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Adobe Camera Raw 4.3.1

Adobe has released version 4.3.1 of Adobe Camera Raw, which fixes the following issues:

• Compressed raw files from the Nikon D100 were read incorrectly in Camera Raw 4.3.
• A possible artifact in Camera Raw 4.3 raw file support for the Olympus E-3 has been corrected.

These can be downloaded now from Adobe (Windows version and Macintosh version), and will be available from the automatic updater in a week or so.

Lightroom 1.3.1

Not yet available but coming soon is Lightroom 1.3.1, according to the Lightroom Journal. There’s a long list of fixes in that, I’m just going to copy and paste what was written on the Lightroom Journal because I’m lazy that way.

• The Lightroom 1.3 Print Module could previously cause the application to crash on either OS X 10.5 or 10.5.1 during template usage.
• On Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.5.1, the import process from a card reader or other device into Lightroom could fail to import all or a portion of the selected images.
• A decrease in Develop slider responsiveness introduced in Lightroom 1.3 has been corrected.
• The Lightroom 1.3 Develop module could cause the application to crash if adjustments were made in quick succession.
• Compressed raw files from the Nikon D100 were read incorrectly in Lightroom 1.3.
• A possible artifact in raw file support for the Olympus E-3 has been corrected.
• The Lightroom FTP Plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK did not function properly if the password was not saved with the selected FTP preset.
• Editing or creating a new FTP preset immediately prior to using the FTP plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK would cause the FTP process to fail.
• Using the Export as Previous option did not work with the FTP plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK.

Get your updating engines revving. Woohoo for updates! (Except from Microsoft, did anyone else have Windows try to get them a critical Windows Genuine Advantage update in the same way they usually push out security updates that you actually need to install? No thanks, Microsoft!)

Adobe just released a bunch of updates for CS3 products:

Photoshop

Photoshop version 10.0.1 fixes a number of issues, such as bugs converting to CMYK in certain profiles, speedups for a few cases, a crash for BMP format saving, and crashing when Microsoft Intellipoint software is installed.

It also has a long list of printing fixes, which hopefully will address all of the printing issues that people have had with Photoshop CS3. I guess hoping they’ll all be addressed is a little unreasonable, but the fix list does cover a lot of ground that has been complained about quite often, such as poor color management, off-center printing, and Photoshop forgetting the printer settings for a document after printing a different document to a different printer.

Bridge

Bridge CS3 2.1.1 has a number of fixes, including a number of crashes and freezes in different cases. It even has a fix for a data loss issue: “data loss that could result from replacing a folder with another folder by the same name has been prevented.” Yikes.

Camera Raw

Camera Raw 4.3 adds support for a bunch of new cameras: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon PowerShot G9, Nikon D3, Nikon D300, Olympus E-3, Olympus SP-560 UZ, and the Panasonic DMC-L10. It also adds support for Canon’s sRAW format.

Lightroom

Lightroom 1.3 has a shorter update list, it adds support for the same cameras that Camera Raw got, and now had “updated” support for Apple OS X 10.5, “Leopard.” Does that mean it didn’t work with Leopard before, and now it does, or now it just works better? “Updated” is kind of a vague word.

Lightroom also now has an export SDK available, so you can write plug-ins to export from Lightroom to anything you want. The sample code gives you Flickr and FTP export plug-ins. This is just a prerelease preview, however, so they’re open to suggestions on how to change it, and you might not want to do a whole lot of development in case things change around in a few months.

Adobe has updated Adobe Camera Raw to version 4.2, and Lightroom to version 1.2.

They add a bunch of new digital SLRs file formats to their list of supported RAW files, including the Canon 40D, the Olympus E-510, the Pentax K100D Super, and the Sony Alpha A700. However, the Canon EOS 1D Mark III’s sRAW format is not supported yet.

There’s also an interesting note about a change in the noise reduction defaults for cameras with Bayer pattern sensors, which would be almost all of them. They write:

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.

Does anyone have some sweet comparison samples available yet for all of us to pixel peep at? Give me your links in the comments section.

OnOne Software has released a batch of free Adobe Camera Raw presets. From their web page:

Designed to work the way you work, the PhotoPresets with One-Click WOW! tackle only one development parameter at a time allowing you to optimize your image at each step to create the look you really want without sacrificing any one quality. You start with adjusting your images color and tone and then add effects like black and white conversions, tinting, split-toning and vignetting. With 85 presets in 6 categories the number of combinations is astounding.

I haven’t had a chance to play with them yet myself, so I can’t speak for how useful they are, but since they’re free it can’t hurt to try that out and see if they’re useful. Feel free to leave comments here letting me and the other readers know if you think they’re worthwhile or not.