Try edit/camera raw preferences and deselect "apply auto tone adjustments" and
see if that helps.
--
Charlie...
http://www.chocphoto.com

Why not just set everything to "0", perhaps with white balance set to "auto", and save as a preset?

I have a number of presets, and can select a range of raws in bridge and apply an appropriate preset. I then open the raws individually for fine tuning.

There is a lot of confusion on the topic with some variation of "Bridge trashes my RAW image". Hope your simple explanation will help to get the point out that the camera thumbnail and the ACR image are two different animals because they are processed differently.

ACR has enough adjustments where the two can be made the same, but it is not automatic until set that way. If you want it to look like the way the camera shot it why not just record it as a jpeg in the first place?

I don't have CS4, but the upgrade has a setting that allows one to view the thumbnail "as shot" (that is fraction of a second view you see now) or ACR rendering.

Short of upgrading, you have to adjust the default ACR setting to render the thumbnail the way you like it to look.

Massimo... thank you so much for your explanation. This is something I have been trying to figure out and wasnt sure why it did what it does.

First off, can we discuss Bridge and ACR as one and the same, or are they independent of one another?

I am not happy with how my images preview in Bridge or open in ACR... is the way to change this to play with the ACR adjustment sliders and save them as default until you find something generic that should work as a good starting point for what you shoot?

And in response to Curt, perhaps Adobe recognized this as a problem and addressed this in CS4? Seems interesting but I am still on CS3.

I was having a problem with my saturation and contrast going up, and what looked like a noticeable vignette as well on my new D700 images. It was really messing my images up. I found something just now that I think may have fixed it:
I found that in Edit > Preferences > Thumbnails, changing from 'quick previews' to 'high quality previews' and then purging my cache made it so that Bridge would not transform my images before my eyes after being open for a second or so. I'm not sure if this has an affect on the actual image in ACR or not, but it may be a solution.

OOps, forgot something. If you prefer to use the thumbnails that were embedded into your camera when you shot the image, you can go to the square icons in CS4 just under the word Metadata at the top about 3/4 across from the left of the screen and choose embedded as your thumbnail preference, which will allow for faster browsing and will give you an indication of what you shot that you can compare with your ACR work.

Jimhankey - I think you are missing the whole point of shooting in RAW. If you re-read post 5 it explains the difference between RAW and the jpeg camera preview. RAW is that that, it is a raw image meant to be modified to suit the users preferences. Work on the ACR defaults to get a rendering you like and set as default. If that is too much work you can shoot in jpeg and then use this as a starting point.

You can open a jpeg image in ACR with a right click and use the same adjustments as you would for a RAW image, but you will have less total control as the jpeg image does not have as much detail.

RAW is kind of like making a photo from a negative, while jpeg is more like making a photo from a scan of the print.

Hope this helps.

curt,

I understand RAW quite well. I think perhaps I haven't been clear enough about my objection to the default method Bridge employs in displaying RAW images and in opening them in Camera.

Before trying Don's tip, I never got to see anything like the image I actually had shot. Bridge would boost the brightness and/or exposure very drastically. Now that I'm seeing the embedded thumbnails for the first time, I'm amazed at the delicate, nuanced gradients of tone in my sunset shots -- all of which I wasn't getting to see until now.

The thumbnails might be jpgs, but they represent the corresponding RAW images and do so far more faithfully, IMO, than Bridge has done for me up to now. Remember, even in RAW, the operator has to set in-camera many of the same values as must be set for jpgs: contrast, saturation, sharpening, and of course shutter diameter and speed. RAW might have far more latitude in altering these values in post-processing but they still must be set initially so that the computer will have initial values to start with.

Now that I can see the embedded previews prior to Bridge mucking them up, I can see that I shouldn't have to spend as much time in PhotoShop as I do. Apparently a good bit of my editing time, I see now, has been used by trying to undo the harm that Bridge does when it changes the levels of my pix without having been asked.

Your suggestion about finding a good set of levels and applying them across the board seems to me to be equivalent to suggesting that I find an f-stop and shutter speed I really like and using those values for every shot I take. Variations in each scene require more individuated treatment than that. Even within a single shoot, I usually cannot synchronize my Camera RAW settings across more than a half-dozen or so photos before needing to adjust for changing light levels from shot to shot.

But it's clear to me that the initial values i've been shooting with are far closer to what my eyes have seen, and make a better starting point in PS than the product that was being produced by Bridge when it was making unwelcome changes to my photos. I feel like I've been trying to edit for the past couple years with a blindfold on and have just had the blindfold removed for the first time!

Regards,

Jim

I'm having trouble finding where 'under the word metadata' ... where again can I apply to choose embedded as thumbnail preference...

I am trying to do the same thing as originally asked. I got the new profiles for my nikon and that's fine but.. I'd really like to have the option to use the embedded..

please help

Laryl,

Are you shooting jpeg or raw in the D7 in the BW mode? If Raw, how do you have ACR set?

I am unfamiliar with the D7,so I do not know how that mode specifically works in that camera, or what other particular settings choices you have when it is set.

However, if you want some gratuitous advice from a BW addict, I suspect you will get much better BW images by doing those conversions yourself in ACR/PS, rather than relying on the canned routine in the camera. I have never been satisfied with the BW mode in any of my cameras over the years--Nikon,Canon,Olympus,or Minolta. Again, I am speaking with ignorance of just how that mode specifically works in the D7.

However, I seriously doubt that you can get BWs straight out of any camera that will be as aesthetically effective as what your eye will lead you to as you tweak the image in the sliders of the grayscale mode of ACR--which you can set under the HSL subsection of the tools palette by checking the conversion box.

All the tools--for example the grad and adjustment brush, etc--can be used in grayscale mode as well, providing some very powerful tools to get the look you want. Getting effective BW images is truly an art.

Laryl,

This is en educated guess because I haven't tried it myself but I suspect the reason you didn't see a change when you selected "Browse quickly by preferring embedded images" is because there was already a high-quality thumbnail/preview stored in the Bridge cache and Bridge continued to access it.

I suggest you select a test folder in Bridge and do a "Tools>Cache>Purge cache for folder XXXX" and see if it then behaves like you expect.

Laryl,

BW from the camera will have to be in jpeg format, not Raw, for you to see it Bridge as such, as far as I know. But that is moot, as you are not planning to do BW that way, as you have said.

The reason that Adobe has the camera calibration profiles in ACR 5.x is to emulate very closely the proprietary information contained in NEF files, which can only be read precisely by Nikon Capture NX2 (and NX, I believe), as Jim Hess has indicated. That is why I asked what your ACR settings were?

If it makes sense, and you have no complaints, that's about as good as it gets. No need for further advice at this time. Happy shooting!

Curt.. doing the jpg+raw to compare is a great idea and I'll do that.. thanks much. (I've never been unhappy with the auto settings and never said they 'hose the picture' hehe.. you made me look to see if I really said that..struck me funny this morning because I just don't say things like that) I was just trying to set up the new version correctly and had the same question on how to really get to the embedded 'look' that the camera was giving my raw images (so that a b/w would show in bridge as a b/w for example to prove it really was my "out of camera" image) ..

Have a great week and again thanks so much for all the help and tips in here.. it's great!