As a major image enhancement program, ON1 Photo RAW 2021 combines image library browsing and rating, raw processing, non-destructive editing, layers, effects, extensive presets, batch processing, and multiple output options in one affordable package. The subscription cost for ON1 Photo RAW 2021 is $7.99 per month but it is also available as a non-subscription program with periodic updates for $99.99 to new users. Upgrades from previous non-subscription versions are available for a lower price. The program functions as a stand-alone or as a plug-in to other popular imaging software.

New in ON1 Portrait RAW 2021

For portrait and landscape photographers in particular, the release of
ON1 Photo RAW 2021 is especially significant. The incorporation of Portrait AI for portrait, wedding, and event photographers adds incredible automated retouching tools to Photo RAW. For landscape photographers, the new shape brushes add intriguing possibilities for local changes to scenes. And for real estate photographers, the new automated batch HDR and panorama tools that should simplify life tremendously.

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All users can benefit from other new features, including the Smart Organize tool, the non-destructive spot healing brush, the quick slideshow, full screen view while making adjustments, support for new cameras and lenses, increased plug-in support for Affinity Photo, Corel Paint Shop Pro, and Capture One (coming soon), and more. For photographers who dig deeper into their image adjustments, there are color-sensitive gradient masks, new color fill layers, and a Replace Color filter. Each of these new features in itself will appeal to some photographers’ special needs, but together they represent a significant increase in capabilities of Photo RAW 2021 and should broaden its appeal to all photographers.

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ON1 Photo RAW 2021’s User Navigability

For users of previous Photo RAW versions, upgrading to the 2021 version will introduce some new tools into both the left and right panels, but the changes are minimal. I admit that, having not reviewed the 2020 version, I needed a refresher. Thankfully, ON1 provides an extensive set of video tutorials on its website that had me up to speed quickly.

For new users, the range and depth of the capabilities in ON1 Photo RAW 2021 will likely seem daunting at first. The video tutorials will likely be essential in navigating the workspace and discovering where the tools are located. Accomplishing this in the short 14-day trial period will take some devotion. Moving from an Adobe product, you will find that many of the keyboard shortcuts are the same, but there is no way to change any of the prebuilt keyboard shortcuts in ON1 Photo RAW. Perhaps the best option if you are comfortable with the Adobe products or Affinity, Corel Paint Shop Pro, or Capture One and portions of ON1 Photo RAW (such as Portrait AI) sound useful, is to use Photo RAW as a plug-in to those programs and just use the parts of it that you don’t find in your base program. Once you are comfortable with this strategy, investigate ON1 Photo RAW more thoroughly to decide if it should be your go-to image editor.

Best New Enhancement: Portrait AI

The most significant new enhancement in Photo RAW 2021 is Portrait AI. Whether you have photographed a single subject or a large group,
Portrait AI automatically finds each face, the features in each face, creates a mask, and automatically applies the appropriate retouching. ON1 says the automatic retouching applied is appropriate to the age of the subject identified.

In the tests that I ran, this really did seem to be the case. In a group photo, each face is shown in a tiny thumbnail that you can click on to begin its retouching if you want more than is automatically applied. If the program misses a face in a large group you can add it manually. There doesn’t seem to be any particular order of appearance of faces in the thumbnails (it’s not left to right or anything I discovered), and more often than not in group photos you need to manually add faces. It’s useful to choose an appropriate camera profile and run Auto AI in the Edit panel before clicking the Portrait AI button. After a short (depending on your computer) pause, Portrait AI finds, masks, and automatically retouches the face or faces. At this point you can accept the result, save it, then copy and paste it into an entire session by selecting images in the filmstrip and pasting the retouching. Faces in other images don’t even need to be looking in the same direction as your original image and it works. Amazing stuff.

And if you’re not pleased with some part of the automatic retouching, a full range of tools is available, including an editable view of the mask and frequency separation tools for skin retouching. While I played with these, I rarely improved on the automatic adjustments and even then spent more time than the improvement warranted.

Sky Replacement and the New Shape Brush in ON1 Photo RAW 2021

Spending a lot of time photographing under cloudless blue skies in the southwestern deserts, I am often tempted to replace the sky in an image with something more interesting. The new Shape brush in Photo RAW 2021 gives me another option—add clouds into the sky without replacing the sky completely. This is extremely quick and easy to do. There are “clouds” built into this version and it is possible to install more, and possibly a way to import your own. Retouching spots out of the sky before adding clouds is easily done with the new non-destructive spot healing tool.

Perhaps it’s the result of a recent upgrade to my Windows computer, but every tool in ON1 Photo RAW 2021 seemed to respond instantly, including the new Spot Healing brush. Even the file export from large raw Nikon files to JPEGs for this article were completed within seconds. Speed is always welcome in an image editor.

What Doesn’t Work in Photo Raw 2021

From the time I have spent testing ON1 Photo RAW 2021, all of the new features operated almost exactly as I expected and the results were great to spectacular. My nitpicks have to do with ongoing concerns. I do long for a customizable set of keyboard shortcuts, and if you’re going to emulate some of the Adobe keyboard shortcuts, please emulate them all. It’s frustrating to hit Cmd/Ctrl+Bracket and have the image rotate 90 degrees rather than have the brush size change. I wish a double-click on a slider would reset it to “0”. Why there is no “Open Recent…” option in the File menu of the Browser I find curious; even the “Open” choice is not at the top of the drop-down. And I end up straining my eyes on my 24-inch professional monitor trying to read the grayed-back type for some of the icons and tools, especially when they aren’t in use.

How It Compares to Other Imaging Programs

ON1 Photo RAW 2021 is clearly among the top imaging programs available. With the equivalent of the browsing capabilities of Adobe Bridge, the
raw file processing ability of Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom, and the masking and layering of Photoshop, it adds the presets of Luminar, the
HDR abilities of Aurora, and the panorama abilities found in other software. Also included is the latest version of the respected old General Fractals Resize. Plus, it is available with or without a subscription. ON1 Photo RAW 2021 is as good as it gets for image browsing, raw file processing, portrait retouching and output in one package. For a tutorial or download go here.

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