Save Options

Camera Raw only allows saving DNG files from its dialog in Photoshop Elements, which is usually not very practical. In Photoshop it is also possible to save other image files like JPEG or TIFF. To provide the same functionality CameraXXL provides its own Save button, which displays the dialog below. Saving multiple files with this feature is faster and much more convenient than saving them individually in Photoshop Elements.

In case you have multiple files open in Camera Raw, please select the thumbnails of the images that you want to save before you click the Save button of CameraXXL. Preferably you should select all thumbnails. Otherwise CameraXXL needs to open them all in Photoshop Elements before it is able to save them. It may slow down the saving process if many images need to be opened. If you select all thumbnails, CameraXXL is able to open and save each image at a time, which is usually faster. You can select all thumbnails, e.g. with the Ctrl + A key shortcut or the Select All context menu item (or the button with the same name in older Camera Raw versions).

Preset

The Preset combo box lets you save and open presets that alter the settings of all controls on this dialog. The Save Preset As option lets you choose and name for the current settings and saves them as a preset. The new preset automatically appears in the Preset combo box and can be selected there. To delete one of your presets again, select it in the Preset combo box first and then choose the Delete Preset option from the Preset combo box. There is also a "Save As JPEG" preset predefined, which cannot be deleted. It applies some standard JPEG settings.

Destination

The Save in Same Location option of the Destination combo box simply saves the images in the same folder where they are already located. If the opened files are JPEGs and you want to save them again as JPEGs, make sure you use the File Naming feature below to add a suffix or that you choose another destination folder. If the opened files are located in different folders, they will each be saved in their own folder regardless of what the label below the Destination combo box says.

The Save in New Location option displays a dialog for choosing a new folder. You can also click the Select Folder button instead.

File Naming

The File Naming group lets you name the saved files with the help of a naming pattern consisting of up to four parts. At the top of the group you can see how the composed file name will look like for the first image.

By default the item "Document Name" is set in the first combo box. The file extension is automatically changed by CameraXXL depending on the Format combo box below. This means that the file name will be the same and only the extension will likely be changed. If you want to save the images in the same format again (e.g. JPEGs as JPEG), you should either enter something in the second combo box or select a new folder in the Destination group above. This prevents the original files from being overwritten.

For each of the four combo boxes you can choose one of 16 items or enter your own text. If you enter own text, it will be used literally without changes unless the text consists of characters that are not allowed in a file name. These illegal characters will be replaced with an _ underscore character. If you selected an option for one of the combo boxes and want to remove it again, simply click the combo box and delete its text.

The 16 combo box items are automatically replaced with the appropriate text as explained here:

Format

You can save the image(s) in JPEG, TIFF, Photoshop (PSD) and PNG format, which can be chosen from the Format combo box. Depending on which format is selected, you are able to adjust another format option. For JPEG files you can select a Quality parameter between 1 and 12. The higher the number, the better the quality and the larger the file. For TIFF files you may activate the LZW Compression check box, which produces smaller files, but it takes longer to save them. Photoshop PSD files can be saved with an activated Maximize Compatibility option, which creates larger files that are also readable by non-Adobe software.

Color Space

Camera Raw is only able to open sRGB or Adobe RGB in Photoshop Elements depending on the settings under "Edit > Color Settings". You have to choose "Optimize For Printing" there to make Camera Raw open files in Adobe RGB, otherwise they are opened as sRGB.

The Color Space combo box offers four color spaces: Adobe RGB, ColorMatch RGB, ProPhoto RGB and sRGB. But due to the mentioned limitations, this may mean that the color space is only upsampled from sRGB to the other three wider color spaces or from Adobe RGB to the two wider color spaces (ColorMatch & ProPhoto RGB).

The Depth combo box lets you choose if the image is saved as 8-bit or 16-bit per channel. If you chose JPEG as format, this combo will automatically be set to 8 bit per channel, because the JPEG format does not support more. To be able to choose "16 Bits / Channel", the Depth combo box on the main Camera Raw dialog has to be set to "16 Bits / Channel". If it is not, you have to click Cancel on the Save Options dialog and change the Depth setting on the Camera Raw dialog first.

Image Sizing

If you do not want to keep the original width and height of the images, you can activate the Resize to Fit check box. The combo box next to this check box offers various options that determine how the images are resized.

You can enter new width, height or megapixel values in the two text boxes. The combo box at the right defines wether the unit of these values are pixels, inches or cm. How these entered values are interpreted depends on the setting of the Resize to Fit combo box. The Width & Height option fits the image within a rectangle of this size, which means that the width and height values are maximum values and new image size will usually be smaller than the entered values. The Dimensions option is similar, but it will exchange the width and height values as needed to produce maximally large images. The Long Side option lets you enter the size of the longer image dimension. For landscape orientated images this means that the entered number will be used for the image width, for portraits it will be used for the height. The Short Side option works vice versa for the shorter image dimension. The Megapixels option lets you enter the number of megapixels, which is automatically converted to width and height values. The Percentage option uses the entered percentage value to downsize or upsize the image.

The Don't Enlarge check box makes sure that the images never get bigger than their initial dimensions, even if you enter higher values in the H & W boxes.

The Resolution option lets you set the dpi value of the image. This does not change the pixels of the image, but might be useful for printing.

Output Sharpening

Activating the Sharpen For check box makes CameraXXL sharpen each image before it is saved. You can sharpen for screen, glossy paper or matte paper with a low, standard or high amount.

After choosing a preset or adjusting the save options, you can click the Save button at the top right corner of the dialog. This closes the Save Options as well as the Camera Raw dialog and switches back to Photoshop Elements where you will see a progress bar in the top right corner until all images are saved. Your Camera Raw settings are also saved in the process, so when you reopen the images again in Camera Raw, your settings will be restored. If you do want to leave Camera Raw and do not want to save the images, you can click the Cancel button on the Save Options dialog.