Friday, November 30, 2018

PE 2018: Latest Supported Camera Raw Version

INTRODUCTION

The basic considerations for navigating to a decision on what you need to be able to edit your camera raw image in the Adobe Camera Raw Editor in a particular version of Photoshop Elements include:

  • Your camera model must be supported by the Camera Raw version installed
  • The Camera Raw version that supports your camera model must be supported by the particular version of Photoshop Elements

Adobe guides to these considerations can be found

"Cameras supported by Camera Raw" dated November 13, 2018 
https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/camera-raw-plug-supported-cameras.html 

"Camera Raw compatible Adobe applications" dated August 29, 2018 
https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/camera-raw-compatible-applications.html  

Reminders

For Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, the updated Camera Raw plugin is obtained via an opened project's Help Menu/Updates. In this process for Elements 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 (aka 2018), the Camera Raw plugin (Camera Raw.8bi) installs in a common location for Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements in the path
Local Disk (C:)
Program Files
Common Files
Adobe
Plug-Ins
Elements 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16 (aka 2018)
Files Formats

Important for Premiere Elements only users....The Camera Raw Editor opens only in Photoshop Elements; but, the Camera Raw installation will support the import of raw and dng images into the Premiere Elements projects.


ISSUE

What is the last version of Camera Raw that is compatible with Photoshop Elements 2018/Premiere Elements 2018? Adobe's "Camera Raw compatible Adobe applications" data on that question seems to me to be unclear.

FURTHER DETAILS

Further details.....If Help Menu/Updates in the open project does not contain any Camera Raw update waiting to be downloaded and installed for your Elements version, it is typical to believe that the currently installed version of Camera Raw is the latest version for that Elements version.

The Adobe "Camera Raw compatible Adobe applications" document suggests to me that Camera Raw 10.0 should be the last Camera Raw version compatible with Elements 2018. Yet, Elements 2018's Help Menu/Updates in the opened project has a Camera Raw version 10.3 to download and install for Elements 2018. This was true for Elements 2018 on Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit and Window 10 Home 64 bit.

The following table summarizes the Adobe "Camera Raw compatible Adobe applications" data versus what was the latest Camera Raw version that I could get from various versions of Elements with its Help Menu/Updates.


Please refer to the ATR Premiere Elements Troubleshooting blog post which details how Camera Raw 8.2 was manually gotten into Elements 11, bypassing the Help Menu/Updates way. See HERE.

The Help Menu/Updates way to Camera Raw 10.3 in Elements 2018 went without issues when the programs were on Windows 10 Home 64 bit. But, with these programs on Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit, Photoshop Elements 2018 had to be reinstalled in order to use Help Menu/Updates for getting Camera Raw 10.3 in Elements 2018.

Work is now in progress to determine if Elements 2018 can work with a Camera Raw version greater than 10.3...either by manually forcing the update or by Elements 2018 Help Menu/Updates.

To be continued when more information is available. Just a reminder, the Photoshop Elements 2019 Premiere Elements 2019 Windows (tryouts of this latest version), came with Camera Raw 10.4 installed and the Help Menu/Updates grayed out. In a quick test, it was found that Camera Raw 10.4 (from Photoshop Elements 2019) worked in Photoshop Elements 2018.

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ATR