Effective Ways to Editing in Camera Raw with Photoshop

One way to get the most out of image editing in Photoshop is to work with RAW, TIFF, and JPEG files by using the Camera Raw plug-in. More and more photographers are shooting in RAW format, and as a print designer, you are bound to come across  these types of images (if you haven’t already). The Camera Raw plug-in offers special exposure and white balance options that can’t be made directly in the Photoshop workspace. For designers, the advantage to working with Camera Raw is that you can apply some of these settings nondestructively to TIFFs and JPEGs as well as to RAW images.

- Prepare RAW Images for Print RAW files are made up of unprocessed data just as it is captured by the camera’s image sensor. Shooting in RAW format allows you to capture a wider range of colors and acquire much more accurate image detail, and editing them in Camera Raw is nondestructive. This means that no matter what adjustments you’ve made when using the plug-in, you can always revert to the original “as shot” settings at any time. This makes for an even wider safety net than working with adjustment layers in the Photoshop workspace.
- Open a RAW image that Camera Raw can recognize, or convert the image to DNG format by using the Adobe DNG Converter application. Proceed to make adjustments in Camera Raw that will enhance the print quality of the image, such as tonal and color corrections, noise reduction, and sharpening.
- Edit TIFFs and JPEGs with Camera Raw With CS3, you can now edit TIFFs and JPEGs in Camera Raw. This is a huge advantage to graphic designers as well as photographers, because it gives you access to the exposure controls and white balance settings that were previously applicable only to RAW files.
- Open a TIFF or JPEG image in Camera Raw from Bridge or by using the File --> Open (Mac) or File --> Open As (Win) command.
- Adjust Multiple Images with Synchronized Camera Raw Settings Camera Raw allows you to open multiple images in the dialog at a time and synchronize applied settings. When they are synchronized, adjustments made to one image are applied to all images in the group. This can be a huge time-saver when working with print images that contain similar characteristics, such as lighting, color, and contrast.
- Open a group of similar images in Camera Raw by selecting them in Bridge and double-clicking, or by selecting them from the system folder and pressing F/Ctrl+O. With images that are selected from Bridge or from the system folder, you can also choose Open With Adobe Photoshop CS3 from the contextual menu (Control+click—Mac, or right-click with a two-button mouse.