Product test
Apple Photomator: Lightroom lite with an uncertain future
by David Lee
On1 Photo Raw: better than expected
If you’re looking for a Lightroom alternative, you should check out On1 Photo RAW. The subscription-free software’s capable of more than its low price tag suggests.
Photo RAW’s available as a subscription and as a one-time purchase. The software’s certainly priced lower than Lightroom – and even Luminar and Photomator if you go down the one-off purchase route. You can download On1 Photo RAW free of charge and try it out for 30 days. That’s something I’d definitely recommend doing, as habits and personal preferences often come into play when choosing a RAW developer.
Effective image management
The image management system makes a good impression on me. It’s clearly better than Photomator’s and could certainly go toe to toe with Lightroom’s. Transitioning from Lightroom to On1 Photo Raw isn’t all that hard. For instance, you can switch between grid view and single view using the same keys (G and E). The software reads keywords and ratings from XMP files and adopts them. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for markings.
As well as entering keywords manually, you can have suggestions generated for you. An AI-supported image analysis identifies what’s been captured in an image, then suggests keywords such as «bird». It can’t pinpoint the exact bird species, though. The feature generally works really well, especially since you can accept or reject each suggestion individually.
Images are managed through simple folder navigation, but also with catalogues and albums. You can create virtual copies of images, referred to in the program as Versions. In addition, you can combine several images for panoramas, HDR images or focus stacking.
The search function’s very sophisticated. You can search by all sorts of metadata, keywords, ratings and faces, and carry out free-text searches. Any number of search rules can be combined; you can enter exclusion criteria, mandatory or optional criteria. However, they’re fairly laborious to enter, so I’d probably advise only using complicated search rules in exceptional cases.
There’s also a diverse range of sorting options. Photo RAW can also automatically detect duplicates and group very similar photos.
The image management system allows you to use presets, meaning you can edit one or more photos in a predetermined way. Although Photo RAW does come with numerous presets, I’m not overly keen on them. In my view, most of them rank somewhere between boring and unhelpful. One preset, for example, makes an image orange and unfocused. What’s the point of that?
Editing: good automatic adjustments, poor fine-tuning
On1 Photo RAW has a good automatic function called Brilliance AI. It allows beginners to quickly achieve clear improvements in their photos. Unlike in Lightroom, the automatic function can be modified as well as simply switched on. You can regulate the intensity of its enhancements using the main slider. Underneath, there are separate controls for colour and tone. For instance, you can have the tool automatically make stronger corrections to tone than colour. Plus, you can adjust certain parts of the image separately, say, by changing the colour of the sky more dramatically than the rest of the photo. Well, provided the software correctly identifies the sky. But more on that later.
Like in Lightroom, the auto-correction tool sets manual parameters to a specific value. You can then fine-tune this yourself. However, this is exactly where On1 Photo RAW reveals its most significant weakness. While Lightroom allows you to specifically lighten shadows, Photo RAW’s shadow slider is much less precise. It also brightens midtones pretty heavily, even brightening the highlights a little. Conversely, the depths also decrease when you reduce the highlights.
Both of those effects are clearly visible in the image and the histogram. It’s even possible to create overexposure with the depth control. Still, I wouldn’t go as far as this YouTube reviewer, who described it as «absolute bollocks». Using it in tandem with other sliders, I end up with a perfectly good result – although it does take a while.
Local adjustments
Local adjustments – setting changes applied to a specific area of an image, rather than the whole thing – are very handy. You can select these areas manually, for example with a brush, or automatically using AI. For example, Photo RAW recognises the sky, vegetation, ground, water and other parts of the landscape, as well as clearly defined objects. This saves a lot of time compared to manual masking.
How well does it work? Photo RAW’s attempt with my test image – where Photomator went badly wrong – is a triumph. The software recognises the sky almost perfectly, saving lots of time given its fragmented state. This allows you to adjust the colour of the sky to your taste.
Adobe Lightroom, however, has the edge when it comes to sky detection. In the next photo, Lightroom recognises that the road sign isn’t part of the sky and cuts it out. Photo RAW classifies parts of the sign as the sky, but not others.
Water, vegetation and other landscape elements are only recognised automatically; they can’t be added manually. Sometimes, these parts of the image aren’t recognised at all. Quick Mask AI offers an alternative. If you click on part of a photo, the software recognises the relevant object. This often works really well. Plus, you can modify AI masks manually.
A mini rant about the interface
On1 Photo RAW’s interface seems anything but intuitive to me. I had to watch a tutorial to understand how to collapse panes. You can’t make any adjustments in expanded but inactive sections – and it’s hard to see whether sections have been activated at all. The buttons for confirming or rejecting aren’t placed in the area where you’re working, so I sometimes don’t even notice them. Settings for local corrections are located in three different places. To make matters worse, the German version of the interface is poorly translated. And the help windows aren’t actually translated at all.
Wide range of functions
Photo RAW has so many functions that I didn’t manage to test them all. When I recently reviewed Apple Photomator, I was missing a lens corrector. On1 Photo RAW, however, didn’t leave me wanting. The software works with both lens profiles and manual adjustment. However, automatic detection doesn’t always work. Incomprehensibly, lens correction isn’t applied by default. That said, you can change this in the settings.
The transformation pane’s really useful too. It allows you to correct perspective distortions that occur when a camera isn’t held straight. The controls are similar to Lightroom’s, but there’s no fully automatic alignment.
AI-assisted denoising is all the rage in photo editing right now, so it’s unsurprising that Photo RAW has the feature. And it’s not bad at all. Although I don’t get good results with the default settings, using the sliders improves them surprisingly well. It doesn’t take too long for the changes to kick in.
Photo RAW really impressed me during the export process. The dialogue includes almost everything offered by Lightroom, such as numerous renaming options, automatic numbering according to your own preferences, automatic creation of subfolders and sharpening. You can even choose which individual pieces of metadata you want to keep and which you want to remove. All of this can be saved as an export preset. And for once, the controls are simple; you select the preset directly from the menu bar.
In a nutshell
High performance, low price tag
On1 Photo RAW is available without a subscription and doesn’t cost much. It boasts a huge range of functions, some of which have really convenient options. The auto-correction feature’s powerful, giving you good results in just a few clicks. However, the manual controls for highlights and shadows are less impressive. They take a sledgehammer-like approach, making subtle adjustments difficult.
In terms of AI-supported functions, Photo RAW’s cutting-edge. Although its auto recognition of landscape features can’t quite compete with Lightroom, it’s significantly better than the likes of Photomator. The AI-based denoising feature works really well on some things too. Occasional users might find the fragmented, cluttered interface problematic. What’s more, the German version’s poorly translated.
Pro
- Available as an inexpensive, one-off purchase
- Effective image management
- Numerous AI functions, with some producing very good results
- Very good auto-correction
- Sophisticated export function
Contra
- Imprecise controls for adjusting shadows and highlights
- Interface is hard to understand
- German version is poorly translated
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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