Carla,
I am confused!
You just got done telling me to change the settings so PM would read xml files and apply the settings... and now you're saying that they are proprietary and can't be read?
It is not that the ACR settings can't be read. We can read them just fine. We just cannot render them.
XMP sidecar files contain all kinds of data like EXIF and IPTC4XMP (caption data) besides ACR settings. When you explained that you weren't getting the XMP sidecar data to be read, I assumed that you meant the caption data found in the XMP sidecar files. Your settings as they are now will use the metadata from XMP sidecar files before consulting with embedded IPTC data.
Photo Mechanic cannot render ACR settings, and likely never will. Adobe does not share their proprietary rendering technologies with third party developers like us.
If you instead use DNG files (you can convert your CR2 files to DNG files with the Adobe DNG Converter application, free from Adobe), any adjustments made by ACR to the DNG will result in the embedded JPEG preview being updated with your adjustments. Photo Mechanic can then display/print the DNG files and they will look the same as they did in ACR. The reason CR2 files don't work the same way is because ACR does not update the embedded JPEG preview in CR2 files or any other RAW format besides DNG.
-Kirk
