When most people think of ON1 today, they think of ON1 Photo RAW, our flagship all-in-one workflow app. It combines digital asset management, raw processing, and powerful effects into a convenient, non-destructive layered workflow. As proud of it as we are, we realize that we are part of a broader workflow community. I’ve talked to thousands of photographers over the years, and all of them have a slightly different way of getting their work done. Like there are hundreds of recipes for chocolate chip cookies, there are endless ways to manage and edit your photos.

We recognize that many photographers love Adobe’s products and plan to continue to use them for many years. And that’s fine. Adobe makes lovely products that have empowered creative people of all endeavors for decades. That’s why even today, you can use ON1 Photo RAW as a plug-in to Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom Classic, and Apple Photos. If you look back at the history of ON1, we started by creating plug-ins for the Adobe products long before we created ON1 Photo RAW.

ON1 Plug-In Special – Save over 50% on Effects, Resize & HDR

When we work as a plug-in, our goal is to expose what is unique about ON1 that extends the functionality of the host application. Effects is the perfect example of this. Apps like Adobe Lightroom Classic or Apple Photos cover basic raw processing tasks but fall short for full-featured stylizing. Effects gives you a full stable of flexible filters that go well beyond what you can do in a traditional raw processor. You can stack and mask filters like glows, textures, borders, HDR look, to name a few of the over 20 filters. Even in a robust application like Photoshop, it would take many manual steps to accomplish what a single filter in Effects can. And Effects is just one example. There’s also Portrait for automatic face retouching, Resize for unparalleled interpolation quality and HDR for the fastest, most natural high-dynamic-range photos.

One of the big reasons users move to ON1 Photo RAW is to maintain an end-to-end non-destructive workflow. That means your original photo is left untouched, and you can always edit any step along the way without having to start over on your work. Think of it as non-linear video editing. Unfortunately, that is one thing you may lose when working as a plug-in. Adobe Lightroom Classic doesn’t offer us a way to work non-destructively with it. On the other hand, with Adobe Photoshop (using smart filters) and Apple Photos, you can work non-destructively. That means you can re-edit our settings when used as a plug-in, which is mighty powerful.

Looking to the future, we will continue to support plug-ins. We will take our unique and powerful technologies and extend other applications where we can. We have some pretty cool stuff we are working on today that I know will soon make great plug-ins. If you decide to simplify your workflow into a single app, you don’t have to give up what you have created in other applications. ON1 Photo RAW understands the file formats that photographers use. It can also read the metadata you add, such as keywords, descriptions, and ratings. If you are moving from Adobe Lightroom Classic, we can migrate your collections and even your non-destructive edits, so you can pick-up right where you left off.