How to Open Nikon D7000 Raw Files

The jpeg files from my Nikon D7000 were nice & clean. But when I tried to open Raw files (.NEF) in Photoshop CS5 I got the following message:

“Could not complete your request because the file appears to be from a camera model which is not supported by the installed version of Camera Raw.
Please visit the Camera Raw help documentation for additional information.”

I searched internet for the solution but things didn’t work out. So, here is what worked for me:

Step 1: Download Camera Raw version 6.3

Adobe Camera Raw version 6.3 has built in support for Nikon D7000 and this version is compatible with photoshop CS5.

You can download the plugin from here ( Mac version | Windows version ). When I tried to install Camera raw 6.3 I got error stating that the plugin is not supported by current installation of photoshop. This is what got me frustrated. So I uninstalled photoshop from my system.

Step 2: Uninstall Adobe photoshop CS5

Camera raw 6.3 might be giving error because I had a previous version of Camera raw installed in photoshop and since I couldn’t figure out the way to uninstall Camera raw, I decided to remove entire Photoshop CS5 from my system. After complete removal I restarted the system.

Step 3: Reinstall Adobe photoshop CS5

Because adobe camera raw is a plugin for photoshop, we need photoshop to run the camera raw.

Step 4: Install Camera Raw 6.3

This time the installation was smooth.

Done!

The above procedure worked for me. Hope it will work for you too.
Do share your experience as comments.