Today’s Question: You’ve referred to Camera Raw being non-destructive in terms of editing photos. Am I correct in understanding, however, that if you use Camera Raw as a filter in Photoshop that it is destructive to pixels? Is there a way to make it non-destructive in this context as well?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can use the Camera Raw filter in Photoshop in a non-destructive way by first converting the applicable image layer to a Smart Object. This, in turn, will cause the Camera Raw filter to be applied as a Smart Filter, which provides non-destructive editing.
More Detail: When we say that Camera Raw (or Lightroom Classic) is non-destructive, what that means is that the source file is not altered by the adjustments. For example, when you process a raw capture with Camera Raw you aren’t altering the source raw capture file. Instead, once you open the image Camera Raw is rendering pixels for a new image and opening that in Photoshop, leaving the original raw capture unaltered.
The Camera Raw filter, however, is destructive by default. What that means is that when you apply the Camera Raw filter (Filter > Camera Raw Filter from the menu) to an image layer, you are changing the pixel values for that layer based on the adjustments you applied.
However, it is possible to use the Camera Raw filter non-destructively. To do so, select the image layer you want to adjust, and then choose Filter > Convert for Smart Filters from the menu. This will convert the image layer to a Smart Object. When you then apply a filter such as the Camera Raw filter, the filter will be applied as a Smart Filter. This means the filter settings are not applied directly to pixel values in an image layer, but rather as metadata updates to an embedded image.
This enables you, for example, to return to the Smart Filter controls for a Smart Object layer by double-clicking the applicable Smart Filter on the Layers panel. In the case of the Camera Raw filter this would bring up the Camera Raw dialog, where you could adjust or reset or add any adjustments you’d like. This enables you to apply a wide range of adjustments using Camera Raw within Photoshop, but with the flexibility of being able to reset or otherwise change the adjustments at any time without any negative impact on image quality.
The only thing to keep in mind is that with this workflow it is possible to get a mismatch in areas of the image if you also use pixel-based layers. For example, let’s assume you applied Camera Raw as a Smart Filter to convert an image to black and white. You then use a separate image layer to perform some image cleanup work. If you later decide to go back to the Camera Raw filter and change the image back to color, the image cleanup work would still be in black and white because that work was done on a separate image layer.
As long as you don’t make use of other image layers that could conflict with a Smart Filter layer, however, you can apply the Camera Raw filter (or other filters) as a Smart Filter to maintain greater flexibility in your workflow.
