[BigMackCam]

As part of my gradual research and planning to move away from Adobe, I've downloaded the ON1 Photo Raw 2018 beta. So far, I really like what I see - there are some things I don't like so much (like the luminance noise reduction, and the sharpening masking, both of which are extremely heavy-handed compared to Lightroom), but mostly it seems very polished indeed.

One thing I've been unable to find yet is any way to remove "impulse noise" (such as stuck pixels). I shoot with several older cameras that don't have pixel mapping, and over the years they've picked up a few stuck pixels. Lightroom removes these automatically at import, while Corel AfterShot Pro 3 (and even RawTherapee) provide a selectable option for this... but I can't find the same functionality anywhere in Photo Raw. I know I could create layer to mask specific pixels, but I'd have to do that for each camera, and make alterations as and when new stuck pixels appear.

Does Photo Raw support this functionality? If not, it's kind of a deal-breaker for me - so I'd rather know now, before I invest too much time learning the software.

Thanks in advance

[subsea]

As part of my gradual research and planning to move away from Adobe, I've downloaded the ON1 Photo Raw 2018 beta. So far, I really like what I see - there are some things I don't like so much (like the luminance noise reduction, and the sharpening masking, both of which are extremely heavy-handed compared to Lightroom), but mostly it seems very polished indeed.

One thing I've been unable to find yet is any way to remove "impulse noise" (such as stuck pixels). I shoot with several older cameras that don't have pixel mapping, and over the years they've picked up a few stuck pixels. Lightroom removes these automatically at import, while Corel AfterShot Pro 3 (and even RawTherapee) provide a selectable option for this... but I can't find the same functionality anywhere in Photo Raw. I know I could create layer to mask specific pixels, but I'd have to do that for each camera, and make alterations as and when new stuck pixels appear.

Does Photo Raw support this functionality? If not, it's kind of a deal-breaker for me - so I'd rather know now, before I invest too much time learning the software.

Thanks in advance

Mike, I'm not aware of that capability in ON1... yet! I would recommend that you enter a suggestion on their web site. They do listen to their customers and may be willing to develop that capability if there is enough demand. I don't know what "enough demand" is in their view, but it can't hurt to make the suggestion since they make it so easy to do so.

Mark

[BigMackCam]

Mike, I'm not aware of that capability in ON1... yet! I would recommend that you enter a suggestion on their web site. They do listen to their customers and may be willing to develop that capability if there is enough demand. I don't know what "enough demand" is in their view, but it can't hurt to make the suggestion since they make it so easy to do so.

Mark

Thanks, Mark - I may well do that

The more I play with Photo Raw, the more I like it generally, but I'm finding quite severe limitations on the luminance noise reduction. It's heavy-handed at the lowest settings when used with my noisier small sensor cameras (wiping out detail very quickly), but not powerful enough with high ISO shots on my DSLRs (and high ISO is something I shoot quite frequently). I guess I'm spoiled with Lightroom I'll keep playing with Photo Raw, though... I like the feel of it, and I particularly like the company's vision

[jlstrawman]

I like the feel of it, and I particularly like the company's vision

Mike,

I, too, am just getting started with ON1 Camera Raw. Been hampered by using it on a laptop, as my only desktop does not have a
new enough version of OpenGL and no video card. I can't answer your question, but can tell you that on the two occasions that I
contacted their customer support, a got a prompt and very pleasant response, that fully answered my questions. You might check
with customer support to see what, if any, plans they have to solve your problem.

Best regards.

[subsea]

Thanks, Mark - I may well do that

The more I play with Photo Raw, the more I like it generally, but I'm finding quite severe limitations on the luminance noise reduction. It's heavy-handed at the lowest settings when used with my noisier small sensor cameras (wiping out detail very quickly), but not powerful enough with high ISO shots on my DSLRs (and high ISO is something I shoot quite frequently). I guess I'm spoiled with Lightroom I'll keep playing with Photo Raw, though... I like the feel of it, and I particularly like the company's vision

Mike, you can always file a bug report regarding the luminance noise, suggesting the behavior you're used to, or at least something that makes more sense than the current behavior. In LR I find that color noise reduction is more important when I shoot at high ISO, but I haven't done enough with ON1 to compare, yet. My sense is that ON1 (the company) is more willing to work with their customers on needed improvements than Adobe ever was. I had to fight with Adobe regarding bug I found in LR 6.10 and it took about 3 weeks of constant interaction to get them to even admit it was a bug! I don't think the same thing would happen with ON1.

[BigMackCam]

I, too, am just getting started with ON1 Camera Raw. Been hampered by using it on a laptop, as my only desktop does not have a
new enough version of OpenGL and no video card. I can't answer your question, but can tell you that on the two occasions that I
contacted their customer support, a got a prompt and very pleasant response, that fully answered my questions. You might check
with customer support to see what, if any, plans they have to solve your problem.

Thanks, Jerry This isn't the first positive report I've heard of ON1's customer support, so it's very encouraging to hear of similar experiences from multiple sources.

Mike, you can always file a bug report regarding the luminance noise, suggesting the behavior you're used to, or at least something that makes more sense than the current behavior. In LR I find that color noise reduction is more important when I shoot at high ISO, but I haven't done enough with ON1 to compare, yet. My sense is that ON1 (the company) is more willing to work with their customers on needed improvements than Adobe ever was. I had to fight with Adobe regarding bug I found in LR 6.10 and it took about 3 weeks of constant interaction to get them to even admit it was a bug! I don't think the same thing would happen with ON1.

Thanks again, Mark I may contact ON1 and provide examples of what I'm seeing in Photo Raw vs Lightroom - as much for their benefit as my own, since I'd like to see someone pick up Adobe's dropped ball with pro-standard, non-subscription products. I'm finding Photo Raw very friendly and intuitive... it's clearly a younger product than Lightroom and will need time to mature, but it feels rather well sorted in terms of the user interface...

[Tas]

As part of my gradual research and planning to move away from Adobe, I've downloaded the ON1 Photo Raw 2018 beta. So far, I really like what I see - there are some things I don't like so much (like the luminance noise reduction, and the sharpening masking, both of which are extremely heavy-handed compared to Lightroom), but mostly it seems very polished indeed.

One thing I've been unable to find yet is any way to remove "impulse noise" (such as stuck pixels). I shoot with several older cameras that don't have pixel mapping, and over the years they've picked up a few stuck pixels. Lightroom removes these automatically at import, while Corel AfterShot Pro 3 (and even RawTherapee) provide a selectable option for this... but I can't find the same functionality anywhere in Photo Raw. I know I could create layer to mask specific pixels, but I'd have to do that for each camera, and make alterations as and when new stuck pixels appear.

Does Photo Raw support this functionality? If not, it's kind of a deal-breaker for me - so I'd rather know now, before I invest too much time learning the software.

Thanks in advance

G'Day Mike,

Stuck Pixels
I forgot about the import benefit of dealing with stuck pixels that LR has so as suggested I'd ask On1 about it. As On1 is not doing a catalogue import like LR it probably doesn't exist as something to turn on through an options/set up panel. If they add this as an auto tool it would probably need to work as the file is loaded when you look at the full size image in Browse or when you select the image to go into Develop/FX/Layers etc. To do so on import would make this stage as slow as LR imports and I'd hope they wouldn't go down that path.

The advice on this already provided is what I'd recommend too, especially as the Beta version will change a fair bit over the next 12 months with improvements that could be on a similar scale as that which you're looking for (ie I wouldn't rule it out as an update to 2018 if enough people want it). The updates to the 2017 version initially focused on bug fixing but after that added some big changes to the program for the better. An example of this is the inclusion of camera and lens profiles in the Develop module, a big modification that came about 5 months after the release of the 2017 version. So as suggested, if you choose to park the program and move on it would be great if you could provide feedback on the Beta.

If you're a real good sport it would be great if you could also go to their website and go to Learn/On1 Photo RAW Project at this link: Ideas – ON1, Inc. This is where new capability suggestions are submitted by users, so adding a recommendation for removing stuck pixels as an auto feature could be included here and hopefully supported by other users. Indeed, it might already have been suggested in which case you could add your voice to the recommendation. BTW, this is where the request for Pentax pixel shift support is sitting and I'd hope you'd be okay with adding support for that too.

Noise
I initially picked up LR2 because of it's lauded NR. It was one of the benefits of that platform, though by LR6 other programs were reporting as improvements over LR noise reduction. I didn't try these other programs and as I was using On1 as an LR plug-in my main NR experience has always been via Adobe. Since earlier this year I've parked LR so all NR has been via On1. It used to be in a separate package in the develop and FX modules but they added NR as an option in the initial Develop module tools which, I assume, is where you're applying it.

I've found this NR tool somewhat limiting and I when I do use it I use the Alt key when masking to try and target the areas I want NR to be applied (FYI a lot of the LR keyboard shortcuts are the same for On1). I then further manage noise by only adding dynamic contrast and sharpening to those areas needing it and avoiding dark shadows/skies etc where they will only increase the noise. This requires more work but has generated some good results. However, if you are applying NR like you would in LR you may not be seeing the complete picture with how On1 can work.

If you forgo both NR and sharpening in the Develop module try going into FX and adding it there. I recommend that as this is the part of the program where the masking tools are much more advanced and capable, and judging by the videos I've seen on the 2018 version even more so than what I'm used to. Doing NR in FX will enable you to more selectively target areas of your image for NR. This will give you better control than anything LR is doing.

Sharpening
The sharpen module in Develop for Photo RAW 2017 is not applied by default and requires a fairly high level of input to see it working. On the other hand the masking slider for sharpening is very heavy handed so typically I"m masking at around 1 only so there is some sharpening effect. I'm not a big fan on global sharpening though and even with masking I tend to prefer to mask in the FX module as I can target areas to sharpen better using the masking tools. Annoyingly the default sharpening is for printing so I select 'screen' and then do adjustments from there.

Don't forget too that there is a 'detail' option in local adjustments in both Develop and FX modules. This is another way of targeting the adding of detail and apparent sharpness with greater control of where it's applied.

Time for coffee
Apologies for the novel mate, it's Saturday morning and it's raining outside so I kept banging on a bit. I like the shortfalls you've identified and know if these were included it would be a much better program so hopefully they're working on it already. From my experience with using On1 the less than stellar NR/sharpening sliders will improve. I know that the slider length in 2018 is made longer to improve their functionality so this is an aspect being improved already. Anyhoo, I hope the program makes your shortlist as I've found the recent versions of On1 to contain very good tools that work differently to LR as it gives you much more control on your adjustments. And of course there's plenty of other things it does that LR can't so hopefully you'll take advantage of the 30 day free trial and suss out what else it can do for your workflow.

Good luck with finding the right solution for you Mike.

Tas

[BigMackCam]

Apologies for the novel mate, it's Saturday morning and it's raining outside so I kept banging on a bit.

Grant, rarely has an apology been so unnecessary... I couldn't have asked for a more objective and helpful reply - thank you!

I've completely neglected the FX section thus far, so will start digging into that over the weekend.

Based on ON1's alleged appetite for listening to its customers, and the overall feel of quality I'm getting from my early (and rather clumsy!) tests, I believe it's worth spending some quality time evaluating the software and feeding back to the company... even if I don't switch to that software in the short term. I'm in no rush, frankly... I have LR6 installed and backed up along with my catalogue and images, so I can probably subsist for several years without changing. But I'd love to have a viable migration path longer-term!

Thanks again for the great reply - much appreciated

[BigMackCam]

I'm not a big fan on global sharpening though and even with masking I tend to prefer to mask in the FX module as I can target areas to sharpen better using the masking tools.

Specifically on this point... I tend to agree regarding global sharpening, at least on full size images. Where I find it extremely useful, though (at least in terms of Lightroom) is on my final exports. Typically, I export my developed RAW (with NR applied but no sharpening) to a 16-bit TIFF at the required resolution, then use global sharpening with masking on that TIFF, before exporting to JPEG with no further sharpening. It sounds a little convoluted, I know, but I get my best results this way, with sharpening appropriate to the final image and minimal impact on any remaining noise (much of which is reduced through resampling to a smaller resolution).

Incidentally, like you I've found that with Photo Raw, +1 is the only masking level worth using for sharpening in the Develop section.

Thanks once again. I have some enjoyable testing ahead

[Tas]

Specifically on this point... I tend to agree regarding global sharpening, at least on full size images. Where I find it extremely useful, though (at least in terms of Lightroom) is on my final exports. Typically, I export my developed RAW (with NR applied but no sharpening) to a 16-bit TIFF at the required resolution, then use global sharpening with masking on that TIFF, before exporting to JPEG with no further sharpening. It sounds a little convoluted, I know, but I get my best results this way, with sharpening appropriate to the final image and minimal impact on any remaining noise (much of which is reduced through resampling to a smaller resolution).

Incidentally, like you I've found that with Photo Raw, +1 is the only masking level worth using for sharpening in the Develop section.

Thanks once again. I have some enjoyable testing ahead

Glad the info was of use Mike, I've become a fan of the program having seen where it's come from and what it can do now. I think it's going to become one of the genuine competitors to LR and PS due to the very flexible, powerful tools and how easily they can be applied. I expect PS will remain the holy grail but she's a steep old learning curve to really make use of that program (and I'm not real bright according to my mum, that's why she calls me Lantern: Not real bright and have to be carried everywhere).

Oh, and if it's a passion and it's working for you nothing's convoluted...except marriage. That allegedly involves passion and it is most certainly convoluted.

Talking of sharpening for prints, I can't remember where I saw it (blog post or video?) but a user was lamenting the sharpening options in the export module for printing purposes. I can't say I've ever tried that option yet but I'm planning on some big prints soon so will get to test it then. As you already have LR6 and it provides you a good path for exporting it may be less relevant to you but it's probably something else worth checking as to whether it suits your needs.

I'd also recommend doing some testing in the resize module. Allegedly you can enlarge an image up to 400% without loss of image detail. I think that's a bit of an ask personally though with more modest upscaling I think you will be impressed with what the genuine fractals algorithms can achieve. A before and after pixel peep session should work out how useful that module can be for you, especially if you have older cameras with smaller resolutions that you want to print above that you could normally get away with.

For the rest of your testing, especially in the FX module, there's a cog like wheel at the top of each tool box, this accesses the blending options. This is one of the really useful time saving tools for the program as it can allow you to target specific colours, tones and luminance in your image. The ease of use this creates is one of the real strengths of the program and from watching the improved controls for luminosity masking in the 2018 version I think this is going to completely change a lot of my workflow and make it faster. Oh, don't forget that you can save your workflow changes and then sync them to other images. There's a heap of installed FX options but I tend to create my own. I also create my own textures and add those to the program.

There's lots of masking options to try out including the bugs and gradients as well as the perfect brush. When you go into the Layers module you get even more options than those in Develop and FX, though the 2018 version may be different than what I can see in the 2017 version. I suggest you find an image with a really boring sky and take it into Layers. On the left hover over the masking tools until you see 'Quick Mask'. Use your mouse to select the sky that you want to replace and the program will analyse the image and remove all of those tones from your image. It does a good job off the bat that you then go and tidy up with other masking tools. I don't do a lot of sky replacements but it's a good way to see some of the capabilities of the program. Note though that Layers in the 2017 version is not working in RAW, it creates a PSD but I assume 2018 is the same. If 2018 is generating a PSD too the best thing to do is run the RAW file through Develop first so you get the black/white points set, white balance and colour manages etc. Doing it this way will see huge improvements when working on PSD in Layers or even working on the RAW in FX. Note too that from Layers you can jump into and out of Develop and FX as much as you want and you can create smart layers to retain the ability to adjust any changes made.

Typically I've written another novel (yest it's still raining outside) so to get out of your hair, here's the On1 Youtube page: ON1 - YouTube it has both long and short videos showing what the program can do. They've added some 2018 videos now and some of the content from 2017 will be of use as well, here's some I'd recommend watching:

Jump forward to the 10 minute mark as he introduces the PP workflow shortly after this and demonstrates a lot of the workflow basics:

You Tube

You Tube

A good video for work in Layers and using some of the masking tools:

You Tube

You Tube

For a more artistic interpretation of a scene this video from one of the Photomorphis guys is a good example:

You Tube

You Tube

Have fun exploring mate.

Tas

[subsea]

Mike,

I just found the following suggestion in the Ideas section of ON1's site:

Sharpening masking is very abrupt

I love the ability to mask my sharpening with the Alt key, but the mask changes very abruptly. Often, by position 2 or 3 on the slider the mask is completely black. The changes to the mask between 1-2-3 on the slider are drastic. In Lightroom the mask changes much more gradually from one end of the slider to the other.


Obviously, other's are noticing the same limitations that we've been discussing. I would recommend going to their site and adding a comment to support the suggestion.

Edit: Here's another one that's listed as being under review (I think you can still comment and vote for it):

Automatic hot pixel / dead pixel removal

Hot pixels are annoying. Especially when i focus stack they create pixel trails on stacked image. It would be great to get rid of them automatically at the begining.


Mark

[raider]

Seeing this is a thread for On1 Photo Raw, I hope I can ask a question here. I have been trialing Photoraw 2017.

On lightroom when i adjust the white and black, I press the shift key to see how much I can adjust. I cannot figure out how to do this in On1. Any tips please?

[Tas]

Seeing this is a thread for On1 Photo Raw, I hope I can ask a question here. I have been trialing Photoraw 2017.

On lightroom when i adjust the white and black, I press the shift key to see how much I can adjust. I cannot figure out how to do this in On1. Any tips please?

G'Day mate, two ways of doing this, you can press the J key as you move the slider or my preferred method is to ensure the histogram is displayed and click on the arrow in the top right or left corner. This will then enable the white/black indicators without pressing and holding any buttons.

Tas

[raider]

G'Day mate, two ways of doing this, you can press the J key as you move the slider or my preferred method is to ensure the histogram is displayed and click on the arrow in the top right or left corner. This will then enable the white/black indicators without pressing and holding any buttons.

Cheers mate. That works!

[ccc_]

I searched a bit for hot/dead pixels at on1
it appears that folks started asking for an equivalent to the LR feature in 2016

on1 does respond to your queries...so I would ask

from my point of view I went to on1 for the effects module and its excellent resizing capabilities
since then I have used its various masking and layers options a lot

you seem to be approaching it from a different point of use
so good luck with your exploration