As I stated last week I am going to be using ON1 Photo Raw 2023 for processing alongside Photoshop.
The reason for wanting to do this is that I know not everyone wants to use Photoshop. Some people are scared of it and others don’t want to pay the monthly subscription fee. So for me to teach the best I can with photo editing it was important to me to use other programs as well, hence ON1 Photo Raw 2023.
Now I haven’t used ON1 for quite a few years so I thought it might be fun to film me struggling my way through it. Often when you use one editing platform it can be easy to pick up another, and sometimes not.
I think I do need to look for some refresher videos. I’m excited to see what you can do with it.
In this first video I tried removing some power poles. It wasn’t perfect, but after I finished this video, I did another video and Photoshop wasn’t perfect either. I will show you that one another time.
These videos are more of me just thinking out loud as I try to work out what I’m doing. There are going to be a lot like this.
Anyway, here is the video, I hope it is okay.
Now, if you want to get your own copy of the software you can get a free 14 trial of it by clicking here.
Please if there is anything you struggle with let me know and maybe I can do a video on it.
Happy enough with ON1 2023 but beware if your graphics can’t handle @ least 2 gig then don’t waste your time or money buy an earlier version if you can.
That is good to know Brian, I did not know that, thank you.
I’ve been using on1 photo raw since a while already, perhaps since version 2019, I think. I quite like it, and if you want to get out of Adobe ecosystem (and subscription fees) and have a good machine with powerful GPU, it works wonders. The picture browser is great, and the development tools, at the most basic level, are perfectly useful. Happy to see more people trying it out :).
That’s great to hear, that you like it. I think it is a great alternative to Photoshop, especially if you don’t want to do the subscription thing. I need to play around a lot more in it. Thank you for your thoughts.
I should try ON1. Thanks for sharing this info. Anita
It is good that you can get the trial version and see what you think as well. Let me know if you try it Anita.
ON1 has been on my machines for years. Until recently (ON1 Photo RAW 2022) it was the first step in my post-processing routines. It does a very nice job of lens distortion auto-correction. I like the way the sliders work in the Transform tool for adjusting perspective distortion. I also like the HDR Effect and used it on most of my photos to bring up the shadows, tone down the highlights and add some small area contrast – all in one step with few slider adjustments needed. It makes my photos closer to what I saw.
But one thing has really bothered me. When I export an image as a JPG the histogram looks very strange when loaded into PaintShop Pro (my heavy tool – I don’t use Photoshop). The histograms of ON1 JPGs look like the lows and highs have been broken up into just a few zones. This does not happen with images in TIFF format. I have not gotten any explanation or help from ON1 on this. You might want to see if that happens on the 2023 version.
I have really explored it enough, but I think you are right, they do some things really well and I like that they are always trying to improve. That is great to hear Ludwig.
I don’t know about the histograms, is there where I admit I don’t use them. I like to do it all by eye and what I see in front of me. So I don’t know that I can help either. Though don’t jpegs tend to do some processing as well, I don’t know. I have never used PaintShop Pro, so not sure how I would go. I will keep an eye out for it Ludwig. thank you.
I like on1
Good to hear Sherry.
I saw your post on ON1 and tried giving it a go: it wouldn’t start on my old Surface (and tech support was prompt, but didn’t offer any advice I hadn’t already tried). I plan to try installing the trial on my new 2-in-1 when I get it later this week — it’s a beefier machine. I was able to get the Portrat AI to work, but it also seems to go into Not Responding status as often as it works. Also, it seems to lighten everything up to the point of blowing out the highlights in images and I can’t figure out how to make it stop doing that. I will probably write up an impressions video when I’m done checking them out.
Thanks for this, I’ve been curious about this since you’d mentioned it last week. Possibly the biggest hurdle to new software is learning how to do in the new system what you already know how to do in the old one.
That is a shame, though lucky you are getting a new one Matt, I hope you like using it. I haven’t played with everything yet, but looking forward to doing some deep dives into it.
No problem, it is nice to see software that doesn’t cost the earth. You are right it is a massive hurdle, I’ve done it a few times now, but I can usually work my way around it. Let’s see how I go. Thank you.
Happy to report ON1 trial is installed and working on the new machine (which arrived a couple of days early). I’ll have to tinker some more, there are some great features in here (the sky replacement was fun to play with, but I’d probably never use it for anything aside from being silly).
I bought and have been using DXO PhotoLab 5.
That is fantastic to hear Matt, some of the features are just fun and good to play with. I hope you have fun with it.
I used to use those products when they were NIK stuff, but once sold I didn’t want to buy them and don’t have them anymore. I don’t think I have missed the though.