Adobe Camera Raw is the gateway for opening Raw images into the main editing space of Photoshop, but Adobe Camera Raw is also a great space for optimising images quickly and easily. Many of the basic tasks such as straightening and cropping images, correcting exposure and adding a vignette can all be achieved faster and more easily than performing these same tasks in the main editing space of Photoshop.
If you have not yet explored the ACR interface or are having trouble breaking old habits then the following tutorial is designed to make you think again.
These days most professional photographers capture images in the Raw format rather than the JPEG format. The Raw format offers greater flexibility in achieving different visual outcomes while ensuring a high quality finished result. The JPEG file format can offer great quality so long as only minor editing is required after the image has been captured.