Photoshop CS2: Auto Raw Conversion

I find it strange that Photoshop CS2 opens raw files with conversion settings already made : I must admit that the result is very good - how much can this process be relied upon?

AutoRaw is the default setting. It can be turned off or some settings left to Auto. I find Auto works well for well exposed well colour balanced shots but does not cope if you are trying to recover highlights etc.

its a great starting place for sure...and you dont have to use it, but you can see what it looks like first..i look at the shot then adjust from there, usually only the saturation and the contrast, although i do play with all the sliders at times too.
-zacker-

If you don't like the default settings, you can make your own. I don't like the auto settings myself, I feel they add too much contrast and saturation. Ctrl-U will toggle auto settings on/off. You can set up a bunch of settings and then save them as default, or you can save the settings for a few general types and load them as necessary. There are a bunch of useful tools in the flyout menu accessed by clicking the little arrow to the right of the Settings dropdown.

Saved settings appear as right click menu choices in Bridge as well - much of the power (for me, anyway) of CS2 is the integration with Bridge. I have the whole Creative Suite 2 Premium package, and Bridge really does glue the whole lot together.

David

I have auto turned off for everything, I find it gets more wrong than right. This is especially true if there's a light source in the frame, or if i've used partial metering. To get rid of it turn off the auto controls, set everything to its default, and find the "save defaults" option - I think it's under a triangle somewhere.

I have only tried converting a batch of photos which are all variations around the same scene , but certainly, auto ( which of course comes up by default) produced good results in all cases. As you say, this does provide a good starting point - especially for beginners in Raw like me.

What puzzles me is how the programme can work this out!