Today’s Question: What can we do about Camera Raw having features that aren’t in Lightroom Classic, at least for now?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You could use Photoshop as a conduit to get access to the features that are now available in Camera Raw but not in Lightroom Classic.
More Detail: The latest updates to Adobe applications represent a bit of an unusual (though not unprecedented issue). For now, there is not parity between the applications, with a few features in Camera Raw that aren’t available in any version of Lightroom.
The features in question are updates to the “Enhance” features (which includes Denoise, for example), a Generative Expand feature for cropping, and a new Adobe Adaptive profile.
There are a couple of things you could do to gain access to these features if you’re using Lightroom Classic. One is to leverage Camera Raw by using a Smart Object. Start by selecting a raw capture in Lightroom Classic, and then from the menu choose Photo > Edit In > Open as Smart Object in Photoshop. When the image opens, the image will be represented as a Smart Object on the Layers panel. Double-click the thumbnail for that Smart Object and the image will open in Camera Raw. From there you can leverage all the new features that are in Camera Raw but not Lightroom Classic. Note that you need to use this Smart Object workflow to accomplish this, rather than using Camera Raw from the Filter menu.
Note that to take advantage of the updated Enhance features (such as Denoise), you’ll need to turn on the “New AI Features and Settings Panel” on the Technology Previews tab of the Camera Raw Preferences dialog.
Of course, the approach above will cause a new file to be created when you save the result, as a TIFF or PSD depending on the setting you have selected in Preferences for External Editing in Lightroom Classic. In other words, you’re not really getting a benefit in terms of using Photoshop to access Camera Raw rather than just generating a DNG file with the Denoise feature in Lightroom Classic.
The approach above is a good way to get access to the Adobe Adaptive profile if you have found that to be useful. I don’t personally find the new profile to be helpful enough that I would go to this much effort to get access to it.
It is also worth noting that you could simply edit an image normally in Photoshop from Lightroom Classic to make use of the Generative Expand feature for the normal Crop tool in Photoshop, without having to use the Camera Raw workflow outlined above.
Having said all that, the point is that if you want to gain access to the new features in Camera Raw that aren’t currently in Lightroom Classic, you can do so by leveraging a Smart Object in Photoshop.
