On1 Photo RAW 2019

[Rick Lewis]

I took the new On1 Photo RAW 2019 RAW converter for a test drive last week and ended up buying it.  WOW, what a difference from previous editions!!

 

Stand-alone, no subscription and because I had purchased something from On1 years ago (I guess they still had my email address), I purchased it for only $79.  

 

It renders Fuji RAW files beautifully, same goes for Olympus, and Nikon images.  It has many of the features as LR CC and is fully integrated.  You can even transfer your LR catalog if you wish, but this software does not need a catalog!!

 

Here is very good news for some of you: you can keyword your images in the Metadata module and they transfer over in AIM!!!  I did a test and it seems to work brilliantly.

 

Go to their website and test drive it for 30 days.  https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvJi3irTm3gIVVFmGCh3TogyaEAAYASAAEgJPBfD_BwE  

 

The only things, so far, that I find a little inadequate is less effective CA correction (I go to LR for that), and perhaps noise reduction (which I seldom need) is a little less effective.  

[Phil Preston]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I'm currently using LR6, which I'm still fairly happy with, but the 2019 version of ON1 looks like a potential replacement for me in the not too distant future, partly because it's not subscription based, but I also like the idea of having additional features like layers and focus stacking which are not available with LR6. Essentially, it seems to offer a lot for a very reasonable price. I'm also a Fuji user so good to hear it works well with their RAW files.

[Rudix]

Thanks for the report, I think I must give it a try. I have been using LR for a very long time but I am not happy with the subscription license model and LR seems to be particularly slow with large files. I tried C1, used it long time ago as well but I am not "bonding" with the workflow and at the moment the results I am getting with it is inferior to LR, but that might just be lack of experience.

 

 

[M.Chapman]

I've just tried it again but am disappointed to find that a bug in the distortion correction of Canon G15 raw files is still there. It claims to have a profile for this lens but it's wrong and the manual distortion slider doesn't offer the range of adjustment required to fix it. I first reported this to them a couple of years ago. (I seem to recall that they rely on the LensFun database for their corrections).

 

That being said it seems to run quite smoothy with fast response to slider adjustments, although I found export rather slow. There's still no CA removal tool that I could find (it seems to rely on the lens profile). Adobe LR/ACR's automatic CA removal is more reliable. On1 seem to do a reasonable job of recovering detail on the images I tried, but there's not a great deal of sharpening control that I could find. Recovering highlights seems to cause a bit more visible halo than LR. But I do like that you don't need to import raws into a catalogue to start developing them.

 

I'll be sticking with PS + LR subscription.

 

Mark

[Bryan]

On 11/21/2018 at 22:23, Phil Preston said:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I'm currently using LR6, which I'm still fairly happy with, but the 2019 version of ON1 looks like a potential replacement for me in the not too distant future, partly because it's not subscription based, but I also like the idea of having additional features like layers and focus stacking which are not available with LR6. Essentially, it seems to offer a lot for a very reasonable price. I'm also a Fuji user so good to hear it works well with their RAW files.

 

Yes thanks, it's useful to know of a non subscription alternative to LR. Might be an option should I purchase a new camera not covered by my standalone version of LR.

[Colin Woods]

if you do end up shopping for an LR alternative Bryan, make sure you test drive DxO Photolab. I have used it since 2008 or so and its superb.

[Bryan]

On 11/23/2018 at 17:25, Colin Woods said:

if you do end up shopping for an LR alternative Bryan, make sure you test drive DxO Photolab. I have used it since 2008 or so and its superb.

 

Thanks Colin, another one to consider. I guess that it is too much to hope for that it will read the LR catalogue?