As many photographers begin leaving the Adobe ecosystem and considering other options, they run into a problem: how do they keep all of the Lightroom adjustments that they’ve made on thousands of photos over the years that they’ve used it? It’s been a big stumbling block, until now, and has kept many locked into monthly payments to Adobe.
On1 Photo RAW 2019 has solved this problem with the help of artificial-intelligence. When you’re ready to switch to On1, you can import your entire Lightroom library and maintain your metadata, tags, and collections, but the new software also scans each image with LR adjustments and creates an identical photo with On1 adjustments in your new library.
The process appears to be simple and effective. In the video below, the folks from On1 show how the process works, including a before/after example of an imported photo with some serious changes. I would say that the imported photos are about 95% similar (or more) to the Lightroom edits.
As with any major software update, there are plenty of other updates as well. On1 claims to have improved image quality, processing and browsing speed, auto-alignment of layers, focus stacking, a new portrait module, a new AI-powered masking tool, a new text tool, new digital asset management updates, and a variety of improvements to existing features like the layers workflow and camera/lens updates.
Will It Save You Money? Maybe, Maybe Not.
One of the advantages of On1 over Lightroom is that it comes with a perpetual license: once you pay for the software, you can use it forever. Since new customers pay about $99 for On1 Photo RAW, it’s about the same as a year’s subscription to Photoshop/Lightroom from Adobe.
However, major upgrades are generally not free, and come about once a year. To upgrade, you’re likely to have to pay another $80, making the savings over Adobe CC pretty modest. However, you’re free to skip major upgrades (for just a year, or forever) and your software will keep working.
You can get the full details about the new version on the ON1 Photo RAW 2019 web page. Purchasing through our links will also help support the reviews and journalism at Light & Matter!
