Adobe Camera Raw Now Shows that a Built-in Lens Profile is Applied
It’s been a long time coming, but the recent update to Adobe Camera Raw 8.8.0 (397) in Photoshop now shows explicitly that a lens profile is being applied.
As shown at bottom right, a small note with the (i) notes that a built-in lens profile has been applied. Clicking this note pops up an info window with details.
This new behavior is welcome, because it makes clear what is happening; ACR has long had the behavior of some cameras having such lens profiles and some not, but never indicating which.
The dubious aspect is the fact that there is no choice to enable or disable this behavior; if the vendor supplies a lens profile, then it will be applied. Thus there is no way to see the actual lens performance.
While removal of chromatic aberration might arguably be good most or nearly all of the time, vignetting is a creative tool that I value with some lenses for its ability to focus the viewer’s attention.
Vignetting contributes significantly to the feel of an image when shot wide open; see for example 50/0.95 Noctilux Rendering Style or 55mm f/1.4 APO-Distagon Rendering Style.
Ideally, ACR would turn this info note into checkboxes to apply or not apply each lens correction.
