The basics

72 ADVANCED PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 5.0 FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHERS
PROCESSING Raw FILES
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.
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