For those of you who don’t keep regular tabs on the version of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) or Lightroom that you’re using… you should! A few weeks back Adobe announced the ACR 5.5 and Lightroom 2.5 update. The reason these types of updates are usually released together is that the color and tone processing algorithms inside ACR are the same ones that drive Lightroom. This ensures that regardless of which software you’re using to process your raw files, you’re going to get the same results if you use the same controls and settings. This also helps when starting a raw edit in one environment and then continuing later in another; you can basically pick up where you left off.
Typically ACR and Lightroom updates only contain support for new cameras (and perhaps a bug fix or two), rather than new features. This may not seem like a big deal to you except when you consider that if someone sends you a raw file from one of the newer cameras, your version of ACR or Lr might not support that file if you haven’t updated in a while. So check for updates every couple of months at least. It only takes a minute or two to download and install the updates, so it’s something I do several times a year and which I find -as a professional photographer- to be a worthwhile exercise.
Enjoy!
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