Camera Raw Preferences: How To Configure Them Correctly
https://www.shutterbuggs.com/ - In this video, I’d like to discuss some of the preferences that are available to you in Camera Raw. If you go up to the top left-hand corner where the tools are located, you’ll notice that there’s an Open Preference dialogue box. If you click on that, you’ll see that Camera Raw preferences will appear. We have some general settings.
The first one allows you to choose where you’d like to store any changes to images on your computer. You can choose whether you’d like to store those image settings in SideCar XMP files, or if whether you’d like to store them directly in Camera Raw’s database. I prefer to use Camera Raw’s database, but it’s entirely up to you. Next, you can choose, whether you’d like to apply sharpening to all images, or just preview images.
From here, you’ll notice you’ll have some default image settings. This is where you can set whether you’d like to apply auto-tone adjustments, auto-gray scale mixes directly to images as soon as they’re opened up in Camera Raw. Now, I prefer to leave these off, especially if I’ve made changes to a Raw file that I’m quite happy with, and then I open it up again. Because if you open it up again with these settings set, Camera Raw will make it’s own mind up on how the image should look and actually change all those settings on you, which can be quite annoying.
From here, you’ve got options whether or not you’d like to specify defaults specific to camera serial numbers. So, if you have multiple cameras that you’re shooting with and picked one of those is your preferred camera, you can set the defaults so they’re only applied to that specific serial number. You also have the option just to apply defaults that set up in Camera Raw to specific ISO settings. So, for example, if you mainly shoot in ISO 100, then you can have all the defaults and the sharpening and the lens corrections all set up for ISO 100. But when you open up a file that’s set to ISO 1600, you can choose that those settings aren’t applied to that file. Because for instance, that file may be a lot more noisy, and you don’t want the same sharpening applied to that ISO setting.
From here, we have Camera Raw cache, and this is where you can decide how much memory you want to allocate to Camera Raw. So, for example, if Camera Raw’s running quite slow and you have some quite large raw files that you’re working on, you can choose to allocate a specific amount of hard drive space to Camera Raw. The more you allocate, the faster and the better Camera Raw will perform for you when you’re working on larger files. You’ll also notice that this purge cache, just here as well. Sometimes if the cache gets a bit clogged up, you can choose to purge the cache and you can also choose to select a location on where that cache is actually stored. I work a lot on DNG files, so this is where you can choose where those files are handled.
I prefer to ignore SideCar XMP files because, obviously, with DNG files, that information is already included in a single DNG file. I also like to update my embedded JPEG previews, so that they’re actually set to medium size. This is because I prefer to reduce the size of my DNG files. And if I have it set to a full size, then obviously the size of the file is going to be quite larger than if it was set to medium size.
Now, as I’m sure you’re aware, Camera Raw can open JPEG in two files, so you can choose how those files are handled in Camera Raw preferences. Now, we’ve got some automatic settings here, but you can also choose whether you’d actually like to disable JPEG and TIFF support if you’d like. In the next video, I’d like to talk about some of the workflow options that are available to you.
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