I've found a couple of questions that are directly related to or mention destructive editing:
- What are non-destructive edits and do they exist?
- Comparison list of tagging & editing methods in photo management software
The first mostly explains what I want to ask but it doesn't quite answer my exact question. I think I know the answer already but I would like to see if anyone can confirm this. I've only recently started out with Photoshop Elements and I'm always very careful about keeping the original files safe so it would be nice to get confirmation.
The title sums up my question, are there any features in the Organizer that will change the RAW file (in my case a Nikon .NEF file)? So far I cannot find any, when you edit with the Elements Editor it saves metadata in a .XMP file along side the .NEF file and captions, tags, etc appear to be save in the Organizer catalog.
As far as I can see there is nothing that will modify the RAW file. Once I have save the file in the Editor, say as a .PSD, then any changes I make would be destructive to that file in less I manually choose to create separate version of files.