Today’s Question: When I open an image from Bridge it opens Photoshop and brings up Camera Raw. When I click the Open button the image is opened in Photoshop and then I have to save it. But what do I do if I don’t want to save another file?
Tim’s Quick Answer: If you just want to preserve your adjustment settings from Camera Raw, you can click the Done button instead of the Open button to close Camera Raw and save settings. You only need to save a derivative image if you want to preserve additional adjustments performed after Camera Raw.
More Detail: While a typical workflow for opening a raw capture in Photoshop after processing with Camera Raw involves saving the resulting image to preserve additional adjustments applied after Camera Raw, that isn’t necessary.
For example, you might want to apply adjustments to the raw capture, and then simply save your work so you can continue with additional adjustments at a later time using Photoshop. You might also want to preserve adjustments for the raw capture, and then export a copy of the image such as a JPEG for sharing online such as with Camera Raw or Bridge.
After applying adjustments with Camera Raw, if you don’t want to open the image in Photoshop you can simply click the Done button rather than the Open button. Before doing so you could also use the Save Image command (on the More menu) to save a copy of the image. When you click the Done button the adjustment settings will be preserved for the raw capture, but the image won’t be opened in Photoshop. Note that you could then also use Adobe Bridge to export a copy of the image in a different file format for sharing.
If you want to bypass Photoshop altogether in this adjustment workflow, you can also enable an option to edit raw captures using Camera Raw via Bridge, without launching Photoshop. To do so, open the Preferences dialog from Bridge and go to the General tab. In the Behavior section turn on the “Double-Click Edits Camera Raw Settings in Bridge” checkbox. With this option enabled, if you double-click a raw capture Camera Raw will come up without launching Photoshop. This can be more convenient if you don’t intend to further work on the image in Photoshop after applying adjustments with Camera Raw.
