Camera Raw, the brilliant Lightroom raw image editing engine, is suddenly an always available, all-purpose Photoshop tool.
Let's say you have an image open in Photoshop ready to edit. You've been working a lot in Lightroom and your reflexes are tuned to the Lightroom develop module sliders and tools. The most convenient way to get from point A to point B would be to tweak some sliders and watch the image respond, but you're in Photoshop, so you have to snap into the context of Photoshop's toolset and work with the tools available in Photoshop's very different world. Not a big deal, but a slight conceptual interruption to your train of thought. Well, now there's a very handy and arguably, revolutionary alternative.
Duplicate layer
Make a merge visible layer (cmd-opt-shift-E) or duplicate layer (Cmd-J) so you have a pixel layer to "filter"
Filter Menu > Camera Raw Filter
From the Filter menu, choose Camera Raw Filter
Open Adobe Camera Raw
The Adobe Camera Raw Dialog will open with the same adjustment sliders and tools as the Lightroom Develop Module, although with a different placement of the tools across the top left side of the screen.
Camera Raw adjustments
Here I've converted to black & white by sliding the saturation slider all the way to the left, and added a mid-tone contrast and strengthened the blacks with a moderate move to the right on the clarity slider. Click the "OK" button in the bottom right corner.
Result: back in Photoshop's main screen
PhotoshopCC's BEST New Feature!
Let's say you have an image open in Photoshop ready to edit and you wish you could work with the toolset you were just using a few minutes before in Lightroom's develop module. Well now you can:
Duplicate layer
Make a merge visible layer (Cmd-Opt-Shift-E) or duplicate layer (Cmd-J) so you have a pixel layer to "filter"

Filter Menu > Camera Raw Filter
From the Filter menu, choose Camera Raw Filter

Adobe Camera Raw
The Adobe Camera Raw editing dialog will open up displaying your layer content ready to edit in ACR, which has the very same feature set as Lightroom's develop module.

Camera Raw edits
Here I've converted to black & white using the Saturation slider, and pumped up the blacks along with a little clarify.

Results
Here's the result - the layer is transformed to black & white with punch!
