ON1 Photo Raw gets impressive upgrade: is it now on par with Photoshop?!

ON1 photo raw update
(Image credit: ON1)

Popular AI-powered photo editing software and plugin developer ON1 has just announced Photo RAW version 2023.1. The latest update adds a host of new helpful tools for retouching and refining images including an enhanced healing brush, sky swap AI modes plus advanced uses of the healing brush tool. 

For the last 15 years, ON1 has been providing a photo editing platform designed for photographers and made for photographers. It might not be as well known as some of the likes of Adobe Photoshop or Capture One but these latest updates go one step further to making it a worthy competitor - especially if you're after a large amount of cloud storage. 

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 The non-destructive healing brush tool which can be used to remove spots and blemishes, distracting objects or repair other imperfections can now also transform, copy and move to enable you to scale, rotate and flip your brush strokes for super-precise healing edits. The enhanced brush also lets you copy objects in your photo or move them to a new area. 

You can now use the crop tool in photo Raw with new overlays such as the rule of thirds, golden ratio or golden spiral which helps photographers create new compositions when cropping photos. Sky Swap AI has also had a make-over and now allows you to more easily differentiate between the sky and buildings or the sky and similar foreground colors which should help create more realistic looking sky-replacements with smoother edges. 

NoNoise AI and Resize AI which can be downloaded independently as plugins and used alongside Adpbe Lightroom or Affinity Photo (to name just a couple) or within ON1 now run much faster thanks to improved performance AI inference which cuts down on editing time and improves workflow. 

Not only have individual tools benefited from an update, ON1 now also supports some of the latest cameras released such as the Canon EOS R6 Mark II and the Panasonic Lumix S5 II - not bad considering the S5 II was only released last month.

Pre-existing customers will automatically get access to the new ON1 Camera RAW when it is released mid-February. For those looking to change editing suites or try one for the first time, prices start at just $99.99/£82.

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Hannah Rooke
Staff Writer

Having studied Journalism and Public Relations at the University of the West of England Hannah developed a love for photography through a module on photojournalism. She specializes in Portrait, Fashion and lifestyle photography but has more recently branched out in the world of stylized product photography. For the last 3 years Hannah has worked at Wex Photo Video as a Senior Sales Assistant using her experience and knowledge of cameras to help people buy the equipment that is right for them. With 5 years experience working with studio lighting, Hannah has run many successful workshops teaching people how to use different lighting setups.