Adobe Releases Camera Raw 9: Same HDR, Pano, and GPU Upgrades as Lightroom CC

Apr 22, 2015

Michael Zhang

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Adobe made a big announcement for Lightroom CC/6 yesterday, but if you use Adobe Camera Raw for your RAW processing, don’t worry: Adobe didn’t forget about you. Adobe also quietly rolled out Adobe Camera Raw 9, an update that includes a few of the same big features that were introduced with great fanfare for Lightroom CC.

Like Lightroom CC, Adobe Camera Raw can now combine multiple RAW photos into a single RAW HDR photo or panorama. The tools are found as new options in the Filmstrip’s dropdown menu.

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Here’s a short tutorial by Adobe on how you can create a panorama inside ACR:

The big performance gains in Lightroom CC have also appeared in ACR. Camera Raw can now use your computer’s Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) as well, making your image editing much faster — especially as high resolution 4K and 5K screens start appearing on more and more desks.

Finally the ACR 9 update includes new camera support, new lens profiles, and a number of bug fixes. The new version is available for both Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CC, but you’ll need Photoshop CC to access the new features. Photoshop CS6 will only have access to the bug fixes and camera/lens support.