- Why use Camera Raw?
- Choosing preferences for opening photos
- Opening photos into Camera Raw
- The Camera Raw tools
- Cropping and straightening photos
- Choosing default workflow settings
- Using the Camera Raw tabs
- Using the Basic tab
- Using the Tone Curve tab
- Using the HSL/Grayscale tab
- Using the Detail tab
- Adding a grain texture
- Using the Adjustment Brush
- Retouching a photo
- Saving and applying Camera Raw settings
- Synchronizing Camera Raw settings
- Converting, opening, and saving Camera Raw files
- Opening and placing photos into Photoshop as Smart Objects
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Choosing preferences for opening photos
To standardize your workflow, we recommend setting a preference so your JPEG or TIFF photos will open directly into Camera Raw instead of into Photoshop.
To set a preference to have your raw photos open directly into Camera Raw
- In Photoshop, go to Edit/Photoshop > Preferences (Ctrl-K/Cmd-K) > File Handling. Check Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for Supported Raw Files, then click OK. With this option on, when double-clicked, raw files will open into the Camera Raw dialog (as opposed to other software that converts raw files).
To set a preference to have your JPEG or TIFF photos open directly into Camera Raw
- In Bridge, choose Edit/Adobe Bridge CS5 > Camera Raw Preferences. At the bottom of the dialog, from the JPEG menu, choose Automatically Open JPEGs with Settings, and from the TIFF menu, choose Automatically Open TIFFs with Settings.
- From now on, when you click a JPEG or TIFF photo thumbnail in Bridge, then click the Open in Camera Raw button
or press Ctrl-R/Cmd-R, the file will open into Camera Raw.
- If you have chosen both Automatically Open options suggested above but for some reason you want to open a JPEG or TIFF photo directly into Photoshop instead of into Camera Raw (and if the file hasn’t yet been edited in Camera Raw), click the thumbnail, then press Ctrl-O/Cmd-O.
- If the Open in Camera Raw button is available when you click a thumbnail, you know that the file can be opened into Camera Raw.
To choose a host for Camera Raw
- In Bridge, choose Edit/Adobe Bridge CS5 > Preferences (Ctrl-K/Cmd-K), then click General on the left side. Check Double-Click Edits Camera Raw Settings in Bridge if you want the Camera Raw dialog to be hosted by Bridge when you double-click the thumbnail in Bridge for a raw photo or
a JPEG that was previously edited in Camera Raw. If this preference is unchecked and you double-click a thumbnail for either
of those two file types, the file will open into Camera Raw, but hosted by Photoshop.
Note: When Bridge is the host for Camera Raw, the default button for exiting that dialog is labeled Done, whereas when Photoshop is the host for Camera Raw, the default button is Open Image. (If the button is labeled Open Object instead of Open Image, see the first tip on page 86.)
Our Approach
If you shoot only raw or JPEG photos (as we do) — not TIFF photos — you can follow these two suggestions to have your raw and JPEG photos always open into Camera Raw and your TIFF files always open directly into Photoshop:
- In the Edit/Adobe Bridge CS5 > Camera Raw Preferences dialog, under JPEG and TIFF Handling, choose JPEG: Automatically Open JPEGs with Settings and choose TIFF: Disable TIFF Support.
- In Edit/Adobe Bridge CS5 > Preferences, check Double-Click Edits Camera Raw Settings in Bridge.
Updating Photos From CR 5.X 
Using updated profiles, Camera Raw 6.x applies improved processing, such as default sharpening and color calibration. If you
want to update a raw photo that was processed by Camera Raw 5, before applying any new adjustments, click the 
icon in the bottom right of the preview window; the Process menu in the Camera Calibration
tab 
changes to the setting of 2010 (Current). (This Process choice controls which version of the
Camera Raw noise reduction, demosaic, sharpening, and postcrop vignette methods are used for rendering and adjusting photos.)
Note: If you want to preserve access to the older rendering of the photo, take a snapshot of it before updating it (see page
83).
What’s That Weird Symbol?
If a file has been opened and edited previously in Camera Raw, this badge 
appears in the upper right corner of the thumbnail in Bridge, and the current Camera Raw settings are reflected in the appearance
of the thumbnail and preview. Also, if the currently selected file has been edited in Camera Raw, a Camera Raw category appears
in the Metadata panel.
- Each digital camera model attaches a different extension to the names of the raw files it captures, such as .nef for Nikon, .crw or .cr2 for Canon, and .dcr for Kodak.