. Then for black and white clipping points and white balance etc I alter on a per image basis to get what I want. Sometimes clarity slider looks good at start but sometimes it's given me problems as an initial process so in those cases I don't use it at the start but edit the image as usual, save as tiff and re-open wih acr (select open all tiff with acr box in prefs is easiest way and way I d it) and apply at the end this way. You could also use this to overlay the image with clarity adjustment as an extra layer over the none clarity processed one and use a layer mask to selectively apply to the areas you want.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this as I'm always open for a better way of doing stuff and I too make mistakes (many mistakes hehehehe).