I get Digital Photo Magazine every month and it has videos showing how to process images. However in the main these are Jpeg images and much of what is shown I would have corrected on the conversion from RAW to Jpeg taking advantage of the 12 bit (Pentax) or 14 bit (Nikon) of information.

One could of course convert the RAW file to 16 bit Tiff file and then do the selecting in Photoshop rather than in RAW. Since Photoshop has layers and masks where you can select just a part of the picture to alter it does give far more control than with the RAW editor however what I have done in the past is to create multi images from the RAW file then load these into layers and use masks to select what is seen from each image.

RawTherapree will save as a 16 bit Tiff image although a 10Mb file becomes 58Mb so one would not want to long term store as a Tiff it does allow one to use Lasso tool refine edge and feather then with adjustment layer and levels adjust just a part of the picture while still in 16 bit mode. Oddly I could not find how to save a 16 bit Tiff with Photoshop Camera Raw 6.5 I had to use RawTherapree.

So the question is should you use Photoshop Camera Raw 6.5 to alter levels or main Photoshop program to alter levels? I realise that some people have cameras which Photoshop Camera Raw 6.5 will not open the RAW files since RawTherapree can't change a selected area and only does the picture as a whole for those people saving as a 16 bit tiff is clearly and advantage. But what when one has the option to use graduated filter and adjustment brush in Raw 6.5 or Photoshop main program which one would you use?

Clearly some of the processing can be done with both programs but what I am asking about is selective processing not using fill light but one of the selective tools graduated filter and adjustment brush. Since Raw 6.5 will not save as 16 bit but RawTherapree will it's that decision of which RAW file processor to use.