When I open a file with an assigned preset, individual adjustment sliders are not in the out-of-the-box positions
The Raw defaults feature lets you decide what the “out-of-the-box” settings are. This gives you more control, at the expense of some complexity. Before Camera Raw introduced this feature (using a preset as a default), I think your workflow would have required more steps: visiting the Presets panel and selecting the preset you wish to apply.
My understanding of the scenario was that you had not actually assigned a preset to the photos, but what you had done was modify the Raw default settings to use a preset. It’s not the same thing. If I misunderstood the workflow that leads you to the situation where settings aren’t saved to files, I’m sorry, but I’ll need to you walk me through the steps one by one.
When a user opens multiple photos with defaults and adjusts some of them, all will show settings. Only writing some of them is confusing and an inconsistent UI.
The photos are handled differently because they are in a different state. Camera Raw’s UI has several elements to help photographers understand what photos have been edited, and what settings in those photos have been edited.
In the screenshots below I’ve circled in red four items. In one screenshot the current photo has custom settings. In the other the current photo has no settings, so the defaults are used for rendering.
In the filmstrip, when it’s configured to show filenames or ratings and labels, a small icon that represents two slider controls appears by the thumbnail.
In the bottom toolbar the button that toggles between the current/custom settings and defaults appears disabled when the photo has default settings.
In the toolbar on the right side. A dot is added next to the tool icon (Edit in this case) if the tool’s settings are set to non-default values.
In the edit stack, the “eyeball” icon button is enabled if the any settings in the panel are set to non-default values and disabled if all the settings match the defaults.
Custom Settings:
No Settings, showing Defaults:
I’m pointing these things out to help everyone reading this thread understand better how defaults work in Camera Raw and the difference between photos with settings and no settings. I do realize you are seeking to automate and speedup your workflow.
And since ACR isn't scriptable I can't even write something to automate it. :sigh:
Yes, Camera Raw supports batch operations to do the same operation to many files, but it still requires a manual operation. Bridge is very scriptable, and if it does not currently support automating setting the Camera Raw settings to a preset, that sounds like a good feature request for Bridge.
There are reasons why not saving the default settings to file for unedited photos is desirable. One is that if you change or refine your Raw defaults, any unedited photos opened in the future will start with your new defaults. Another is that some photographers like to be able to keep track of what photos have been intentionally edited and which have not, and if simply opening a batch of photos and editing a subset saved settings to all photos in the batch, that workflow would be much more difficult.
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