Raw is the new buzz word in photographic circles the world over. Professionals and serious amateurs alike are switching their cameras from the standard JPEG and TIFF capture options to the Raw format. This is despite the fact that doing so will mean that they add an another processing step to their digital photography workflow. It seems that the extra level of control possible when processing your own Raw files (rather than letting the camera do the work) is worth the effort. So how do Photoshop Elements users become part of the Raw Revolution? Well this chapter will outline both the workflow and conversion techniques that you can employ to make Raw capture and processing a regular part of your photographic routine.

The Photoshop Elements Approach to Raw Processing

As we saw in Chapter 2 Raw files contain both the image and metadata along with the actual picture information in a format which cannot be directly opened into Photoshop Elements. Instead the Raw photo is opened first into a conversion utility where global image characteristics such as white balance, brightness, contrast, saturation, noise reduction and sharpness are adjusted before the converted file is opened into the Full Edit workspace. Alternatively the converted file can be saved as an Adobe Digital Negative or DNG file. Once the converted file is opened in the Elements Editor workspace it is no longer a Raw file and can be edited and enhanced just like an other photo.

This approach to Raw processing is often called Convert then Edit as the original Raw file must be converted before any pixel-based or local editing can take place. In contrast other Raw processing solutions such as Adobe LightRoom provide a full Raw workflow which includes editing functions and output to print and web without ever converting the Raw file.

3.01 Enabling Your Raw Camera

2 Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic

With most Raw-enabled cameras, switching from one capture format to another is a simple matter of entering the camera Set up menu and selecting the Raw entry from the Image Quality or File Format options. With some models you can also make this change via a Quality toggle or switch elsewhere on the camera.

Occasionally there is also a choice between saving compressed and non-compressed versions of the Raw file. Unlike the algorithms used for compressing JPEG files, the method used when compressing Raw files is ‘lossless’, meaning that all the detail that was captured is retained in the compressed file. Compressing will mean that pictures will take up less space on the memory card, but the process of compression does result in longer saving times. For most shooters this isn’t an issue but if you like to photograph sports or action, then the extra time taken to compress the file will reduce the frames per second rate of your camera. In practice most Raw shooters opt for non-compressed files and just buy more memory cards to accommodate the larger file sizes that need to be saved.

There are several cameras on the market that also have the ability to save both Raw and JPEG versions of the same file at the time of capture. This option can be a real time saver if you need to access your pictures quickly, but the feature is less of an advantage if you regularly perform many enhancement steps to your files, as in the end the captured JPEG will not resemble the processed Raw file.

At the big end of town most of the high-resolution camera backs, which are destined for use with medium format camera bodies, only capture in Raw formats. Many make use of dedicated software to control the camera, capture the photo and then process the Raw file. Other manufacturers, such as Hasselblad, Samsung, Richo and Leica even use Adobe’s DNG format as the capture format, making the transition to Elements a simple one.

In Practice – Enabling Your Camera

For the purposes of this workflow example I have included step-by-step instructions for both Nikon and Canon cameras below.

Canon Workflow (Example Camera EOS 30D)

1. Press the Menu button and turn the Quick Control Dial to select the Quality heading and then press Set; this will display the Recording Quality screen.
2. Next, use the Quick Control Dial again to choose one of the Raw options from those listed. Depending on the camera model your choices may include Raw and Raw + JPEG. Press Set to set the selected capture mode.

Note: Canon cameras divide the controls into two levels: Basic and Creative (advanced). They name these control subsets different ‘Zones’. If your camera is currently in the Basic Zone you won’t be able to choose any Raw caption options. To do this, you will need to switch to the Creative Zone first, and then alter the Recording Quality. Canon’s menu system also varies from consumer to pro models so check with the manual if you are unsure.

Nikon Workflow (Example Camera D100)

1. To switch the default capture format to Raw, activate the menu on the back of the camera and then use the Multi-selector control to navigate to the Shooting Menu (second option on the left side of the screen). Use the right arrow on the Multi-selector control to pick menu options.
2. From the first page of the menu list, select the Image Quality entry. This will display another screen containing a list of quality options – three JPEG, one TIFF and one NEF (Nikon’s version of Raw). At this screen choose the NEF (Raw) heading.
3. Selecting NEF will display a final screen with a choice of two different Raw capture modes – ‘Comp. NEF (Raw)’ compressed and ‘NEF (Raw)’ uncompressed. Select one of these options and then exit the menu.

3.02 Modifying Your Capture Workflow for Raw

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic

In the previous chapter we looked at the controls that are available to digital camera users that enable them to capture great images. These include such digital-only options as Saturation, Sharpness, White Balance and Contrast Control. Using such features it is possible for the digital photographer to customize their image capture more than was ever possible when film was king. But switching capture formats to Raw impacts directly on the role that these controls play in your digital capture. As we already know factors such as white balance, contrast, saturation and sharpness settings are not fixed in Raw files. These controls are only applied to the file at the time of conversion or after the image exits the Adobe Camera Raw utility and is opened in the Editor workspace. So rather than these factors being applied in-camera, as is the case with JPEG and TIFF capture, they are applied via the ACR utility. In fact any of the adjustments you make to these settings on the camera can be reversed or tweaked in ACR. Remember the white balance illustration? You forget to change from tungsten to daylight and shoot outside. No problem, just make the switch back to the daylight setting in the ACR dialog and the photo is corrected without loss of image quality.

So if these factors are controllable at conversion then should the Raw shooting photographer bother with them at time of capture? This is a good question to which you will receive many answers. Unfortunately many shooters believe that capturing in Raw is a ‘fix all’ for poor camera technique. Haven’t selected the right white balance? No problem fix it in Raw. Haven’t judged the light quite right? Again, not a big deal just fix it in Raw. Nor adjusted your lighting for good contrast? Again, not an issue, there is contrast control in Raw. But to my mind although many factors can be altered in Raw this approach has three main drawbacks:

Raw Capture Implications on Workflow

So what changes to standard capture workflow should the Raw shooter make? Let’s examine the impact of Raw capture on some of the standard camera controls.

Resolution – When working with Raw as the capture format, most cameras will not provide the ability to alter the dimensions of your photo. The largest photo possible (one sensor site to one pixel) is generally recorded in the Raw file.

Color Depth – Raw photographers automatically get access to the increased levels of tone afforded by high-bit capture because nominating Raw as the capture format negates the camera’s bit depth settings and automatically provides the full depth capable by the sensor. At time of conversion in ACR you can elect the bit depth of the converted file.

Saturation – As the vibrancy or saturation of the converted image can be controlled on a picture-by-picture basis in ACR it is a good idea to leave this camera setting on the default or normal value. This will display your photo with standard saturation in ACR and then give you the option to boost or reduce vibrancy according to the requirements of the photo.

White Balance – Despite the fact that white balance can be losslessly adjusted in ACR it is good practice to match white balance settings with the dominant light source in your scene. This helps to maintain the photographer’s own capture skill as well as ensuring speedier color cast removal in ACR, as the camera settings are loaded as default when opening the image. The more accurate these capture settings are the less fiddling the photographer will need to do to ensure a great result.

Contrast – Most cameras have the choice to increase or reduce contrast. The feature is invaluable when shooting in difficult lighting scenarios and saving the results back to TIFF or JPEG files. Raw shooters have the luxury of being able to make these types of contrast adjustments much more accurately and on an image-by-image basis back at the desktop.

Sharpening – Professionals now employ a workflow that applies sharpening at three different times during the enhancement process – at time of capture, during enhancement and then when preparing for output. For Raw shooters adopting this approach means adding a little global sharpening in-camera or at the time of conversion. Both approaches are fine as long as the sharpening is kept to a minimum with the idea that it will be fine-tuned later to account for subject matter and output destination.

Noise Reduction – Reducing noise on the desktop, either during Raw conversion or afterwards inside Photoshop Elements, provides better control over the process and therefore better results than the auto approach adopted by in-camera systems.

ISO – Shooting in Raw doesn’t directly affect the selection of ISO setting used for capture. These settings will be based on the available light in the scene or the shutter speed required to freeze or blur motion.

Camera Exposure – Shooting in Raw doesn’t change the fact that exposure is key to the creation of high quality images. It is true that the slider controls in ACR provide a great deal of flexibility when it comes to processing the tones in a photo and that this means that slight problems with exposure (under- or over-exposure) can be corrected more easily than with other capture formats. What is important to remember though is that this doesn’t provide photographers with a license for poor exposure control. The best conversions are made with images that are well exposed.

3.03 Using the Adobe Photo Downloader

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic

Over the history of the development of Photoshop Elements one of the most significant additions to the program has been the Organizer workspace. This feature provides a visual index of your pictures and can be customized to display the images in Browser Mode, date mode or sorted by keyword tags or collection. Unlike the standard file browsers of previous editions which created the thumbnails of your pictures the first time that the folder is browsed, the Organizer creates the thumbnail during the process of adding your photographs to a collection.

To commence downloading your Raw files and, in the process, create your first collection, simply select the View and Organize option from the Welcome screen and then proceed to the Organizer: File > Get Photos menu option. Select one of the listed sources of pictures (camera or folders) provided and move through the steps and prompts in the dialogs that follow. If you are sourcing your files from a camera or card reader then the Adobe Photo Downloader (APD) automatically starts when you attach these devices, removing the need for you to go to the Get Photos menu to start the downloading process.

Option 1: Getting Your Raw Files from Camera or Card Reader

To demonstrate the process let’s start by downloading some photographs from a memory card or camera. This will probably be the most frequently used route for your Raw images to enter the Elements program. Connect the camera, being sure that you have first installed the drivers for the unit. Alternatively you may wish to eject the memory card from the camera and insert it into a card reader that is already attached to the computer. The Adobe Photo Downloader utility should automatically start; if it doesn’t then manually select the From Camera or Card Reader option from the File > Get Photos menu.

After attaching the camera, or inserting a memory card into the reader, you will see the Adobe Photo Downloader dialog. This is a utility designed specifically for managing the download process and has both a Basic and Advanced dialog mode. The Basic Dialog is displayed by default. The first step is to select the location of the pictures (the card reader or memory card in the camera) from the Source drop-down menu in the top right of the dialog. The first photo in the group is shown as a thumbnail on the left of the window. Below this area is the Import Settings section where you can choose the folder location for the pictures that are downloaded as well as options to create new subfolders, rename photos and delete successfully downloaded files. There is also a checkbox for activating the new Automatic Download feature which imports photos directly from card reader or camera, bypassing the Adobe Photo Downloader dialog and instead using the import options saved in the Camera or Card Reader preferences (Edit > Preferences > Camera or Card Reader).

Clicking the Advanced Dialog button at the bottom left switches the window to a more sophisticated version of the feature. Here all the photos on the card/camera are previewed and you have the additional options of fixing red eyes, creating photo stacks and adding group tags and metadata information automatically as files are downloaded. By default all pictures on the card will be selected ready for downloading and cataloging. If for some reason you do not want to download all the images then you can deselect them by unchecking the tick box at the bottom right-hand of the thumbnail.

After selecting the options in either the Basic or Advanced dialog click the Get Photos button to transfer the pictures. After the process is complete Elements will tell you that the files have been successfully imported.

Option 2: Loading Raw Files from an Existing Archive, Disk or Drive

Acting much like the File > Open option common to most programs the Get Photos > From Files and Folders selection provides you with the familiar operating system browse window that allows you to search for and open pictures that you have already saved to your computer. You generally have the option to view your files in a variety of ways including Thumbnails, Tiles, Icons, List and Detail Views using the drop-down menu from the top of the window. However the Thumbnail option will only display small previews of your Raw files if the Microsoft Raw Image Thumbnailer and Viewer utility is installed. This is available free from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/Raw.mspx. Users can also elect to automatically fix red eyes or suggest photo stacks here as well. After selecting the image, or images, you wish to import into Elements, select the Get Photos button.

How to Multi-Select the Files to Import

To select several images or files at once hold down the Ctrl key whilst clicking on the pictures of your choice. To select a complete list of files without having to pick each file in turn click on the first picture and then, whilst holding down the Shift key, click on the last file in the group.

3.04 The Adobe Camera Raw Interface

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic

Before commencing introducing a Raw processing workflow, let’s take a close look at the Adobe Camera Raw feature as it appears in Photoshop Elements 5.0. When opening a Raw photo from inside either the Organizer or Editor workspaces, this ACR dialog will be displayed. It is the tools and features contained in this window that will govern the way in which your Raw file is converted to a standard RGB format that can be edited in Photoshop Elements.

Histogram

A full color histogram is located under the RGB values readout. The feature graphs the distribution of the pixels within your photo. The graph updates after changes are made to the color, contrast and brightness of the picture. By paying close attention to the shape of the graph you can pre-empt many image problems. The aim with most enhancement activities is to obtain a good spread of pixels from shadow through mid tones to highlights without clipping (converting delicate details to pure black or white) either end of the tonal range.

The Settings Menu

Below the histogram is the Settings drop-down menu which contains the Image Settings, Camera Raw Defaults, Previous Conversion, and Custom entries.

Image Settings: The Image Settings option restores the original settings of the current photo. Use this selection when you want to reverse changes that you have made and wish to restore the photo to its virgin state.

Camera Raw Defaults: This option applies to a group of slider settings that are default values associated with a specific camera and photograph. When a photo is opened for the first time, the settings and White Balance controls will be altered to Camera Raw Defaults (based on the camera model) and As Shot (based on the camera settings used for the photograph), respectively.

Previous Conversion: Another option in the Settings drop-down menu is Previous Conversion. This setting stores the ‘last used’ values for all controls and is an efficient way to apply the enhancements used with the previous image to one currently open in the dialog. Using this option will help speed up the conversions of a series of photos taken at the same time under the same lighting conditions. Simply make the adjustments for the first image and then use the Previous Conversion option to apply the same settings to each of the successive photos from the series in turn.

Custom: Moving any of the slider controls such as Temperature or Tint sliders under the White Balance menu automatically changes the settings entry to Custom. Once the settings have been customized for a particular photograph the values can be saved as a new Camera Raw Default entry using the Save option in the pop-up menu accessed via the sideways arrow next to the Settings menu.

Large Preview

The dialog box also contains a large preview of how the Raw file will appear with the current settings applied. The preview has a couple of Zoom-in and -out options. You can alter the magnification of the preview using the Zoom tool, the Zoom Level menu or buttons at the bottom of the dialog or with the Ctrl + or Ctrl – keystrokes. Examining parts of the image close in is important and useful, particularly in areas where shadows and/or highlights are problematic.

White Balance Correction

White balance is used to correctly balance the color of the scene to the lighting conditions at the time the shot was taken. Leaving white balance set at As Shot means you elect to keep the White Balance values that were used when taking the picture. As you know one of the advantages shooting Raw is that this setting is not a fixed part of the picture file. Altering the specific white balance setting at the time of Raw conversion is a ‘lossless’ action. This is not the case if you have used an incorrect setting and have shot in JPEG or TIFF. Use either of these two formats and the white balance setting will be fixed in the file and can only be changed with destructive adjustments using features like Color Variations or Remove Color Cast. In this regard Raw shooters have much more flexibility.

For instance, if you selected a Daylight setting in-camera and think that Shade or another white balance preset may be closer to the actual lighting conditions you may select one of the options from the list of presets under the White Balance drop-down menu. Moving either the Temperature or Tint sliders switches the setting to Custom. These controls are used for matching the image color temperature with that of the scene.

Temperature: The Temperature slider is a fine-tuning device that allows you to select a precise color temperature in units of degrees kelvin. When an image is too yellow, meaning it has a lower color temperature than you prefer, move the Temperature slider to the left to make the colors bluer and compensate for the lower color temperature. When an image is too blue, or higher in temperature than you prefer, move the slider to the right to make the image warmer, adding more yellow compensation. So, left is to make image colors cooler and right is to make image colors warmer.

Tint: The Tint slider fine-tunes the white balance to compensate for a green or magenta tint. Moving the Tint slider to the left adds green and to the right adds magenta. This control is often used to neutralize a color cast caused by lighting from fluorescent tube or strip sources.

White Balance tool: The quickest and perhaps easiest way to adjust white balance is to select the White Balance tool and then click in an area that should be neutral gray or even amounts of red, green and blue. For best results, use a textured white or light gray as the reference and be careful not to click on an area with pure white or specular highlights. These will produce unreliable results so keep away from the bright highlight areas of highly reflective or chrome surfaces. One suggestion for working with neutral gray is to:

Making Tonal Adjustments

Exposure, Shadows, Brightness, Contrast and Saturation sliders are available for making adjustments to Raw files. Adobe has positioned these controls in the dialog so that when working from top to bottom you follow a specific enhancement workflow. For this reason you should follow these steps in order:

Exposure

The Exposure slider adjusts the brightness or darkness of an image using value increments equivalent to f-stops or EV (exposure values) on a camera. An image is underexposed when it is not light enough or too dark, and it is overexposed when it is too light. Simply move the slider to the left to darken the image and to the right to lighten (brighten) the image.

What do the f-stop or EV equivalents indicate? An adjustment of −1.50 is just like narrowing the aperture by 1.5 (one and a half) f-stops. Moving the slider 1.33 places to the left will dramatically darken an image and to the right the same amount will result in a bright image. If you have to move more than two full stops in either direction this probably indicates your settings at capture were inaccurate. Making adjustments beyond two stops starts to deteriorate image quality as invariably shadow or highlight detail is lost (clipped) in the process.

For those of you who are interested, the Exposure slider sets the white clipping points in the image. Clipping shows as values creeping up the left (shadow) and right (highlight) walls of your histogram (and red and blue areas in the image if shadow and highlight previews are turned on), and occurs when the pixel values shift to the highest highlight value or the lowest shadow value. Clipped areas are completely black or white and contain no detail. As you want to maintain as much detail in the shadows and highlights as possible your aim should always be to spread the picture tones but not to clip delicate highlight or shadow areas.

Shadows

Moving the Shadows slider adjusts the position of the black point within the image. Just as was the case with the Exposure slider you should only make Shadows adjustments when the clipping warning is active. This will ensure that you don’t unintentionally convert shadow detail to black pixels. Remember movements of the slider to the left decrease shadow clipping. Moving it to the right increases or produces clipping.

Brightness and Contrast

The Brightness slider is different to the Exposure slider although both affect the brightness of an image. Brightness compresses the highlights and expands the shadows when you move the slider to the right. When adjusting your photos your aim is to set the black and white points first and then adjust the brightness of the mid tones to suit your image.

Contrast adjusts the spread of the mid tones in the image. A move of the Contrast slider to the right spreads the pixels across the histogram, actually increasing the mid tone contrast. Conversely, movements to the left bunch the pixels in the middle of the graph. It is important to adjust the contrast of mid tones after working on exposure, shadows and brightness.

Auto Tonal Control

When first opening a picture ACR will automatically adjust the tonal controls to an average setting for the picture type and camera make/model. The Auto checkbox is selected when these settings are in place. Moving the associated slider will remove the selection but these values can be reinstated by selecting the checkbox again.

Saturation

If desired, the Saturation slider may be used to adjust the strength of the color within the photo. A setting of −100 is a completely desaturated monochrome image and a value of +100 doubles the saturation. Watch changes in the histogram when you move the Saturation slider in either direction.

Sharpening, Luminance Smoothing and Color Noise Reduction

Sharpening, Luminance Smoothing and Color Noise Reduction are all controls that can be accessed under the Detail tab.

Sharpening is an enhancement technique that is easily overdone and this is true even when applying the changes at the time of Raw conversion. The best approach is to remember that sharpening should be applied to photos as the very last step in the editing/enhancement process and that the settings used need to match the type of output the photo is destined for. In practice this means images that are not going to be edited after Raw conversion should be sharpened within ACR, but those pictures that are going to be enhanced further should be sharpened later using the specialist filters in Photoshop Elements.

When a picture is first opened into the ACR the program sets the sharpening and noise values based on the camera type and model used to capture the image. For many photographers making further adjustments here is an exception rather than a rule as they prefer to address sharpening in the Editor after cropping, straightening, enhancing, resizing and going to print.

ACR contains two different noise reduction controls – the Luminance Smoothing slider and the Color Noise Reduction control. The Luminance Smoothing slider is designed to reduce the appearance of grayscale noise in a photo. This is particularly useful for improving the look of images that appear grainy. The second type of noise is the random colored pixels that typically appear in photos taken with a high ISO setting or a long shutter speed. This is generally referred to as ‘chroma noise’ and is reduced using the Color Noise Reduction slider in ACR. The noise reduction effect of both features is increased as the sliders are moved to the right.

Outputting the Converted File

Now to the business end of the conversion task – outputting the converted Raw file. At this stage in the process ACR provides several options that will govern how the file is handled from this point onwards. To this end, the lower right-hand corner of the Adobe Camera Raw dialog has four buttons: Save, Cancel, Open and Help and a further three – Save (without the options dialog), Reset and Update – when the Alt/Option button is pushed.

Help: Opens the Photoshop Elements Help system with Raw processing topics already displayed.

Cancel: This option closes the ACR dialog without saving any of the settings to the file that was open.

Save: The normal Save button, which includes several dots (...) after the label, displays the Save options dialog. Here you can save the Raw file, with your settings applied, in Adobe’s own DNG format. The dialog includes options for inputting the location where the file will be saved, the ability to add in a new name as well as DNG file-specific settings such as compression, conversion to linear image and/or embed the original Raw file in the new DNG document. It is a good idea to select Save in Different Location in the Destination drop-down at the top to separate processed files from archive originals. Clearly the benefits of a compressed DNG file are going to help out in the storage issue arena and compression is a big advantage with DNG. Embedding the original Raw file in the saved DNG file begs the questions of how much room you have in the designated storage device and whether you really want to have the original Raw file here.

Open: If you click on the Open button Elements applies the conversion options that you set in ACR and opens the file inside the Editor workspace. At this point, the file is no longer in a Raw format so when it comes to saving the photo from the Editor workspace Elements automatically selects the Photoshop PSD format for saving.

Reset: The Reset option resets the ACR dialog’s settings back to their defaults. This feature is useful if you want to ensure that all settings and enhancement changes made in the current session have been removed. To access the Reset button click the Cancel button whilst holding down the Alt/Option key.

Update: Clicking the Open button in conjunction with the Alt/Option key will update the Raw conversion settings for the open image. Essentially this means that the current settings are applied to the photo and the dialog is then closed. The thumbnail preview in the Photo Browser workspace will also be updated to reflect the changes. If the thumbnail doesn’t update automatically, select the picture and then choose Edit > Update Thumbnail in the Photo Browser workspace.

Skip: Holding down the Shift key whilst clicking the Open button will not apply the currently selected changes and just close the dialog. In this way it is similar to the Cancel button except the Cancel will dismiss the dialog, and Skip will continue to reload the dialog with any other Raw files that have been multi-selected to open.

3.05 The Conversion Process

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 Difficulty level – Basic

Okay, now that we have a good understanding of the features and controls within the Adobe Camera Raw dialog let’s move on and look at a typical conversion workflow.

3.06 Keeping ACR Up to Date

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic

The Adobe Camera Raw feature is installed as a plug-in inside Photoshop Elements when you first install the program. Periodically Adobe updates the feature releasing a new version that can be freely downloaded and installed. Typically the updates contain support for the latest digital camera models and occasionally new features and tools are included as well.

To download the latest ACR update point your browser to www.adobe.com (specifically http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraRaw.html) and then look for the Adobe Camera Raw update page. Next download the latest version of the utility and install using these steps:

1. If Photoshop Elements is open exit the program.
2. Open the system drive (usually C:).
3. Locate the following directory: Program FilesAdobePhotoshop Elements 5.0Plug-InsFile Formats
4. Find the Adobe Camera Raw.8bi file in this folder.
5. Move the plug-in to another folder and note down its new location just in case you want to restore the original settings.
6. Drag the new version of the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in, the Adobe Camera Raw.8bi file (that you downloaded), to the same directory as in Step 3.
7. Restart Photoshop Elements.

3.07 Other Raw plug-Ins

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic

Often when installing the support software that was supplied with your digital camera an extra Raw utility is installed on your computer. This can mean that after installing the camera drivers you find that you no longer have access to Adobe Camera Raw and that instead the camera-based plug-in keeps appearing when you are attempting to open Raw files. If this occurs and you want to restore ACR as the default Raw utility then you will need to remove the camera-based plug-in from the plug-insAdobe Photoshop Elements 5.0File Formats folder in Elements and add in the Adobe Camera Raw.8bi instead.

This is a problem that is often seen with Nikon users as the NEF.8bi plug-in designed to display and adjust Nikon Raw or NEF files takes precedence over the ACR utility.