The camera raw functionality in Adobe Photoshop software provides fast and easy access to the raw image formats produced by many leading professional and midrange digital cameras. By working with these 'digital negatives,' you can achieve the results you want with greater artistic control and flexibility while still maintaining the original raw files.
The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in became the latest must-have tool for professional photographers when it was released in February 2003. This powerful plug-in has been frequently updated to support more cameras and include more features, and is available as part of Adobe Photoshop CS4. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software is built upon the same powerful raw processing technology that is available in the camera raw plug-in.
The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in (2.3 or later) now also supports raw files in the Digital Negative (DNG) format. Find out more about the benefits of DNG, a publicly documented raw file format recently announced by Adobe.
The Camera Raw 5.4 plug-in is not compatible with versions of Photoshop earlier than Photoshop CS4.