RAW Support Workaround

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Today’s Question: I have Adobe Photoshop CS5. It does not support the ARW files from my Sony Alpha a6000. I want to start my editing of a photo in Photoshop rather than Lightroom. Can the files be changed to a DNG by Photoshop instead of taking it into Lightroom?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can convert your RAW captures to the Adobe DNG file format, and then open those DNG files directly in Photoshop via Adobe Camera Raw.

More Detail: For photographers who have chosen not to sign up for an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription or to use Adobe Lightroom as the central tool in their workflow, new or recently updated RAW capture formats may not be supported. The Adobe DNG Converter is a free utility that provides a workaround for this situation.

You can simply use the Adobe DNG Converter to convert your photos to the DNG format and then open those in Photoshop via Adobe Camera Raw. You can find a download link for the Adobe DNG Converter on the Adobe website here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/digital-negative.html

The only caution I would add is to make sure that you are either always using Lightroom as the starting point for your workflow, or that you are never using Lightroom. A mixed approach to using Lightroom can create some serious organizational challenges.

But again, for photographers who have not upgraded to the latest version of Lightroom or signed up for an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, the free Adobe DNG Converter does provide a workaround for updated RAW format support.