Welcome to today’s post. I know what you’re thinking - I need the latest version of Photoshop or Lightroom to get all the new features, bugs and fixes. Well, yes obviously but I actually had something else in mind.
Following the yesterday’s post, I wanted to talk a bit more about camera support in Camera Raw (by the way, Camera Raw found in Lightroom and Photoshop, and Bridge is the same, so Camera Raw 6 is found in Photoshop CS5, Bridge CS5, and Lightroom 3). In case you missed yesterday’s post, here’s the link for you:
Lightroom/Photoshop doesn’t support my camera…
What I wanted to talk about today, is the following question I get asked quite a lot on my Lightroom and Photoshop training for Photographers:
” Why do I need to have the latest version of Photoshop/Lightroom to get my camera supported? Why older versions of Photoshop/Lightroom don’t support new cameras? “
My answer is: You don’t have to have the latest version of Photoshop/Lightroom to work with your raw images from a new camera. You can access your raw images in Lightroom 1 and 2, and in Photoshop CS2, CS3, and CS4 as well. However, there is a trick here… Well, not really a trick, just kidding 
You can access your raw images by using the Adobe DNG Converter. This is one of the advantages of using DNG – backward compatibility. Let me explain before I give you a link to the DNG Converter.
There are a number of advantages of using DNG files as opposed to the raw format from your camera (remember, every camera uses a slightly different raw specification, so raw files from different cameras, even from the same manufacturer, are different. Here are some advantages:
- DNG files are smaller, so you save disk space
- DNG file format is open-source, which means that it is widely available for developers to contribute to the development of the format
- All the adjustments, keywords, and all metadata is stored in the file, so you don’t have to worry about using sidecar files
Which file format you choose is completely up to you, these are just some of the advantages of using the DNG file format and the Converter to convert your raw files.
Finally, let me give you a link to the DNG Converter:
Adobe DNG 6.4 Converter – Windows
I hope you found it useful and I hope to see you here tomorrow for a great photography post.
Learn how to master Adobe Camera Raw within Adobe Bridge or inside Adobe Photoshop! Adobe Camera Raw ships with both Bridge and Photoshop and this week’s episode of 
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Hi, It is not exactly what it sounds like 
