PS Elements Camera Raw updates. How long?

Question

I'm most familiar with Photoshop CS6 but Photoshop Elements does some things that are just plain fun, quick, and easy. I'm considering buying a license for the current PSE release.

In the olden days before subscriptions, a person would buy Photoshop and Adobe would give us Camera Raw updates for (I think) 3 years. After 3-years, the Camera Raw updates would stop. At that time, the person could buy a new license for the current PS release or use the DNG Converter for any RAW files from newer cameras.

Since PSE is non-subscription, I wonder if that 3-years of Camera Raw updates still holds. I've searched the forum but did not find an answer.

Greg_S. · Accepted Answer

Just to add to Michel's response, the workaround that he mentions will generally allow you to update ACR for at least two subsequent versions. I currently have ACR 15.2 working in Elements 2021. (The most recent version of ACR is 15.5 and I am confident that it will also work, but I haven't bothered updating Elements recently.)

Added: I just checked, and ACR 15.0 is also working for me in Elements 2020 (using the workaround).

MichelBParis · Answer

Elements is not a subscription license, so you can only expect updates for the current yearly version (rarely the previous one) for the limited PSE ACR version.

If you don't want to pay for a newer version of Elements, you are supposed to use the free DNGconverter to convert the proprietary raw files to the universal DNG raw format.

Keep in mind that the PSE ACR version is very limited and that the new powerful tools in the full ACR are not available.

Note that if the reason to upgrade PSE ACR is a new camera, there may be a workaround to get support for the recent PSE vesion. Ask here while specifying your PSE version and the type of your camera model.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.