To apply Camera Raw adjustments via Photoshop, go to the Filter menu and choose Camera Raw Filter (Command+Shift-A, Control + Shift-A ). The Camera Raw filter can only be applied to RGB or greyscale images that don’t exceed 65,000 pixels in either dimension. In some ways the Camera Raw filter offers a similar scope to what you can do in Lightroom when editing non-raw files, except that in Photoshop, the Camera Raw filter can be used to target individual layers, or individual image channels as well. Therefore, the Camera Raw filter can be a much simpler alternative. And, to be honest, the preference options can make this a really confusing process. Some might argue that Camera Raw editing is already available for non-raw images, but this is limited to flattened files saved in the TIFF or JPEG format. Since the first release of Photoshop CC, it has also been possible to apply Camera Raw as a filter to RGB or greyscale images, in place of regular image adjustments such as Curves or Hue/Saturation. Since then Camera Raw has evolved to become a sophisticated image editor in its own right as well as providing the core image processing in Lightroom. You also get access to tools which aren’t available in Photoshop such as Clarity, and the Graduated Filter, Adjustment Brush and Radial Filter.Camera Raw first began life as a plug-in for Adobe Bridge that allowed photographers to process their raw photos via Bridge, rather than rely on proprietary raw-processing software. This lets you limit the areas of the image which are sharpened to just the edges in the image and not areas of flat color. One is that you can use the filter to sharpen an image and take advantage of the Masking slider when sharpening in ACR. The Camera Raw filter offers some real benefits to Photoshop users. The benefits of using the Camera Raw filter This reopens the layer in ACR so you can make changes to the settings. You can also alter the Camera Raw Filter settings at any time by double clicking on the Camera Raw Filter entry in the layers palette. This feature is useful for adjusting the effect of a Gradient Filter where there are objects which fall inside the area affected by the filter that you don’t want to be affected by it. Paint with black on the mask to remove them and with white to reapply them. Notice that the Smart Object layer in Photoshop has its own layer mask so you can, if desired, use the layer mask to adjust the effects that you just applied to the image. Once you have made your changes click Ok to apply the changes to the image and return to Photoshop. The ACR filters are also available so you can use the Gradient Filter and the new Radial Filter to adjust the image. Other useful adjustments you can make include adjusting Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks and Clarity – settings which are easy to access in ACR and less easy (or not available in the case of Clarity) in Photoshop. This is a fix that isn’t as easy to make in Photoshop itself. So you can, for example, adjust the white balance by clicking on the White Balance tool and click on something in the image which should be neutral gray. Now you can make your adjustments to the image using any of the tools in ACR. To apply the Adobe Camera Raw filter choose Filter > Camera Raw Filter. If you have multiple layers that you want to apply the filter to, then select those layers in the Layers palette before converting them all to the one Smart Object. Using Smart Objects ensures that the adjustments that you are about to make can be edited later on. To do this either right click the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object or choose Filter > Convert for Smart Filters.Įither way the result is the same and you will have a layer converted to a Smart Object. So that you can revisit and edit the changes made by the filter, start by converting the layer that you want the filter to act on into a smart object.
To see how the Camera Raw filter works open any image in Photoshop CC.