What's Next For ON1 Photo RAW?

I have been meaning to write this post ever since Dan Harlacher over at ON1 posted a roadmap update for ON1 Photo RAW. I know Dan. He truly cares about ON1 customers and photographers in general. In fact that's true of everyone I've ever met at ON1 - past and present. End of statement. No questions. No qualifiers.

If you haven't read Dan's post yet, go check it out. I'll wait until you get back. :-) If you have, let's dig in.

There are several features I'm crazy-excited for coming in Photo RAW. And I'll get to those. Before I do, I want to highlight something else - Dan's candor. I really appreciate Dan being up front that the initial roadmap for Photo RAW was aggressive. The planned features took longer to release than anticipated. He doesn't dance around the topic. Dan owns it. That's integrity right there, folks. Photo RAW was a massive undertaking, no doubt. ON1 has learned from the experience. The software is only a few months old and has been updated several times. The 2017.1 release is nothing but stable for me and I'm eager for more.

So let's talk upcoming features! There are three at the center of my radar screen - and they are all planned for the end of May/early June 2017.

1. Lens Correction

Finally! I lived for a RAW editor that did not have lens corrections for years (Aperture, I loved you, but this was sorely lacking). The next update to Photo RAW will "automatically detect your lens and reduce distortion, chromatic aberration and peripheral fall-off". Huge. Huge Huge. I know this feature took top billing on the Photo RAW Project. Thanks for listening, ON1.

2. Improved Preset Management

This might not be one of the sexier features, however it's high on my list. I'm kind of an organizational freak, so this is right in my wheelhouse. Soon "you will be able to delete and rename preset categories as well as export categories for sharing and back-up". I really need this. Since I create ON1 preset packs often, I have a bunch of crufty temporary categories lying around. I'm in need of some serious cleanup. And a category export will be welcomed, too. This will make it easier to setup secondary systems and quickly get presets from one machine to another.

3. Clone Stamp in Develop & Effects

Yes!!!! ON1's clone stamp is my go-to cloning tool. The next update will bring "the powerful clone stamp retouching tool from Layers inside of Develop and Effects as part of the non-destructive workflow". Clone stamp part of the non-destructive workflow... awesome. Saving me a round trip through layers just for clone stamp work... double awesome. This will cross off one of the reasons I use Layers vs. Develop & Effects.

There are many other features coming, too. Compare Mode will be an excellent add, especially for wedding and portrait shooters. Improved searching in Browse is welcomed, too. I'll be exploring that in more depth.

Toward the end of the roadmap update, Dan shares this: "Looking even further ahead, we will be focusing on Layers and our plans are to bring it into the non-destructive editing workflow." Pause. Think about this for a moment. RAW, non-destructive layered workflow. Smart photos are useful, but have limits. True, non-destructive edits with layers... this is massive. I don't expect this type of feature to be in a dot release. Yet it tells me ON1 is clearly on the right path.