Photoshop CS5 with the Camera Raw 6 plug-in is now shipping and available as a trial download. Camera Raw 6.0 is also available as part of Photoshop CS5 and includes numerous enhancements that have been previewed in the Lightroom 3 beta program. The new noise reduction, sharpening, grain and post-crop vignette tools in Camera Raw 6 have been highly anticipated updates for those that prefer to use the Camera Raw plug-in instead of Lightroom. I also previewed a lens correction solution that will be part of a Camera Raw 6.1 update shortly after Photoshop CS5 ships.(It will also be part of Lightroom 3)
There is one important caveat about the Camera Raw 6.0 release: The support for 9 additional cameras provided in the Camera Raw 5.7 and Lightroom 2.7 updates is not available in the Camera Raw 6.0 release. The camera models are listed below:
- Canon EOS 550D (Digital Rebel T2i/ EOS Kiss X4 Digital)
- Kodak Z981
- Leaf Aptus-II 8
- Leaf Aptus-II 10R
- Mamiya DM40
- Olympus E-PL1
- Panasonic G2
- Panasonic G10
- Sony A450
Support for these cameras will be added in the upcoming Camera Raw 6.1 update. In the interim, you can use the free DNG Converter 5.7 (Mac, Win) to convert the files from these new cameras to a format readable by Camera Raw 6.0. The team apologizes for this temporary discrepancy in camera support but in our effort to provide the absolute latest camera support, we occasionally leapfrog the production process required to ship physical media around the world for Photoshop CS5 and the Creative Suite.(In developer terminology, Camera Raw 6.0 needed to be “baked” for Photoshop CS5 and the Creative Suite 5 release long before the Camera Raw 5.7 and Lightroom 2.7 update on April 20th so that testing and certification could be completed for the CS5 launch)