Open JPEGs in Camera Raw

Photograph/Raj Lalwani

Adobe Camera Raw remains one of the easiest ways to edit RAW files but it can be used for JPEGs too. Aditya Nair shows you how.

For most photographs, the amount of control offered by ACR is enough to get the results you need. However, by default it opens only RAW files, while JPEGs open up in Photoshop directly (Note: In Photoshop CC, you can use ACR as a function from the Filter tab for JPEGs & TIFFs).

For Photoshop CS5 & CS6 users, this simple setting can make ACR the default for JPEGs without having to go through Adobe Bridge first.

Step 1: Change Preferences

Once you have opened Photoshop, go to Edit > Preferences and then select the Camera Raw option.

Go to Edit > Preferences > Camera Raw

Step 2: Change the Formats Handling 

On the pop up, there is a section called JPEG and TIFF Handling with drop down menus for both format. Change the JPEG Handling to ‘Automatically open all supported JPEGs’.

Change the JPEG Handling to ‘Automatically open all supported JPEGs’.

If you use a lot of TIFF files, you can do the same for the TIFF handling drop down as well.

Change the TIFF Handling to ‘Automatically open all supported TIFFs’.

That’s it you are done! Go ahead and try it out.

Once the JPEG opens up in Camera Raw, you have all the regular features to play around with.

But What if I want to Open Only A Single Image?

Let’s say that you don’t want to set the default option to open JPEGs and TIFFs in Camera Raw all the time. However, there are only some occasions when you need to use ACR. Here’s what you do then.

Go to File > Open As. Click on the Open As drop down menu and select Camera Raw. That’s it, you are done. (You will have to this manually each time you want to open a JPEG or TIFF in ACR).

Go to File > Open As. Click on the Open As drop down menu and select Camera Raw.