Why Use Camera Raw as a Filter in Photoshop?

I have received several questions as to why Adobe would include Camera Raw as a Filter in Photoshop. Well, here are the first three reasons that I can think of, but I’m sure that there are more!

• First of all, not everyone had the luxury of working with raw files so it can be a huge benefit to be able to apply options like clarity and perspective correction to non raw images (a photoshop layer for example).
• Sometimes we forget to do things in the right order and we don’t have time to go back to the beginning and fix them when on deadline. Yes, this might not be optimal, and yes, we would be better off making changes earlier in our workflow (processing our raw files directly in camera raw before opening them in Photoshop), but ACR as a filter can help to make corrections or add creative effects to layers later in your workflow and/or with legacy files.
• ACR as a filter can be applied to multiple layers at one time if you select those layers in the Layers panel and convert them to a smart object. Plus, working with Camera Raw as a smart filter enables blend mode and opacity options as well as the Smart Filter mask to selectively show and hide the filter.

Note: There are several features from regular Adobe Camera Raw that are omitted from Camera Raw as a filter, mostly because they don’t make sense in the filter context:

• Workflow Options and Preferences
• Crop and Straighten Tools
• Rotation Tools
• Snapshots
• Camera and Lens Profiles
• Save Buttons

---