Please refresh my memory re: NR in Bridge previews

Here's an example that illustrates what I'm referencing.

The first screen shot shows an untouched raw image of an accidental camera discharge which is alomost totally black as viewed in the Preview panel of Bridge.  You can barely make faint parts of the boy's face.

The second screen shot is the Bridge preview of the image processed in ACR 7.2 after applying some massive noise reduction and clicking on Done in ACR.

The third and last screen shot shows the Bridge preview of the same image with the same ACR adjustments as number two after opening it in PSD and saving it as a PSD without altering it in any way after opening it in Photoshop, then saving it intact.  That is in fact exactly how the image looks inside ACR too.

The difference in noise reduction is massive.

Obviously this whole thing is an extreme experiment I carried out only to stress-test the noise reduction in ACR 7.2C1.  The shot, as I said, was an accidental camera discharge while the camera was hanging from my neck in the darkened entrance to a pizza place and the flash was off.

So here we go, as per the above explanation:

     (Please click on thumbnails for larger views.)

That ACR 7.2RC1 was able to retrieve that much of the image is almost a miracle.

Message was edited by: station_two

With my apologies, kindly note that I edited my previous message to re-upload the correct images.  I had goofed before.  My bad.

If you open each screen shot in a new window or tab, you can see the screen shots at full size, just as they appeared to me in Bridge Preview.

Curt Y wrote:

 

If I am reading this correctly, and often I am not, you see a difference between what the preview shows after noise reduction in ACR and what you see if you open in PS and then just save...

No, no, no.  Not at all!  What I see in ACR and in Ps is absolutely identical.

The difference is only in Bridge, specifically in the Preview panel, where the achieved noise reduction is not applied to the Bridge preview (or the thumbnail) of the adjusted raw file.  I only took a screenshot of the PSD file preview to give you an idea of what one would expect to see in the thumbnail and preview of the adjusted raw file if Bridge were applying the noise reduction, which Bridge is not doing.

Of course I tried rebuilding the cache numerous times.  It makes no difference whatsoever.  Also, I'm set to HQ thumbnail, always.  But these are scree nshots of the Preview panel, not thumbnails anyway.

I have the same experience with any and all raw files, it's just that this particular example, by its very own nature, shows it most dramatically.

My recollection is that either the ACR team or Jeff Schewe had once confirmed that something was definitely not applied to the preview; I just can't recall whether it was the Noise Reduction, or the Sharpening, or both.  It was most likely the Noise Reduction that is not applied to thumbnail and previews.

CameraAnn wrote:

 

Have you got "Generate Monitor-sized Previews" checked in Bridge's Prefs?…

I most certainly do.

The more details come back to my now withered brain, the more certain I am that the non-application of noise reduction to Previews of raw files by Bridge had been discussed and confirmed by one or more of the luminaries named above.  I've even identified the one image that prompted that discussion, so maybe the date the image was taken will help me locate the discussion.

Oh, I did, Curt.  Unfortunately, it got somewhat derailed before the Camera team replied.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4657387?tstart=0#4657387

Well, upon further reflection on what has been discussed in my other thread in the ACR forum, I now think I was right in posting here in the Bridge forum initially.

This is definitely a Bridge issue, not a Camera Raw one.

Confirmed!  If the crop applied to the raw file is small enough so that the Bridge Preview does not have to zoom out at all, then the Noise Reduction is indeed reflected in the Preview.

Here's the screen shot of the Bridge preview panel:

This post reproduced from the thread in the ACR forum:

19. (<<=== please click link)

Message was edited by: station_two

MY FINAL CONCLUSION:

When in doubt about noise reduction or sharpening in the Bridge preview panel, just call up the Loupe!