Camera Raw is such an amazingly powerful tool that a lot of photographers are finding they do most (or at least a lot) of their edits inside CR before even opening up the image in Photoshop.

When editing a photo you always want to view the before and after right? How else will you measure the changes your making? There is a little preview checkbox on the top right of the image window which does exactly this. A much better way is using a handy keyboard shortcut which is to simply press the letter “p”. This will toggle between the default image as you opened it…and any changes you’ve made.

It’s important to remember though, that CR will only toggle the changes made in the panel you’re currently in. So if you’re in the “basic” panel, toggling the preview will only show you the before and after for changes made in that basic panel (like exposure, vibrance or saturation etc). It won’t show you any change you may have made in any of the other panels (like the “Curves” panel etc).

If you do want to see a true global before and after preview, click on the little icon to the right of the panel name (e.g. Basic). A flyout menu will appear where you can choose “Camera Raw Defaults”. Click the menu and selete the same option to turn off the “before” view.

As usual there is a much better way to do this. Simply go to the “Presets” panel and toggle the preview as normal by pressing the letter “p”. This will show you a before and after including any changes you’ve made in all of the adjustment panels.

Tags: camera raw, photoshop