Filmstrip ModeIf you had to adjust every slider on every image, you might conclude that Camera Raw was an instrument of torture rather than a productivity tool. Fortunately, the combination of Camera Raw, Bridge, and Photoshop offers several ways of editing multiple images. One of these is built right into Camera Raw itself: When you select multiple images to open, either by selecting them in Bridge or in the Photoshop's Open dialog box, Camera Raw opens them in filmstrip mode (see Figure 11-36). Figure 11-36. Filmstrip mode[View full size image] Synchronize SettingsWhen you select more than one image, the Synchronize Settings button becomes available. Synchronize Settings lets you apply all the settings or any subset of the settings for the image that's currently being previewed, to all the selected images. This feature is of most use when you open a series of images that need similar corrections, but within that general mandate you have a great deal of flexibility in how you choose to work.In Figure 11-37, we applied the same white balance to all the images in the seriesthe changing light and the varying amounts of whitecaps require different tonal adjustments. On a different series of images, we may synchronize the tonal adjustments, or the noise reduction, all the settings, or whichever combination of settings is most applicable. A general rule of thumb is to start out by applying the settings that are applicable to the largest number of images, then whittle them down to smaller groups that can take the same corrections. Figure 11-37. Synchronizing settings[View full size image] Saving Images in the BackgroundOne of the major enhancements to Camera Raw 3.0 is the ability to save converted images directly to disk without having to first open them in Photoshop. Notice that when you have more than one image selected, Camera Raw's Open and Save buttons change to read "Open x images" and "Save x images," (where x is the number of images).When you click the Save x images button, the Save Options dialog box appears (see Figure 11-38). Then, when you click Save, Camera Raw goes to work processing the images. When Photoshop is hosting Camera Raw, you can continue to work in the Camera Raw dialog box during the save. But if you dismiss the dialog box, you'll see a Save Status dialog box, and you won't be able to do anything else until the save is completed. Figure 11-38. Save Options dialog box[View full size image] Figure 11-39. Camera Raw Save Status message |