Hi JonHob,
Interesting, though I completely disagree
I actually like ACR
much better than LR. Sure, some things can/need to be updated (though the last update already made it look lots better , with a more uniform – grey – user interface, just like the rest of Photoshop). Note too that changing the ACR interface colour is easy: just change the Photoshop interface to the colour you want and ACR will follow that.
Tools in ACR have a more “natural” shortcut (that is, IF you're used to Photoshop itself), for instance to start cropping, you press C, just like in Photoshop (in LR that is 'R', how thought of that???). I also very much dislike the fact that all tools are in one gigantic panel, I always have to search for the tool I want to use… With ACR it's just one click on the tool symbol.
Zooming too, I find much easier in ACR; the standard shortcuts of CMD+0, CMD+ALT+0, etc all work (try those in LR, and unexpected things happen, heck CMD+Numeric + doesn't even work in LR on my Mac…)
Sure ACR lacks some things, when compared to LR, but it isn't supposed to have them anyway; ACR is just the raw editor. And that is what I appreciate about it too. I never use the exporter from LR for instance…
Funny you complain about the size of some of the controls in ACR, that was precisely my complaint with LR… Now they are more on par (though they are still bigger than in LR!). But at least you can easily change settings with the keyboard (what I mostly do anyway).
Seeing that you and I completely disagree about the user interface, goes to show that perhaps they did listen to photographers in the field, perhaps just not you
I for one am glad that there is a choice between LR and ACR (I use both for their strengths, but prefer ACR for editing).
Note: given that the raw processor in LR is the same as in ACR, why don't you just stick with LR, given you like it more than ACR? PhotoMechanic works well in combination with LR and ACR.
Cheers,
Hayo
