1.5.0 develops a raw file before Photoshop opens it. A crooked horizon and converging verticals are usually the first two things a photo needs, and they were the two the assistant could not touch, because a filter cannot change a layer’s dimensions and Photoshop disables that whole panel for the Camera Raw Filter. Working on the file instead of the opened pixels reaches all of it: Upright levelling, perspective correction, crop with straighten, and lens profile correction.

How it does that is deliberately unglamorous. It writes Camera Raw’s own settings file next to the photo, the same file Bridge and Lightroom have used to carry settings between applications for years, and then opens it. It merges into an existing develop instead of overwriting it, backs the previous settings up first, and carries masks you painted by hand in Camera Raw through untouched. Saved presets work by name, so asking for one you already made brings its look across intact.

Raw can also open straight to 16 bit now, which is free in Community. That has to be decided at the open, because converting afterwards flattens the document, and when the request can’t be honoured the result says so instead of leaving you to spot it later.

Developing the raw file itself is part of Pro. The download page has the current build, and pricing has what Pro costs.

— Alex