I’ve been using ON1 Photo RAW for a good few years now, through various versions and updates. In fact it was more of a set of individual plugins back then. I would have been chatting to Mike Wong back then when I got ‘Genuine Fractals’, a precursor to Perfect Resize. The plugins were pulled together into the On1 Perfect Suite. We’re now at the 20th Anniversary of On1. It’s hard to believe that much time has gone. The 20th anniversary also means that there’s a huge discount right now, making it the perfect time to buy! (Affiliate)
Now I’m not saying all this because it’s on their blog. I’ve been around for it. At the start of the 2010’s I was doing a lot of training material for Mark Cleghorn’s Phototraining4U video site (It’s now The Photographer Academy). This happened because of my ‘Photoshop Lightroom 2 Made Easy’ book. We did a tour called Photoshop V Lightroom around the UK, sponsored by On1 UK, or onOne Software UK as it was at the time. onOne Software UK was run by Bob Campbell and his family. As part of the tour, we got a demonstration of the Suite. Let me tell you as someone that was always looking for better ways to mask, I was very impressed by the drop and keep colours to aid creating a mask.
Along the way the Suite evolved into the standalone application called Photo RAW. “Not another photo editor to learn” I hear you say. “I’ve already got Lightroom Classic or Capture One working perfectly well”. That’s fair. But ON1 does some things differently, and if any of these five things sound useful, it might be worth a look.
No Import Waiting Around
One annoying thing about most RAW processors – you come back from a shoot, plug in your card, and then… wait. Lightroom Classic builds previews, Capture One processes thumbnails. Yes, you can work while it’s importing, but you’re still watching progress bars and waiting for things to render properly when you just want to edit your photos.
ON1 just points at your folder and you’re editing. No import process, no preview building, no hanging about. Click on an image and you’re working on it. It’s that simple.
This is particularly handy when you’re working with client files on external drives. No need to import everything into a catalog – just browse directly to the drive and start editing. When you need to find that wedding from six months ago, you know exactly where it is because it’s exactly where you put it.
Because it’s a browser, ON1 is perfectly happy to work with the folder structure you’ve already built in Lightroom Classic. All those carefully organised client folders, sorted by date or project? ON1 respects that completely. You don’t need to rebuild anything or learn a new organisational system.
AI That Gets Out of Your Way
The AI Sky Replacement in ON1 has come a long way. It’s not just about swapping out a dull Galway sky for something more dramatic – though it does that very well. What impressed me is how it adjusts the lighting and colour of your entire scene to match the new sky.
The masking is genuinely impressive. Watch it handle complex edges like hair or tree branches, and you’ll see why this isn’t just another gimmicky feature. It’s solving a real problem that landscape photographers face all the time.
The new Generative Erase takes this further. Paint over that tourist who wandered into your shot, and ON1 fills the space intelligently. It’s not perfect, but it’s surprisingly good at understanding context.
The AI Generative Crop is equally impressive. Need more space around your subject? Just extend the canvas and let the AI fill in what should be there. It’s particularly useful for social media crops or when you need to adjust compositions after the fact.
Effects That Actually Work
On1 Effects is a brilliant photo finisher. LUTs, textures, borders are available along with various contrast and colour based effects. Each effect is a starting point. You can layer them, mask them to specific areas, and adjust how they blend. Sometimes each filter works beautifully you dial them back and blend them properly. This approach gives you much more natural results. You’re building a look that serves your image, not just throwing on a Preset and hoping for the best.
Local Adjustments Made Sense
Local adjustments can be fiddly in most processors. Masks that don’t quite work, tools that seem to fight you. ON1’s Perfect Brush is different – it automatically finds edges as you paint. I’ve mentioned how I was impressed with the old masking, and they really have gone from strength to strength.
Watch it snap to a building outline or follow a face’s contour, and you’ll wonder why you’ve been struggling with imprecise selections elsewhere. Each adjustment gets its own layer, so you can modify or remove changes later without starting over.
It’s like having Photoshop layers for RAW processing. Once you’ve worked this way, going back to linear adjustments feels limiting.
It Plays Well With Others
ON1 doesn’t want to replace your entire workflow (though it can) – it wants to complement it. You can use it standalone for complete RAW processing, or with the Max version as a set of plugins within Lightroom Classic or Photoshop when you need its particular strengths.
Keep your Lightroom Classic catalog for organisation, but jump to ON1 when you need serious sky replacement or complex local adjustments. Use Capture One for tethering, but lean on ON1 for creative effects and finishing touches.
It’s about having the right tool for the specific job, and ON1 makes that easier with proper round-trip editing and sensible file handling.
Worth a Look
ON1 Photo RAW 2025 isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. But what it does, it does well. The no-import workflow could save you time every day, and the AI tools are mature enough to be genuinely useful rather than just impressive demos. You can still import regularly used folders for quicker access, and you can use it to ingest your memory cards, but you still have that browser speed.
If you’re frustrated with import times, want more creative control over local adjustments, or like the flexibility of working between applications, it’s worth trying. ON1 offers a proper 30-day trial, so you can see how it fits your actual workflow.
Give it a week of real use and you’ll know if it’s right for you. If you want you can get a discount by using my affiliate link.
