Editing Raw files: Other Features

Camera RAW is not just all about making your images lighter or darker, or more colorful. It's packed with an entire editing suite of tools, features, and processes all designed to make the job of editing images that much more streamlined and professional. Features include cropping, histogram adjustments, tonal information, over- and underexposure, as well as 
a sophisticated Profile Browser for applying some awesome color and mono looks:

Cropping: One of the many advantages of using RAW files is this: once the image has been cropped, the RAW file still retains all the original pixels—meaning it's easy to go back to it and re-crop. Pixels are never discarded. The nature of the edit is recorded either in the file itself or in a "sidecar .xmp" file (which is little more than a text file). Make another change to the image and a new set of instructions is recorded. Delete the .xmp file and the RAW file reverts...