Adobe Camera Raw
Version 18.5.0 · Adobe Inc. · Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) · ranked #225 in the library
The raw processing engine that sits underneath the whole Adobe photography workflow, adding current camera and lens support to an existing install and keeping every adjustment non-destructive.
Read the installation section below before you start. The order of the steps matters on this release.
About this release
Overview
Camera Raw is the raw conversion engine shared across Photoshop, Bridge and After Effects. It reads the sensor data from a raw file and gives you the full develop pipeline before anything is rendered to pixels: exposure, white balance, tone curve, colour grading, detail, lens correction and local adjustments, all applied as instructions written alongside the file rather than baked into it. The original raw data is never altered.
Keeping it current is the reason to install it separately. Each release adds support for newly released camera bodies and lens profiles, and an older engine simply refuses to open a raw file from a body it does not recognise. Installing the current version updates the engine inside every host application on the machine at once, so a Photoshop install from an earlier release gains support for whatever came out since.
The adjustment set is deep. Masking covers subject, sky, background, object, people with per-region selection down to skin, hair, eyes and clothing, plus linear and radial gradients and a brush, all combinable with intersect and subtract logic. Denoise runs a learned model over the raw data for high ISO work, lens blur produces a depth aware defocus, and the healing tools with content aware fill work directly on raw data before conversion.
What it does
Feature breakdown
Non-destructive raw development
Every adjustment is stored as instructions beside the file, so the original sensor data is untouched and any edit can be reversed at any point.
AI masking
Automatic selection of subject, sky, background, objects and individual people with sub-selections for skin, hair, eyes, lips and clothing, combinable with manual gradients and brushes.
Denoise on raw data
A learned noise reduction pass that works on the raw mosaic before demosaicing, which recovers far more detail at high ISO than a post-conversion filter.
Lens and geometry correction
Automatic profile based correction for distortion, vignetting and chromatic aberration, plus perspective correction with guided upright controls.
Colour grading and profiles
Three way colour grading with luminance ranges, camera matching profiles, creative profiles and full HSL control per colour band.
Smart filter integration
Opened as a smart object in the host application, the entire develop panel stays live and re-editable after the composite is built on top.
Changed in this build
Version 18.5.0
- Support added for the latest camera bodies and their raw formats.
- New lens correction profiles across several manufacturers.
- Denoise runtime reduced substantially on current graphics hardware.
- Masking gained a landscape category with separate water, vegetation and architecture selections.
- Improved highlight recovery on files from sensors with dual gain readout.
Installation
Follow these in order
- Close every Adobe application on the machine before installing.
- Extract the archive to a temporary folder.
- Run the installer as administrator, it detects the host applications automatically.
- Let it finish and check that no host application was left running.
- Open the host application and check the version reported in the Camera Raw preferences dialogue.
- Nothing further is needed. The plugin inherits the host application's state.
Release notes
From whoever packed it
- This is a plugin, not a standalone application. It needs a host application already installed.
- Very old host applications cannot load the current engine. There is a floor below which it will not register.
- Adjustment sidecar files travel with the raw file. Copy both when moving work between machines.
System requirements
Minimum and recommended
| Operating system | Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11, 64-bit |
|---|---|
| Processor | Any processor with SSE 4.2 support |
| Memory | 8 GB minimum, 16 GB for high resolution files |
| Graphics | GPU with 2 GB VRAM, 4 GB or more for the denoise and lens blur features |
| Storage | 3 GB for the plugin and its profile data |
Questions about this release
Answered before you ask
- Do I need Photoshop for this?
- You need one of the host applications. Bridge alone is enough to open and develop files with it.
- Will it update my existing catalogue?
- It changes the engine, not your files. Existing adjustments continue to render the same way.
- Why does my new camera's files still not open?
- Support arrives with the release that follows the camera. If the body is very new, the engine may simply predate it.
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