ACR: IMACON 3F Support Coming Soon?

[Dan-o@adobeforums.com]

I did search on 3F but didn't turn anything up. I am curious to know if Adobe is planning on supporting Imacon's 3F format (from their digital backs) in the coming months. I work for a commercial studio in the Chicago area and we have a heavily Imacon-based workflow for our post-production work.

We're really looking forward to the day when we can plug our iXpress storage unit into our Macs and pull the files directly into ACR, rather than using Imacon's convoluted FlexColor software, which has basically been adapted from the scanner world. We do a lot of work with this format and have capable testers in house with plenty of experience, so if this is something that is in the works and you need more weekly feedback on existing builds, please feel free to email me.

Either way though, I suspect that many studios who are using the Imacon series of MF backs, are probably eager to streamline their workflow in this regard, because the FlexColor method leaves much to be desired in certain respects.

[Mike_Ornellas@adobeforums.com]

Adobe is planning on supporting Imacon's 3F format?




Onlf if it is a RAW format would there be a chance.

[Bruce_Fraser@adobeforums.com]

3F is just a 16-bit/channel TIFF format—there isn't anything ACR could do with it.

Doesn't Imacon already supply a 3F plugin?

[Dan-o@adobeforums.com]

Well the reason I thought of RAW was because the 3F Imacon uses is sort of their version of RAW. When first moved off the iXpress image bank, the files are not processed in any way but rather pure raw capture data. Then you assign ICC profiles, bit depths and the rest in FlexColor, and export to a standard TIFF format essentially.

Wether or not it technically fits the "RAW" description, I can tell you the 3F Imacon uses is a compressed format and unaltered in terms of having color spaces assigned and the like. When they come off the bank, they can be a number of different file sizes depending on the capture mode you used, but as soon as you assign the bit-depth to RGB 16 and all the other settings (ICC profiles, native sharpening, etc), the files can literally double in size when exported (that's without any extra layers or effects).

As for plugins, I am not aware (at least according to our rep) of a specific plugin that would allow Photoshop to process the "raw" 3F files... which gets back to my original reason for posting. Whether it is through ACR or an Import plugin or the File Browser, I would *love* the ability to bypass Imacon's software.

[Jeff_Schewe@adobeforums.com]

Tell Gina to tell Christian to provide the documentation to Adobe and Adobe will try to support the Imacon raw camera format. The 3f format from the scanners is basically just a full rez 16 bit tiff, but the 3f from the cameras is indeed a raw camera file. This also leads to the problem encountered with NEF scanner files NOT being real NEF's while NEF's from camera are raw files.

The manufacturers really need to get their act together regarding file formats and extensions!

[Jeff_Schewe@adobeforums.com]

BTW, last year Leaf provided documentation to Adobe for all their currently shipping camera and guess what, Camera Raw supports them. More reason to sit on the camera manufacturers about all this supposedly "secret stuff" that really stands in the way of photographers having choice when it comes to software. . .

[Bruce_Fraser@adobeforums.com]

Oh Lor'

I though only Nikon was idiotic enough to use the same extension for two totally different file formats...

I stand corrected.

[Dan-o@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the info Jeff. I suspected that perhaps we were talking about two different variations of 3F file earlier on. Now that I think of it, I do believe our Imacon rep actually used the word "Raw" in describing the files early on.

So... I need to contact Gina (and Adobe employee presumeably) to contact Christian (an Imacon employee?), in order to obtain the code for the file format that Imacon uses with its digital backs?

Any email addresses or other means of contact would be appreciated. I am more than happy to do some legwork to get this done, but as you correctly supposed already, I'm not sure who to contact at Adobe to get the ball rolling.

In any event I am sure many Imacon users would be thrilled to have ACR / Photoshop support direct importing of their 3F files. It would make like much easier....

[Jeff_Schewe@adobeforums.com]

Christian is in Denmark. . .he's the one who started Imacon. Gina is the local Midwest rep and she would know how to contact Christian. And Thomas Knoll is the guy at Adobe you need to contact. . .check the Camera Raw boards-he posts there. . .

[Dan-o@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Jeff.

[Dan-o@adobeforums.com]

No word back from Thomas after contacting him; too busy or something I guess. Anyway, should I submit this under feature requests or the RAW forum (I didn't even notice we had one, all the headers in this forum look alike / blend together)?

[Larryr544@adobeforums.com]

He could be on vacation/out of town?

[Bruce_Fraser@adobeforums.com]

I suspect that he's working rather hard on the next version of ACR. It's probably too late to get the Imacon into the next update, but you should certainly post a request in the Camera Raw forum. If you can round up a few other Imacon owners to do the same, that would help.