Why does Adobe Camera Raw 6.4.1 offer different White Balance for different photos?

Question

I am using Adobe Camera Raw v6.4.1 to view my Nikon d-90 photos on my computer and when I go to change the White Balance, for some photos I only get the choices:

As Shot
Auto
Custom

Yet for other photos, I get a much larger set of choices:

As Shot
Auto
Daylight
Cloudy
Shade
Tungsten
Fluorescent
Flash
Custom

Why do I see this variation and is there anyway to control it?

Answer

Any image that is not a native RAW format or DNG only provides the basic set of white balance options. This could be JPEG, as well as TIFF, PSD, or any other image format that Lightroom can load. The reason for this is that the full range of white balance and exposure adjustments are only really viable with RAW files to start with, and adjusting any one of the white balance or exposure settings too far will produce undesirable results with any RGB image.

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How do I return to Camera RAW window after opening an image?

Question

I tend to open a bunch of RAW files at the same time and move through them using the preview to find the image I want to work on. When I click on "Open Image" (perhaps after adjusting white balance and such), it opens the image into the main part of Photoshop.

If I then want to get back to the Camera Raw mode, I have to go and select all the files again. This seems to be something Adobe would provide a shortcut for, but I can't for the life of me find it in the menus.

Is there a way to bring the previous session of Camera Raw back to the forefront?

Answer

When you are in Camera RAW, make whatever adjustments you like, then press the shift key. The open button changes to Open Object. This gives you a re-editable object -- i.e., you can dive back into Camera RAW if you like simply by double-clicking the smart object layer.

All of that said, if you make any raster level adjustments in Photoshop -- say a spotting / healing layer, then go back into Camera RAW to tweak the color balance, all your dust busting will be the wrong color. There are techniques for working with Smart Objects, but at the end of most post-processing, you have to commit to some pixel-level stuff otherwise you wouldn't have broken out a big hammer like Photoshop in the first place, right?

Do you have a use-case for this extra level of flexibility? That would help with a more complete answer that addresses specific concerns.

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Why are low-resolution versions of my images shown in Adobe Bridge?

Question

When I browse photos in Adobe Bridge, they are often not as sharp as they really are, as if Bridge loads a low-res version of the photo for speed. This makes it hard to pick photos that are good, as I need to open them in Camera Raw to see how sharp they are first. The same low-res image is shown in Camera Raw the first seconds, until the image is "loaded fully" (I suppose).

Can I make Bridge show the high-res image?

Answer

eek this is annoying - I have the same problem - have you checked this post out forums.adobe.com/thread/561800?tstart=0

Hope this works!

Rob

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