Thank you for solving my problem.

Really? I'll just try. And thank you!

Yes, so that prevents you from using Smart Objects and going back to ACR to tweak images.  But for what I would refer to as basic Lightroom/Photoshop actions it will work pretty well.

There is someone in another forum who is claiming that he is using ACR 7 with Photoshop CS 5.5 on a Vista OS computer.  He even posted a screen shot of the ACR "about" screen that verified that it is ACR 7.  Photoshop workspace behind looks like CS 5 on my computer.  Any ideas?

A little more information.  After further questioning, it turns out that he is also running Photoshop CS 6 beta.  But he copied that ACR 7 and is running it with Photoshop CS 5.5.  Is that supposed to be possible?

Why is that? The guy was confused and asking questions and I didn't have an answer. I thought maybe one of you "experts" might lend some insight. If that's wrong, I apologize (I guess).

Yes, I understand that. I guess I failed to ask my question properly. I had gone to great lengths to explain to this guy how ACR and Lightroom are related and how ACR 7 would not work with Photoshop CS 5. And then he writes back and says he copied ACR 7 from his Photoshop CS 6 installation over to CS 5, and said that it was working. He even showed screenshots. I was confused, perhaps dumbfounded. I asked the question, not to try to help him, but simply to ask WHY he was able to do that. I was not trying to help him get ACR 7 working in Photoshop CS 5. I was wondering if perhaps something had been overlooked by the development team.

Discussions of software piracy and Adobe software hacking is what is frowned upon, which using ACR 7 with PS 5.5 could be interpreted as.

Everoptimist wrote:

 

Hi, as the author of the original query, thanks all for your comments and the subsequent dialogue. It may be naive of me howvere I am not sure that the use of ACR 7 with CS5 should necessarily be considered software piracy or hacking. Having read the dialogue it seems that what might be a backward compatible plugin ACR7 is available. Personally, I think that this is a positive situation, especially where the end user has upgraded one product but not another i.e. LR3 – LR4 but still using CS5. Perhaps Adobe might wish to consider this as a principle for future releases as there will always be a time when users need to take a product upgrade but sorting out differences between already co-existing products should not be one of these times.

I wouldn't be expecting backward compatibility. That has never happened in the past, and I seriously doubt that it will start now. The irony of this discussion is that I don't believe you are the one who made the original query. It was not in an Adobe forum. It was in another one that I watch, yet wonder why.

Everoptimist wrote:

 

I am not sure that the use of ACR 7 with CS5 should necessarily be considered software piracy or hacking.

Be sure.  There is no chance they're going to make those two work together.

But Adobe will be releasing a version 6.7 of Camera Raw (the Release Candidate is already available) that will effect the compatibility you seek between LR4 and Photoshop CS5.

-Noel

No need to speculate.  I tested it above (post 15).

-Noel

Possibilities:

1.  Someone pulling someone else's leg (e.g., by manipulating two screen grabs).

2.  What looked like Photoshop CS5 underneath but what was really CS6 beta with the light theme selected.

3.  It might work on a different system architecture, or in 32 bit (I tested 64).

4.  Someone did find a way to hack it.

-Noel

just to mention that this is 90% true. there is a bug somewhere that does not  allow the clarity >0 local adjustments made in LR 4 to be correctly read by CS5 6.7 acr. this is discussed here and I have found it myself on both my pc and Mac. hope they ll fix it.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/974963