http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Camera_Raw_5.4

Anyone know if there is any new functionality other than the newly supported cameras? 5.3RC didn't work on my system (something to do with the installer) so I'm cautious about trying out this one but if there's some new stuff then I'll try it out.

As far as I can tell after a quick check-out, the colours of Konica-Minolta MRW and Sony ARW raw images rendered with ACR finally match the JPEGs' shot in RAW+JPEG mode (rather than being awfully pink). Don't know if that was a problem with other brands' raw files too, and if so whether it now got better with those. For me, being a Konica-Minolta and Sony DSLR camera user, ACR 5.4 is a major improvement over ACR 5.3 and earlier versions ... ummm, or maybe the improvement is not due to ACR proper but due to the camera profiles coming along with it. Anyway, it definitely is an improvement.

-- Olaf

Ben, just new camera support.

(There is an architectural change that will be more meaningful down the road; it's hinted at on the page linked to above if you look carefully.)

I have not tried ACR 5.4, but with ACR 5.3 and Camera Portrait profile and others for a D200 I get a slight red tint to skin tones compared to a Capture NX conversion of the same file using Portrait profile and a different color for a purple sweater. I used the DNG profile editor to edit the Camera Portrait profile and now get identical skin tones with the Capture NX conversion and the purple sweater is almost perfect. I have been fighting this problem since I purchased the D200 in 2006 and thought it was a calibration problem with the camera, but I was using Photoshop for RAW conversions and now believe it was a problem with the camera profile available for ACR. I think Adobe made an excellent move when they made the Camera profiles and the DNG profile editor available. Even though I am retired I don't have enough time to wait for Capture NX RAW conversions.

I assume you mean the new DNG specification and the fact that new DNG's won't be backwards compatible.

Yes, I mean the upcoming DNG 1.3 spec. It does not mean the new DNGs won't be backwards compatible, just that some of them may not be backwards compatible, depending on the image.

Just like how DNG files containing the new DNG 1.2 extended color profiles won't render the same way in older DNG readers (e.g., Camera Raw 2.4), which don't support those profiles.