Camera Raw software is included as a plug‑in with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop, and also adds functionality to Adobe Bridge. Camera Raw gives each of these applications the ability to import and work with camera raw files. You can also use Camera Raw to work with JPEG and TIFF files.

You must have Photoshop or After Effects installed to open files in the Camera Raw dialog box from Bridge. However, if Photoshop or After Effects is not installed, you can still preview the images and see their metadata in Bridge. If another application is associated with the image file type, it’s possible to open the file in that application from Bridge.

Using Bridge, you can apply, copy, and clear image settings, and you can see previews and metadata for camera raw files without opening them in the Camera Raw dialog box. The preview in Bridge is a JPEG image generated using the current image settings; the preview is not the raw camera data itself, which would appear as a very dark grayscale image.

Note: A caution icon  appears in the thumbnails and preview image in the Camera Raw dialog box while the preview is generated from the camera raw image.

You can modify the default settings that Camera Raw uses for a particular model of camera. For each camera model, you can also modify the defaults for a particular ISO setting or a particular camera (by serial number). You can modify and save image settings as presets for use with other images.

When you use Camera Raw to make adjustments (including straightening and cropping) to a camera raw image, the image’s original camera raw data is preserved. The adjustments are stored for each image in either the Camera Raw database, as metadata embedded in the image file, or in a sidecar XMP file (a metadata file that accompanies a camera raw file). For more information, see Specify where Camera Raw settings are stored.

After you process and edit a camera raw file using the Camera Raw plug‑in, an icon  appears in the image thumbnail in Bridge.

If you open a camera raw file in Photoshop, you can save the image in other image formats, such as PSD, JPEG, Large Document Format (PSB), TIFF, Cineon, Photoshop Raw, PNG, or PBM. From the Camera Raw dialog box in Photoshop, you can save the processed files in Digital Negative (DNG), JPEG, TIFF, or Photoshop (PSD) formats. Although Photoshop Camera Raw software can open and edit a camera raw image file, it cannot save an image in a camera raw format.

As new versions of Camera Raw become available, you can update this software by installing a new version of the plug‑in. You can check for updates to Adobe software by choosing Help > Updates.

For up‑to‑date documentation for Camera Raw, go to the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/go/learn_ps_camerarawhelp.

Different camera models save camera raw images in many different formats, and the data must be interpreted differently for these formats. Camera Raw includes profiles for many camera models, and it can interpret many camera raw formats.