First Look: on1 Photo RAW 2018 - The Best HDR & Pano Editor Yet?

Try on1 Photo RAW 2018

I'm pretty busy these days so I don't have time for betas. As a result, I've been rocking along with on1 Photo RAW 2017 not paying much attention to what's coming next. Tonight in advance of the launch I finally kicked the tires and got both surprised and shocked by some of the changes so I thought I'd fill you in on some  of the ones that I think are worth your time to check out...

HDR Editor

I was super impressed with how fast and well this feature worked. Honestly, I didn't expect much as I've really been loving Aurora 2018 HDR as I prepare for my upcoming review.  However, I really have loved the fine grain control it offers with RAW images and how it it saves the merged file in a special format so that I can make non-destructive re-edits at anytime. This means that the HDR merge is never really final, and I can always go dial back in the dark and bright areas that might get messed up while editing. Check it out...

Sadly, this video doesn't do it justice because it kinda ends up with an image that doesn't look so hot. However, the image shown at the top of the article features one that I processed using HDR only (no presets) for very fast and realistic results.

Pano Feature

Some people love their panos, but I hate them. However, I thought this demo which shows how it not only does a good job creating panos, but it also adds metadata to make Facebook treat it as a spinnable pano too:

Maybe this is old news to you pano experts out there, but if you are like me and wondered how you could do this - this is it! Pretty sweet!

Mask Blur Chisel

I never quite got the hang of the chisel tool in the past, but this video here gave me one of those chimpanzee moments (you know, ooh, ooh) and I immediately wanted to go try it out.

More Cool Videos

Want to see what else is new? Start with the video above, then check out these videos...

• New Color Range Masks: https://youtu.be/OVAZo59TIRE
• Mew Luminosity Mask Tools: https://youtu.be/v7ry-zRGqAk
• Paint With Color Brush: https://youtu.be/2DiuYS2UBbM
• New Noise Adjustment Brush: https://youtu.be/KrM-e75OwSU
• Remove Haze from a Photo: https://youtu.be/vzz1ueLqTis

Conclusion

I was unhappy with on1 products for a few years, so I stopped covering them on my blog. I was frustrated with them crashing, features I loved being removed, and something that remained being uninteresting to me.

With the 2017 version I got interested again, but I found myself mostly using it for Resize and not much else. However, I've spent some time this evening playing with the new features and rediscovering this product again, and I like what I see.

At a minimum I'd encourage existing on1 fans to check it out as I think it's a worthy upgrade.

For those who have been burned in the past, I'd suggest giving it another go as the setup seems to do a good job of installing things in cleanly without any headaches. When trying out the product, I hit one snag when I selected  corrupt iPhone 7 file on my NAS, but other than that it was rock solid. It feels like some of the quality issues that plagued on1 in the past have been sorted, and more compelling features have been brought back to make it something worth considering again.

Contact me to let me know your thoughts!

Try it Today & Get  Discount

CLICK HERE to learn more and take it for a spin. If you like it, then try out the MART17 coupon code to get a 20% discount off your order. Contact me if you have any troubles with the special offer.

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