ABSTRACT
The quality of a digital image is primarily dependent on the lens optics used to take the photograph, the recording capabilities of the CCD or CMOS chip and the analog-to-digital converter, but it is the raw conversion process that matters most. Although Camera Raw started out as an image processor exclusively for raw files, since version 4.0 it has also been capable of processing any RGB image that is in a JPEG or TIFF file format. The early versions of Camera Raw had controls for applying basic tone and color adjustments, but Camera Raw could never on its own match the sophistication of Photoshop. Camera Raw 6 in Photoshop CS5 offers much more extensive image editing capabilities and it is now possible to replicate in Camera Raw some of the things that would normally have been done only in Photoshop.
