Today’s Question: Is it possible to apply adjustments in batch to multiple photos using Camera Raw, such as for the profile-based lens correction adjustment you recommend for all photos?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can batch process multiple images at a time in Camera Raw by opening the photos with camera raw, selecting them all on the filmstrip, and applying the desired adjustments. Your adjustments will then apply to all selected photos on the filmstrip.
More Detail: I find that many photographers are not aware that it is possible to batch process multiple photos at a time in Camera Raw. The process is very straightforward and offers great flexibility.
To get started, simply open multiple photos in Camera Raw, whether you do so by selecting multiple images and opening them from Adobe Bridge or select multiple photos to open within Photoshop using the File > Open command.
When you open multiple photos in Camera Raw, you’ll see a filmstrip at the bottom of the interface (or on the left side if you’ve selected “Vertical” from the Orientation popup on the General tab in the Camera Raw Preferences dialog). You can toggle the visibility of that filmstrip by clicking the filmstrip button to the right of the zoom controls at the bottom-left of the Camera Raw window.
On the filmstrip you can select multiple photos you want to edit. You can press Ctrl+A on Windows or Command+A on Macintosh to select all photos on the filmstrip, for example. You can also click one thumbnail and then hold the Shift key while clicking another thumbnail to select those two images and all images in between. You can also hold the Ctrl key on Windows or the Command key on Macintosh while clicking a thumbnail to toggle the selection of that image.
With more than one image selected on the filmstrip in Camera Raw, all adjustments you apply will affect the selected images. As you apply those adjustments, you’ll notice the thumbnails on the filmstrip update accordingly.
One of great things about this capability is that it provides considerable flexibility in terms of which images are affected by a given adjustment. You could, for example, select all images and apply adjustments to them all. You could then select a smaller number of photos that need a little refinement and apply additional adjustments to those. You can even go back to selecting a single image and further refine the adjustments for that individual photo.
This set of features makes it easy to take a group of photos that were captured under similar conditions and optimize them all in batch. You can then refine the adjustments for some of the photos as needed. When you’re all finished, you can select all the images again and then open them or save them for further processing in Photoshop.
