ON1 Photoraw 2026 any opinions?

lunar22

lunar22

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David
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Of all the post processing software packages, I have been the most schizophrenic about ON1 Photoraw. Every couple of years or so, I test it out and indeed the best part of a decade ago actually bought but returned for a refund as I was having so many issues with the various bugs. In theory it ticks the boxes in being an all in-one non-destructive editor which, despite some quirks, is reasonably transparent in its usage. This time, in view of the fact that the masking has in general improved to the point of being actually usable, I'm strongly considering actually buying it again. The problem with Lightroom is not so much the cost and sub but the fact that without Photoshop, with its destructive editing, is (presumably deliberately) restricted in the kind of editing it can do. I must say that it's hardly the best overall RAW developer either. Can be quite difficult to get a compromise between over-processed and dull, though the main issue remains the mediocre sharpening. I'm finding it often actually easier to get attractive results with ON1 (or, with certain photos with Luminar). When I was with Fuji, I switched to Capture One as LR was pretty well hopeless with the files but now with Nikon, I find Capture One defaults to a ridiculously purple rendering and anyway, never took to its UI.

Thoughts?
 
I don't use On1 anymore found it was not as good as all the hype from those who get paid or not on YouTube. I used On1 products for quite few years but now found very buggy so went over to the dark side and bought Photoshop and Lightroom, just downloaded the free version of Affinity Photo, doesn't have a DAM but there are again free ones for both Windows and MAC, This guy gives an honest opinion all all the software he tests so worth a watch IMO. Russ.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE0rQL9l4vo
 
Never used on1 but can recommend DXO photolab can try it on free trial
 
russellsnr said:
I don't use On1 anymore found it was not as good as all the hype from those who get paid or not on YouTube. I used On1 products for quite few years but now found very buggy so went over to the dark side and bought Photoshop and Lightroom, just downloaded the free version of Affinity Photo, doesn't have a DAM but there are again free ones for both Windows and MAC, This guy gives an honest opinion all all the software he tests so worth a watch IMO. Russ.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE0rQL9l4vo
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Andy's video was one of the first I saw but it's so ignorant about certain features (seemingly unaware of other ways to set shadows or Brilliance AI default settings for instance) it's hard to take seriously despite the undoubted entertainment value. It's true that it can be quite hard to find a balance between overt bashing to attract views like with him and fawning , possibly sponsored, adulation
 
LCPete said:
Never used on1 but can recommend DXO photolab can try it on free trial
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DxO has always been quite good on detail but I've never much taken to the package as a whole. And when trying to install the latest version, I got a seemingly infamous error "Installation failed when downloading DeepPrime XD X-Trans models" to which there was no obvious solution. So quickly gave up.
 
If I didn't have Lr then I would be using On1. I still use it for some things as I find it quicker and easier to produce portrait and party work that looks coherent.
 
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lunar22 said:
DxO has always been quite good on detail but I've never much taken to the package as a whole. And when trying to install the latest version, I got a seemingly infamous error "Installation failed when downloading DeepPrime XD X-Trans models" to which there was no obvious solution. So quickly gave up.
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Yes do see what you mean , I just use DXO for one job, converting Raws and then edit in Affinity Photo
I was very impressed with the quality from Raw conversion tho especially when going back and reconverting files from old cameras
Now you mention it I have heard of people having issues with the latest version DXO 9 , I am on version 8 and it does all I need
 
LCPete said:
Yes do see what you mean , I just use DXO for one job, converting Raws and then edit in Affinity Photo
I was very impressed with the quality from Raw conversion tho especially when going back and reconverting files from old cameras
Now you mention it I have heard of people having issues with the latest version DXO 9 , I am on version 8 and it does all I need
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Hi, just curious as to why you are 'converting Raws and then edit in Affinity Photo' when AP accepts RAW files? Thank You, Russ.
 
russellsnr said:
Hi, just curious as to why you are 'converting Raws and then edit in Affinity Photo' when AP accepts RAW files? Thank You, Russ.
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Just at the time when I first got Affinity Photo (version 1) the Raw editing was quite basic and also was using crop cameras so wanted to maximise image quality as I am often at high ISO
Affinity now has a decent Raw converter but I am used to using DXO so stick with that
 
lunar22 said:
Of all the post processing software packages, I have been the most schizophrenic about ON1 Photoraw. Every couple of years or so, I test it out and indeed the best part of a decade ago actually bought but returned for a refund as I was having so many issues with the various bugs. In theory it ticks the boxes in being an all in-one non-destructive editor which, despite some quirks, is reasonably transparent in its usage. This time, in view of the fact that the masking has in general improved to the point of being actually usable, I'm strongly considering actually buying it again. The problem with Lightroom is not so much the cost and sub but the fact that without Photoshop, with its destructive editing, is (presumably deliberately) restricted in the kind of editing it can do. I must say that it's hardly the best overall RAW developer either. Can be quite difficult to get a compromise between over-processed and dull, though the main issue remains the mediocre sharpening. I'm finding it often actually easier to get attractive results with ON1 (or, with certain photos with Luminar). When I was with Fuji, I switched to Capture One as LR was pretty well hopeless with the files but now with Nikon, I find Capture One defaults to a ridiculously purple rendering and anyway, never took to its UI.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I got a discount code - PLUS50 - which brought it down to £46 as an upgrade with the BF discount, so I bought it. You have about 10 hours left to get it for that price.

First impressions: it's had the interface rejigged a bit for the extra AI tools, and things have become rather cramped on a 16" laptop screen running at a comfy resolution (2560:1600 running at 150%) and I'd need to change screen magnification for it to work well. Opening photos - this is a LOT faster than LrC, and almost as quick as some of the packages for culling images. The laptop isn't very powerful, but images still open reasonably fast. The desktop is much quicker, and it's faster that 2024 and 2025. I think this could be very strongly competitive with Adobe at this price for a non-subscription model.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I got a discount code - PLUS50 - which brought it down to £46 as an upgrade with the BF discount, so I bought it. You have about 10 hours left to get it for that price.

First impressions: it's had the interface rejigged a bit for the extra AI tools, and things have become rather cramped on a 16" laptop screen running at a comfy resolution (2560:1600 running at 150%) and I'd need to change screen magnification for it to work well. Opening photos - this is a LOT faster than LrC, and almost as quick as some of the packages for culling images. The laptop isn't very powerful, but images still open reasonably fast. The desktop is much quicker, and it's faster that 2024 and 2025. I think this could be very strongly competitive with Adobe at this price for a non-subscription model.
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What is BF please?
 
All the post processing software packages have strengths and weaknesses. For my workflow, which at events can be several hundred shots, the questions to make the best possible choice are:-

  1. When there are multiple shots of the same subject - Is it easy to cull & only choose the best for PP?
  2. Can you batch keyword and add metadata easily
  3. Is there an "auto" 1 click mode for a quick approximation of the developed image
  4. Does the editing order follow a logical sequence
  5. How easy is it to revert to a previous edit stage if you don't like the later choices
  6. Does saving and renaming the final images come as an obvious completion of the worklow
Other genres ,photographers, and cameras will have different workflows but identifying the stages should help choosing the best package(s) for your needs. Don't forget to consider letting the incamera software develop to a jpeg output. It may make your life a lot easier!!
 
ancient_mariner said:
I got a discount code - PLUS50 - which brought it down to £46 as an upgrade with the BF discount, so I bought it. You have about 10 hours left to get it for that price
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In the end I did decide to go for it --- I paid €58 which is slightly more than your discount code (€52.50) but still pretty cheap. At that price, even if i don't decide to go with it long term, I should have plenty of fun. My main issue at the moment is actually that instead of viewing everything in LR, I will have to decide on how to view finished files. ON1 doesn't correct fringing at my screen view size, only above 50% which my old 24" monitor doesn't cover. That means I'd have to create JPEG's for the finished results in some cases. And as I also have Luminar, for a lot of photos, I'd want to get a second opinion as Luminar has quite different strengths and a different sort of rendering from ON1. Neither, frustratingly, currently have full screen previews on Windows so I'd need to use either Windows or Lightroom for proper slideshows.

Possibly it is getting close to the time to upgrade my monitor (over 11 years old) to a 27" 4k one, though it still works OK.
 
I've tried ON1 (free trial) a few times after seeing YouTube reviews raving about it, but I just can't seem to get it to produce any decent results.

It's probably me not giving it enough time though.
 
the workflow is quite different from Lightroom. The main thing is you really need to use the Effects filters, rather than just relying on the Develop tab as you might elsewhere. I find using certain filters such as Dynamic Contrast, Sharpening and Sunshine -- all of which can be scaled back to taste -- can quickly give nice results which are at least on a par with LR. And Brilliance AI is generally useful scaled right back (you can change the default in Preferences to something like 25 which makes more sense than their often lurid starting point of 100)
 
ancient_mariner said:
I got a discount code - PLUS50 - which brought it down to £46 as an upgrade with the BF discount, so I bought it. You have about 10 hours left to get it for that price.

First impressions: it's had the interface rejigged a bit for the extra AI tools, and things have become rather cramped on a 16" laptop screen running at a comfy resolution (2560:1600 running at 150%) and I'd need to change screen magnification for it to work well. Opening photos - this is a LOT faster than LrC, and almost as quick as some of the packages for culling images. The laptop isn't very powerful, but images still open reasonably fast. The desktop is much quicker, and it's faster that 2024 and 2025. I think this could be very strongly competitive with Adobe at this price for a non-subscription model.
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Talked me into this;):) at £46.90 with your code just couldn't pass it by although I have L/R and P/S for another year. Russ
 
I have LR/PS until April so still plenty of time to see if i want to permanently adapt to a new workflow or simply use ON1/Luminar as options for certain photos. Both were very inexpensive (Luminar equivalent of £39) for what they can do.
 
lunar22 said:
the workflow is quite different from Lightroom. The main thing is you really need to use the Effects filters, rather than just relying on the Develop tab as you might elsewhere. I find using certain filters such as Dynamic Contrast, Sharpening and Sunshine -- all of which can be scaled back to taste -- can quickly give nice results which are at least on a par with LR. And Brilliance AI is generally useful scaled right back (you can change the default in Preferences to something like 25 which makes more sense than their often lurid starting point of 100)
Click to expand...

The 'effects' and 'presets' are unfortunate because they give the idea of being gimmicky, when they are actually useful tools and starting points. I find the develop section very inadequate on its own, and the effects are essential to do what I do in LrC.
 
ancient_mariner said:
The 'effects' and 'presets' are unfortunate because they give the idea of being gimmicky, when they are actually useful tools and starting points. I find the develop section very inadequate on its own, and the effects are essential to do what I do in LrC
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I agree -- and suspect this may be a reason why some are quickly put off by ON1. Some of the develop settings are not particularly well calibrated -- tending to affect a greater tonal range than they strictly should (the shadows slider is one such example). The Effects Tone Enhancer for instance, works in a somewhat different way from Develop Tone and it's necessary to get basic familiarity with the sliders. However, I'd argue that's hardly onerous and it wouldn't make much sense if the Effect and Develop tools worked the same way. As ON1 has had this basic workflow distinction throughout its life, you basically just need to get used to it or use something else!
 
lunar22 said:
Some of the develop settings are not particularly well calibrated -- tending to affect a greater tonal range than they strictly should (the shadows slider is one such example). The Effects Tone Enhancer for instance, works in a somewhat different way from Develop Tone and it's necessary to get basic familiarity with the sliders.
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I notice that the tone highlights control in lightroom has changed, and now works more like the control in the develop tab in On1. The tone enhancer controls work like the LrC controls *used to* and I prefer that. A significant disadvantage of the continuous upgrade path of LrC is that control change without warning, and one can't easily lock in the version you like without disabling updates (assuming that's even possible). I still prefer the functionality of LR6 over the present, and almost never use the AI masking features.
 
I didn't bother upgrading my On1 this time.
I used to upgrade every year - I was sucked into the hype of the new features.
The cost of the upgrade each year was almost the same as the yearly Adobe subscription so wasn't saving anything.
I still use On1 Efex
Personally, I don't grudge the Adobe Photography plan so I'll be sticking with that until my stacked subscriptions run out next year then who knows.
However, I have found Photolab is a good replacement for Lr but can't find a replacement for Ps.
Affinity looks promising though.
 
It was about £45 this time, and I was interested to see if the AI stuff has improved (it has) plus it works much better on the laptop than 2023 that I had before on there. I'd say their selection algorithms are better than those in LR, and their portrait settings are really very useful now (I did a portrait for a friend at work last week - gave her both LrC and On1 versions and she preferred the On1s). I suspect it's where I'll be going when the LrC subscription runs out Dec 2026.
 
Only purchased an upgrade 28 November and had more emails in two weeks than I normally get all in:(, also don't like the option that you have to join this On1 plus to watch tutorials, yes no there are many other tutorials. Russ.
 
russellsnr said:
Only purchased an upgrade 28 November and had more emails in two weeks than I normally get all in:(, also don't like the option that you have to join this On1 plus to watch tutorials, yes no there are many other tutorials. Russ.
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You should be able to unsubscribe - I get a lot more emails (usually several per day) from Linked-In, Amazon, TP notifications etc, so On1 barely gets noticed.
 
I find it very good, it is easy to use and there are plenty of videos on Youtube, so On1Plus is not needed. There are offers available througout the year to get the price down on the upgrades.

My Brother indepentently also uses ON1.

It works with integrated graphics like on most laptops, but a graphics card works wonders. My brother uses a M powered Mac.
 
regarding the blue/purple fringing at screen view issue, this is now a thing of the past as I upgraded to a 32" 4k monitor which eliminates it (except for a tiny number of portrait format 24mp photos). The increase in general sharpness is remarkable -- it makes even LR suddenly look good. Curiously, I've now almost trained myself to the ON1 workflow and if anything find things easier.
 
I am disappointed to say I think ON1 has gotten... terrible. I've used it for years and was happy for the LightRoom alternative. It was good and worked well. Every new release... it gets worse and worse. Buggy for sure. Many images it won't render (where any other photo app I have does, even Paint, Gimp, FastStone Image viewer, Photopea, and so on). 2026 has been an awful experience, and I just started searching on it and came cross the Absolute b*****ks rant, which I, unfortunately, have to agree with. It's practically unusable.
 
mnoreen said:
I am disappointed to say I think ON1 has gotten... terrible. I've used it for years and was happy for the LightRoom alternative. It was good and worked well. Every new release... it gets worse and worse. Buggy for sure. Many images it won't render (where any other photo app I have does, even Paint, Gimp, FastStone Image viewer, Photopea, and so on). 2026 has been an awful experience, and I just started searching on it and came cross the Absolute b*****ks rant, which I, unfortunately, have to agree with. It's practically unusable.
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If it's still within the 30 day period you should be able to get a refund.
 
mnoreen said:
I am disappointed to say I think ON1 has gotten... terrible. I've used it for years and was happy for the LightRoom alternative. It was good and worked well. Every new release... it gets worse and worse. Buggy for sure. Many images it won't render (where any other photo app I have does, even Paint, Gimp, FastStone Image viewer, Photopea, and so on). 2026 has been an awful experience, and I just started searching on it and came cross the Absolute b*****ks rant, which I, unfortunately, have to agree with. It's practically unusable.
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Interesting. This is the first ON1 release I've tried out which is actually reasonably (not completely, but only certain operations annoy it) stable and works at a generally decent speed except when it has to reload AI processing data. I find the range of features and general processing quality make it worthwhile. I haven't come across a single image it can't render and I've probably looked at the majority of my RAW files by now. Are you sure your graphics card meet minimum specs and has appropriate drivers?
 
Generally I find the workflow works well when my images need PP.
It does need at least the minimum computer specs and plenty of memory if lots of adjustments are required.
The AI masking fails if the images are atypical but there are improvements in 2026 over 2025 so this is improving with time.
I agree that expecting customers to stump up for the plus version training is not friendly but have always found there are sufficient free videos to explain the tricks I 've needed.
I export the finished RAW images as jpeg and checking find that they display consistently in elements or other viewers
 
There's a new update released today. One of the new features is tips for each of the tools which should make it easier for newbies to pick up and run straight away.
However I'm not yet sure if this turns off automatically or there's a manual switch. I think it will be very annoying if that's not the case:headbang:
 
it only seems to appear the first time you run the update or try out a feature for the first time do you get the tips which seems like a sensible way to do it.
 
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