An Attempt to Compare Lightroom and ON1 Photo RAW

[Bob Rockefeller]

I am not the most qualified of those on this board to attempt this comparison, so I am more than willing to be schooled on a better method.

But I want to understand the "quality" of the new ON1 Photo RAW and Lightroom CC 2105.8. So I opened the same FujiFilm X-T1 RAW image in both, attempted to make their settings "equal" and "default", and then created screen shots to attempt to share what I am seeing.

To make the settings "equal," I did these things:

For ON1 Photo RAW:

• Set the Tone & Color controls all at the default zero settings
• Moved all the Sharpening sliders to zero
• Moved all Noise Reduction sliders to zero

For Lightroom:

• Left the Basic controls all at the default zero settings
• Moved the Sharpening amount to zero
• Moved Luminance and Color noise reduction to zero

The results are attached.

To my eye, ON1 is delivering somewhat more detail and essentially equal color.

What do others see?

How might I improve the "testing?"

[stamper]

These are small jpegs. The Tiff files would show a better comparison and even then I would doubt the validity of the test. Any judgment would be subjective.

[Wolf Eilers]

My initial impression of ON1 Photo Raw is the poor highlight recovery. The attached example shows an ACR processed image on the left with an ON1 processed image on the right. Notice the horizontal log with the ACR image showing detail in the log highlights while ON1 lost significant detail. I couldn't adjust ON1 to recover the highlight detail. I'm constantly amazed at how ACR can recover information from exposures pushed to the right.

[Bob Rockefeller]

I see what you mean about highlight recovery. I don't think that creating a new raw converter is going to be easy for Macphun or ON1 - Adobe and Phase One have been at it for a long time, have learned a lot of things, and have top-tier conversions to show for it. I've never tried Iridient, because it has no DAM features, but it has a surprisingly good reputation for a newer converter. Affinity Photo is also new, and somewhat behind the others, from what I read.

[scyth]

I've never tried Iridient, because it has no DAM features, but it has a surprisingly good reputation for a newer converter.

Iridient is not something "newer"... it is on the block for more than 12+ years.

[BernardLanguillier]

Iridient is not something "newer"... it is on the block for more than 12+ years.

Iridient is probably the best converter to extract detail without artifacts while controling noise.

It also deliver great colors with a rich but subtle look.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Iridient is probably the best converter to extract detail without artifacts while controling noise.

It also deliver great colors with a rich but subtle look.

Hi Bernard,

I've been wanting to try it out, as soon as the suggested Windows version comes out. I'm not sure whether the detail is coming from the perhaps better sharpening than from most other converters. So far, for Windows (or multi-platform) applications, Capture One and RawTherapee (AMAZE algorithm) are at the top for low artifact high resolution conversions.

But there are more aspects needed to make a Raw converter useful.

Cheers,
Bart

[nemophoto]

I have to agree. When I used On1 RAW (the pre-release because the "release" version crashes every time I launch it), I found highlight recovery pretty bad and blotchy in its results. LR has been greatly improved in its highlight recovery over the years -- possibly the best of all the software out there.

My initial impression of ON1 Photo Raw is the poor highlight recovery. The attached example shows an ACR processed image on the left with an ON1 processed image on the right. Notice the horizontal log with the ACR image showing detail in the log highlights while ON1 lost significant detail. I couldn't adjust ON1 to recover the highlight detail. I'm constantly amazed at how ACR can recover information from exposures pushed to the right.

[Pictus]

I like how Photo Ninja recover highlight colored areas, but it got a bad
tendency to make the whites grayish... Can fix by doing 2 conversions...
Also like the ability to use reference targets for camera and light profiles.

[nemophoto]

I like how Photo Ninja recover highlight colored areas, but it got a bad
tendency to make the whites grayish... Can fix by doing 2 conversions...
Also like the ability to use reference targets for camera and light profiles.

I have Photo Ninja, too, and agree that it does a pretty good job reining in highlights. I have way too many conversion tools  . I keep looking for the. "Next best thing" but invariably go back to LR because of familiarity and speed (my speed of working that is). I had wanted to "support" On1's efforts, but feel they came up pretty short. (For instance, why does pre-release, i.e. Beta, work but not the release?). Alien Skin is another company that's trying to get into the conversion game. They should stick with what they do best -- make excellent plugins. Eye Candy was the very first Photoshop  plugin I bought for my Photoshop 2.5.

[Pictus]

Tools are fun to test, I bet you also had Kai's Power Tools. 
I use PS, but bought Affinity Photo...   

[nemophoto]

Tools are fun to test, I bet you also had Kai's Power Tools. 
I use PS, but bought Affinity Photo...   

LOL. Yes, I had Kai Power Tools too, and some others that I now forget. I teach a class a couple weeks, twice a year, on fashion photography and spend a week of that in Photoshop/LR teaching retouching, compositing, green screen et al. The head of the department jokingly refers to me as "Mr. Plugin".

At last count, for converters, I own: Photoshop (ACR), Lightroom, DxO, Capture One, DPP (of course, since it came with my cameras), Photo Ninja, On1 Photo RAW (so far a waste of money), ACDSee Ultimate 10 (really used more for it's browsing etc.), and played with Picture Window Pro (not bad - tried mainly because I use Color Mechanic which come in very handy when working on color correcting garments). Too many... 

[luxborealis]

To reply to the initial post...

I'm seeing subtle colour artifacts in the ON1 that I don't see in the LR screenshot.

Neither seem particularly sharp, so much will depend on comparing the sharpening algorithms in each app.

[sjprg]

Try trials of both Piccure+ and Sharpen either stand alone or plugins.

I have tried both and purchased Sharpen. When used as a plugin for DXO 11 the results in my opinion
are outstanding. I have tested images from the 10D, 20D, Rx100M1 and M3, 1DSM3, A7RM1 and M2, and the Canon 5DS R, and Canon EOSM1. One of the reasons I like sharpen is that after processing it shows the pixel results.

[Pelzmann]

Could you provide a link to the Sharpen website?  I couldn't find it with a Google search.  I tried Piccure+ and was impressed with the results for my 5Dsr files.

[sjprg]

https://www.projects-software.com/

[myotis]

I have tried both and purchased Sharpen. When used as a plugin for DXO 11 the results in my opinion
are outstanding.

How does Sharpen work as a plugin for DXO11?

I didn't realise DXO supported Plugins (other than their own Viewpoint and Filmpack) and I can't find DXO mentioned on the Sharpen web site.

Does it just add itself the same way as ViewPoint/Fimpack and applied at any stage in the process.

Thanks,
Graham

[sjprg]

You export DXO to Application, and select "sharpen"

[myotis]

You export DXO to Application, and select "sharpen"

Ah thanks, that is how I expected it to work.

It was the "plugin" bit that had me confused, as the website only mentions it working as a plugin for Adobe products.

Cheers,

Graham