CR2 or DNG file changes

Hi, here is another one, not a good night tonight, When I open an CR2 raw file or DNG file in CS4 camera raw, which I put on my computer with CS4 adobe bridge downloader and I do changes to the files, I click on open image to open it up in PSc4 finish whatever needs to be done and save it. I notice that it also changed the original CR2 or DNG file.I thought it did'nt change the original files,that it automatically made a copy of the original raw files. Is there something I'm missing here or is there a setting that I over looked

You are loading the Raw file into camera raw and making changes. It is then loaded into PS. When you save the file in PS it is saved as a PSD or TIF depending on how you have it configured, so the original Raw file is not changed by PS. The changes made by camera raw to the original Raw file are non destructive. That is, you can undo them in camera raw any time you want.

Dannys - If you're seeing the changes to the RAW file in bridge, that's simply because you've made adjustments in ACR, but it DOES NOT change the RAW file. Instead, your settings are saved in an xmp format file referred to as a sidecar, so that they can be changed or deleted later. What you are seeing in Bridge is always just a preview of what your saved image will be. (If you right click in Bridge, you can delete all settings, and it will show your original RAW file again.)

You don't ever get a "copy" unless you save it in ACR or Photoshop as a JPG/TIFF/PSD/etc.

Thanks everyone, It still puzzles me though, if I remember right I never had to right click a raw file in bridge to see the original file again after I worked on it But then I could be wrong

What you can do if you really want to is do whatever changes you want to in ACR, save the file as a JPG or TIFF, and then hit cancel. You'll lose all of the actual changes to the RAW file, but they'll be captured in the JPG/TIFF. I don't really recommend this unless you're certain you won't want to tweak things, but I've done it on occasion when I wanted to be able to compare before and after in Bridge.

David,
Thanks, It probably been doing this since day one, I just didn't notice it.

There is a logic to the way this works. Typically, the changes you make in ACR are to optimize a raw image and not necessarily for creative effect. Raw images generally need a little sharpening and saturation boost, and might need slight modifications to the white balance and exposure (among other things), if the camera settings were not quite right. So these types of changes are those that you usually want to make once, and keep that way. Work done later in PS is usually for creative effect, thus should not impact the original raw in any way. And, they don't.