Why does Bridge open raw files (ndg) in Raw window even though the 'Open in Photoshop' option is...

Question

I don't understand why in Bridge there are 2 choices, -1- Open raw and -2- Open in Photoshop and yet both choices give you the same result--The raw window opens  with PS below it. After having worked on my raw NEF files I save it to dng. My thinking behind this, is that I alreay have done what was needed and would now like to start working on it within Photoshop. It seems that the only way to automatically open it directly within PS is if I save it as a tiff, psd or jpg. But since this is not what I want to do then why must I add extra steps as opposed to just opening it hwere I want. I mean the 2 choices are there, so why not do what it is being asked?

Answer 1

If I may step in in this discussion, I always use DNG but never have used ACR to achieve this result.
As Curt stated the changes made in ACR to a Raw file (or for that matter a DNG file) are undoable without problems.
My workflow (using Canon CR2 but that is not important, let's say a dSLR generated Raw File) is to use Photodownloader in Bridge (not perfect by far but still the best and easiest way for me).
I connect my CF card using a card reader and let Adobe Photodownloader do the work.
Inhere I use several options:
- convert the CR2 file to a DNG
- back up the original CR2 on a separate disk
- rename the DNG to yyyymmdd (shot date) and sequence number
- add a metadata template for copyright to all the DNG files.
Sorting out the keepers I open the DNG in ACR and either hit Open (for open directly in PS) or use save as Tiff or PSD depending on next step in development or simply hit Done to apply changes and leave it for later use.
The advantage of having both ACR in PS and Bridge is huge. The only difference between both is that by default PS has the Open Button selected and Bridge (open in Camera Raw) has the Done button selected, thats all.
But here is the good part, you can use both simultaneously! For example have PS in film strip mode with multiple files selected and when changes are ready hit Save as start the process but locks up PS itself. Switch to Bridge and use Open in Camera Raw and start with the next job while ACR PS is still running in the background
When I open a DNG in PS using ACR in either PS or Bridge I continue developing with actions and fine tune with layer mask, brush etc etc.
Sometimes use Save As for PSD with the layers still active (huge files) when needing to revisit or not quite ready. But mostly I use an action to flatten the files and save as PSD.
Both DNG and PSD are ending up in my archive, my clients receive whet they want, PSD, Tiff but mostly jpeg and resized.
When having the job finished and every once in a while I clear out the original CR2 files from Back up because in all the years I use DNG (at least 5 years) I never had to use the original CR2 instead of the DNG that is thoroughly backed up as is the original PSD.
But since disk space is cheap you can choose to keep them.
An other option is to include the original raw file in the DNG but I would not recommend that because the file size is getting almost twice as big.
The biggest plus side for me using DNG is that the xmp data is written directly to the file while original CR2 or NEF needs an xmp side car file next to it with this data.
However saving changes to metadata is taking a bit longer to a DNG then to an XMP side car file, depending on system resources and time this never been a real problem for me