Batch Convert Camera Raw Files to Smart Objects

Some photographers would like to have the ability to batch convert raw camera files into Photoshop Smart Object layer PSD files, without resorting to learning scripting.

Various users have attempted and failed to record a workable Photoshop Action for this task. Ideally this task would be performed via scripting, rather than using an Action, Batch and Adobe Bridge. There are some Adobe Bridge/Photoshop scripts available that may be of help for CS2 users (Russell Brown, Ben Willmore).

It is not impossible to create an Action for use with the Automate/Batch command - it just takes a little trial and error. There may be a simpler way to do this using actions and batching, however the following method is the first that worked correctly for me when I was researching this task.


Stage 1 - Create the Action

The action has three steps:

[start recording]

1) File/Open as Smart Object (navigate to a raw camera file). One could also simply use a standard Open command, as the Smart Object option only appears to work from inside the Camera Raw Workflow Options. Once the file is open in Adobe Camera Raw, use the "Workflow Options" text link at the foot of the ACR interface to Open in Photoshop as Smart Objects.

Note: it may be best to disable cropping and other ACR options, only using basic settings as the action will record and apply these attributes to the various raw files batched using this action, the original individual image settings are ignored (after the Smart Object has been created, the ACR settings need to be re-adjusted). This is a major drawback to batching raw camera files to Smart Objects using batch actions.

2) File/Save the file as a Photoshop or other document format that supports Smart Object layers.

3) File/Close

[stop recording]


Stage 2 - Automate/Batch Command

The key options are to use the Override Action "Open" Commands and the Override Action "Save As" Commands options to override the file name recorded in the action open and save steps.


Stage 3 - Adobe Bridge CS4> Batch Renaming

After the Batch Action has run, select the output files using Adobe Bridge and then use the Tools/Batch Rename command to clean up the file names. One may elect to remove the text " as smart object-1" that is automatically appended to the original raw camera file name.

The following combined screen capture illustrates the key points from the Action and Automate/Batch commands.



_