On1 Software had announced that Photo RAW 2025 would be available in the Fall, and that day has come. Unlike Lightroom Classic 14’s very lacklustre and buggy update, Photo RAW 2025 has loads of new features right across the board. Playing with it has been exciting, especially trying the new features. Here’s the TL;DR version:
- Generative Erase
- Reduce Dust
- Reduce Power Lines
- Generative Crop
- Depth Masks
- Match Color Tool
- Color Editor Tool
- Photo Stacking
- Target Albums
- Canvas Dialog
Generative Erase
This incredible new features allows large areas of a photo to be replaced with AI. It runs locally on your computer and doesn’t require credits to run. Those on machines with underpowered GPU’s can also opt to use Stability AI via their Stability account. It runs well and allows you to try multiple iterations to find the best result. Best of all, On1 are constantly training the models for better results over time.
Reduce Dust
Unlike other apps promising to remove all the dust, On1 are taking a more truthful approach. This tool does find and reduce sensor dust, eliminating most of it. The remainder is usually significantly less and easy to do manually.
Reduce Power Lines
Another tool inside Perfect Eraser, this does remove power lines, but leaves poles. It can be fooled by vertical objects, but is still really useful.
Generative Crop
Do you ever wish that you could expand a photo that was cropped too tight in camera? You may not have had room, or were just in a hurry, but you need more around the edges. Well Generative Crop comes to the rescue. Create realistic edges around the photo to generate any crop you’d like.
Depth Masks
While Lightroom now has Lens Blur, the depth mask is not available to the rest of the application. On1’s new Depth Mask is available to all adjustments via the Masking options on that adjustment or filter. The mask can be furhter refined with the normal masking tools like Levels, Density and Window.
Match Color Tool
Have you seen a photo you like and want yours to have a similar colour tone? Easy. Use either the inbuilt art photos or ‘Load file’ to create a reference photo that Photo RAW will apply to the current photo. You can then refine it further to get the look you’re after.
Color Editor Tool
The Edit Color filter allows you to select a colour, adjust the range around that colour and then modify the Hue, Saturation and Brightness within that range. You can narrow the range of satuation of the original colour. There’s also a Feather control to taper the falloff of the adjustment.
Photo Stacking
Photo Stacking is a great way of decluttering your library. If you have a lot of similar photos, stacking allows you to group related photos together under one main photos. These could be a range of poses or an outfit. It could be a HDR or Pano set. Whatever the reasons, stacking will make for a tidier library.
Target Albums
This addition allows you to send photos to a specific album for faster organisation. It’s useful for grouping for presentations, curating images for print or simply getting images from disparate locations together.
Canvas Dialog
Need to create a layout for print? Need to do a postcard or poster with text and multiple images? Some with clipping paths and transparency? The Canvas Dialog has you covered. You can create custom sizes as well.
Ever Better
It’s great to see On1’s Photo RAW progressing with editing, management and print tools. I firmly believe that as one software gets improved, all software must follow suit or become relegated. On1’s option to use Stability AI rather than changing GPU (like with a laptop) means new tools are accessible to others. The fact that Generatve AI happens on the local machine too, with no credits for native processing, makes for faster processing as there’s no wait time for upload and download to a server. The new tools work effectively with promises of further refinement.
Photo RAW 2025 is available as a subscription or a standalone version with a MAX option to include plugin versions of the AI tools for Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Affinity Photo. The standard version can be installed on two computers, while the MAX version can be installed on 3.
If you didn’t know, I’m currently doing a series of 10 articles introducing you to editing and file management with On1 Photo RAW in Digital Camera World magazine.
