Adobe Camera RAW gets a much needed makeover
I almost missed this from the announcements yesterday, but Camera RAW in Photoshop has gotten a big makeover. It now behaves and looks a lot more like Lightroom. Some of the old frustrating behaviours are gone and it now supports high resolution displays properly.
A Much Needed Makeover
Camera RAW has been around for a long time now, predating Lightroom. While it regularly receives updates, the overall interface hasn’t really changed a massive amount over the years. When Lightroom came along, its underlying engine was based on Camera Raw, and you’ve always been able to maintain edit between both Lightroom and Camera RAW, but switching between them could be jarring. The interface was different and the terminology of various adjustments wads always different, so it could be confusing for new users, especially if you only used camera raw occasionally.
Camera RAW Intro Screen when First Run
Options when you first launch Camera RAW 12.3
New Camera RAW Interface
With this new update in Photoshop 21.2, Camera RAW 12.3 gets a much needed makeover. It now looks much more like Lightroom. The panel layout is very similar to Lightroom (cloud) desktop, and the headings are now the same as Lightroom desktop, but the actual slider design is more like Lightroom Classic. So, it’s kind of a hybrid of both. You can now open multiple panels together, without having to switch tabs like the old version. The filmstrip is also now along the bottom, just like it is in Lightroom (although you can switch it back to the side if you want). The Curve tool also gets a redesign to match the Lightroom version.
The other tools that were previously across the top left are now down the right hand side. This makes it more natural as everything is grouped together as opposed to all over the interface, and seems like a more natural fit. The icons fore these (healing tools, gradient and brush etc) are also laid out very similarly to Lightroom (cloud) Desktop.
Some of the keyboard shortcuts have also been changed, and the biggest improvement for me personally is that finally, clicking the viewer in Camera Raw toggles between viewing zoomed out and viewing 1:1, or 100% like Lightroom (Unlike the old version where it kept zooming in) You can also change the pan tool to behave more like Lightroom.
The performance seems to have improved a significant amount too, and according to the documentation, it now fully supports High DPI or Retina displays (I hadn’t noticed an issue before, but I don’t use it that much on my laptop which is my only retina equipped computer at the moment)
Conclusion
If you spend most of your photo editing time in Camera RAW then this new interface might be jarring for you, but I suspect most will find it better after some time adjusting. However, for those who spend the bulk of their time in Lightroom and only use Camera RAW occasionally then the process of jumping back and forward between them has now just gotten a lot less jarring. This has been a long time coming, and I for one am much happier with the result.
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