Adobe added a few new features to Camera Raw recently (version 18.4.1). The “Show Auto Focus Points” feature is one of my favorites but you can find out more about the update below. Enjoy!
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thanks for the great tips. Do you use Spot focus for birds? That’s mainly what I’ve been using with mixed success. Will try zone.
Hi Mindy. I generally use a center fix point for my focus area.
My autofocus feature is also grayed out. It is a NEF file as well. I did the latest update and restarted but no luck.
I figured it out. I imported the file from LR and chose Camera Raw Filter. When I opened the NEF file directly from my external drive the autofocus feature appeared. Quirky…
Hi Lisa. This is by design and the way it’s always worked. When you go from LR to PS you’re no longer working on a raw file, so opening up the Camera Raw filter isn’t the same as opening a raw file directly. Hope that helps.
I figured it out. I imported the file into PS from LR. When I opened the file directly into PS and used the Camera Raw filter the autofocus feature appeared. Quirky..hope this helps others who have the encountered the same problem.
Hi Lisa. This is by design and the way it’s always worked. When you go from LR to PS you’re no longer working on a raw file, so opening up the Camera Raw filter isn’t the same as opening a raw file directly. Hope that helps.
I have ACR 18.4.1 but when I right click on an image it doesn’t have the * show autofocus points*
How can I access that?
Thanks so much.
ps..I used to watch your one minute killer tips many years ago!! I love them.
where do I go to see the webinar you mentioned?
Hi. You can click the link above.
Thanks always Matt. Appreciate you!!!
FYI, based on a Google AI search, the show focus point option in Ps ACR only works on Sony, Nikon, and Canon raw files. This result is supported by my experice as the option is greyed out for my OM System raw files. The focus information is there for OM System cameras as it is displayed by the OM Workspace editing software. Perhaps Adobe will expand this option in the future.
Thank you for being so generous and sharing your knowledge.
Thanks for the clear technical updates, and, just as important, the very valid observations..
Thanks a lot Matt another great tutorial – I have been one of your clients for some years and you continually amaze me with your willingness and dedication to share your tutorials and webinars that really help many photographers to improve their skill base – please keep up your generosity – Best Regards Colin Wright from Sydney.
Excellent article
It does not show up for my OM-1 photos. They have an extension type of ORF.
Do you know why?
Thanks
As always, an excellent article Matt. Simply explained and so easy to follow.
All the best.
Regards John Taylor.
In her last newsletter The Lightroom Queen had an article giving some insight into why it’s Ps first. My impression is the team that implements those features works in the raster world and hands off to a separate team who fits them into the parametric world. The usual distraction domain where I use AI for is easily passed of to the end which works better anyway since it is often order dependent.
Hi Jack. That isn’t really what’s happening to my knowledge. Camera Raw is also the parametric world and identical to the edits in the Lightroom world – and the ACR team is different from the Photoshop team.
Thanks again for the updates, very much appreciated.
Matt, I really appreciate that, though you are a LR user, you are still conscientious enough to cover the updates for us PS and ACR people. Totally love your presentations. Great work. Regards, Sandra
Apparently does not work with Nikon NEF files. 🙁
Works on mine….
Hi Joe. I just tried it on NEF files and it does indeed work.
My autofocus feature is also grayed out. It is a NEF file as well. I did the latest update and restarted but no luck.
I’m having the same issue. When I right click on the image, that feature does not appear.
Thank you. I am a strictly PS and ACR user but your tutorials are always well done, helpful. They are needed to keep up with all the updates from Adobe these days. Having started with CS5, Sometimes when using the new masking or selecting tools it feels like I’m cheating LOL. Thanks again
Great video (as allways). My copy of ACR and PS and LRc are all the latest updates per Adobe Creative Cloud. Yet the Show Focus Point appears grayed out when I attempt to click that option. Machine is Windows 11 with all recent updates, graphics card is an RTX 5060 Ti with 8GB.
This feature will not work with raw files taken with a Leica Q3. You can see your focus point by double tapping the lcd screen on the camera when viewing your shot, not as useful but better than nothing.
Apparently this feature does not work with raw files taken with a Leica Q3 camera but is available in the playback mode on the camera screen
Wow! I didn’t realize how often I missed my focus point. It is annoying that the raw can’t be sent from LrC. It won’t show the focus point. But if I close the file in Photoshop without saving, the raw file is in the recent list and can be opened from there. Then I can see the focus point.
Fan of the new focus point feature – and always appreciate your easy to learn from style of teaching/explaining!
Is there anyway; plugin or otherwise to see focus distance of a photo if using a manual lens or an AF lens with the focus method setting to manual?
Side note: a few years back I met a well known landscape photographer in the field at a sunrise location ; and was a little puzzled as he “knew who I was” and called me Matt which is my first name. We talked for a bit and I didn’t want to tell him I didn’t think I was the same Matt as I have never seen him in person before and am not well known in the photography world. Looking back I am convinced he thought I was you, so we I guess look somewhat alike in addition to sharing the same first name.
Hi Matt! I don’t think I’ve ever—or perhaps only very rarely—left a comment, even though I’ve been following you since the legendary Photoshop Killer Tips videos. Those bring back some great memories!
I only recently realized that you had disabled comments on YouTube, and I read some of your remarks about negativity on social media. I can’t remotely compare my experience or career to yours, but I also have a YouTube channel, and I occasionally receive comments that add nothing of value—from personal disrespect to rather absurd attacks on Adobe or the world in general. Often, it isn’t so much the opinion itself as the way it is expressed: the hostility and lack of basic courtesy. And although such comments are a very small minority, perhaps that is precisely why they stand out so much.
I simply wanted to say that I understand that sense of fatigue. No matter how accustomed we become to it, it is still frustrating. People who contribute nothing but negativity remind me of the “timid souls” Theodore Roosevelt spoke of in “The Man in the Arena”—a passage you may already know.
On a different note, and regarding the subject of your video, I found it interesting that you mentioned at the beginning how Camera Raw has received a succession of improvements in recent months that have not made their way into Lightroom Classic. By coincidence, I published a video about that very subject yesterday.
Sorry for the length of this comment, but after following you for so many years—and especially after reading what you wrote about negative comments—I wanted to express my support. Not because I think you need it, but because it is well deserved.
Thank you so much for everything you have shared over the years, and for always being so friendly, approachable, and generous.
All the best,
Carlos
Thanks Carlos. YouTube for some reason just has some very negative people on it and I found it’s just better to leave comments off. Rather than wake up to some really horrible things written about me and my hair, eyes, voice, teeth, clothes, or pick the facial feature or anything else people seem to latch on to, now I wake up to none of those and life is much better 🙂