User Interface Tips for ON1 Photo RAW 2024–When Coming from Version 2023

December 28, 2023
17,934 Views
Posted by Patrick Smith

Experience the newly revamped user interface and substantial improvements in ON1 Photo RAW 2024. To facilitate your navigation and ensure you don’t miss any essential elements or controls, we’ve highlighted key changes for your convenience.

Make sure to also check out our latest tutorials for ON1 Photo RAW 2024 on our YouTube Channel.

In this article, we cover the following:

How to Access Your Files

You’ll still find your local drives etc on the left-hand side under Local Drives just like the previous versions.

Breadcrumb Navigation (has been updated in version 2024)

Previously in ON1 Photo RAW 2023, the breadcrumb navigation was located at the top of Browse.

New in ON1 Photo RAW 2024

In the latest release, the breadcrumbs are now located at the bottom of Browse.

You can also click the right-side downward chevron to pop up Folder, Favorites, Albums, and File locations.

Locating the App Icons for the other Edit modules

By default, we have hidden all the in-app icons for a more clean look in the user interface. In the previous version of ON1 Photo RAW 2023, you accessed the Edit (including Resize) modules on the upper right-hand side. You can turn these views back on under the Window Menu and choose ‘Show Right Bumper’.

You can also enable ‘Show Browse Shortcuts’ if you want the left-hand side pane shortcuts to be visible.

Below is a screenshot of the Browse Shortcuts enabled.

Opening Images into the Edit Modules

To open an image in the individual modules, simply click on ‘More’ icon to get a list to select the individual modules.

Filtering & Searching in Browse

You can also access saved search filters and smart album settings from the pulldown below.

The sort order options in Browse are also located at the top right. See below.

Enabling and Adding Multiple Filters and Advanced Search Options

Showing the Tool Options Bar

Each time you select a tool, a set of options for the tool is in the Tool Options bar above the main image preview window. By default, in version 2024 it requires you to hover your cursor over this area for the options to appear. If you want to see the tool options bar all the time without having to hover, go to the View menu and at the bottom uncheck ‘Auto Hide Tool Option Bar’.

Controlling the Properties Inspector (for Masking, Blending, and Text)

In Photo RAW 2024, blending options, text options, and masking options are combined into a new floating panel called the Properties Inspector. Users can open and close tabs by clicking, making it more space-efficient. A new autohide feature (available in 2024.1 and released in December 2023) collapses the inspector automatically, enhancing user configurability. Even better, the inspector can be nested in the right-hand control group for even more convenience. The auto-collapse options provide flexibility for collapsing and expanding as needed. Just go to the Window menu, and choose each option from the Properties menu item.

Product Updates & News ON1 Features

25 Comments

Richard BerkeNovember 19, 2023
Thanks for putting this together. It’s helpful to see the screen shots, boxes, arrows.
1. edoverstNovember 19, 2023
  Agreed, that approach in this post really helps.
John DurhamNovember 19, 2023
I agree that it helps, but I still am going back to 2023 for now. The annoying masking pop up gets in my way and, while the UI is “cleaner”, I’m not sure that does anything for me right now. Also, there are too many hang ups and delays performing virtually any action in 2024 on my computer. Granted, it’s only 16/4 for CPU/GPU, but I never had this many issues in 2023, and right now I can’t afford to upgrade. Hopefully, some fixes are coming down the line for 2024.
1. Jean-Benoit DeNovember 19, 2023
  Thank you for all the work you do to make it easier for us to move to this new version 2024. This helps us.
  For my part, I completely switched to the 2024 version. It works perfectly for me…
  By regularly following your tutorials or Youtube video, learning is really easy and the results are excellent with the speed in addition.
Robin HattonNovember 19, 2023
I’m not sure I’m liking all the UI changes in 2024. I’m learning all over again and at my age it’s slow. I had 2023 all figured out and now I have to start all over again. I think 2023 was a much better layout, the tools were much easier to find and the 2024 pop up masking window is so annoying. And I’m not sold on the Brilliance AI, you have to teach it what to look for to make the masks. For the most part it will pick sky and flora and miss people, transport, animals, architecture to mention a few.
1. edoverstNovember 19, 2023
  I agree. I appreciate some of the additions and changes in 2024 from 2023, but not all of them. In particular I think the idea in 2024 of “cleaning” the left and right bars is a mistake for a lot of us. I’m not bothered by having extra bars, it’s not a problem at least on a 27″ screen. Maybe on a 13″ laptop screen it would bother me…
  I’m not yet a fan of Brilliance AI either. On my photos and for my taste, it almost inevitably goes way over the top for what I generally want as a start edit. I find it’s more efficient for me to do a start in Develop, then add Effects if I think I need them and/or Local Adjustments and just avoid Brilliance AI, or turn it on and then off if I don’t like what it did and revert to my usual workflow. The slider adjustments for a “bad” Brilliance AI are generally more trouble than they’re worth to me. The new breadcrumbs and search features are good though.
  1. Ray WilsonNovember 20, 2023
    i agree. brilliance Ai sucks and is not as good as the previous Ai Auto….
  2. Steve PellattNovember 20, 2023
    Agree, have to say the previous Auto was a better starting place for me than the Brilliance AI has turned out to be.
  3. Patrick SmithNovember 20, 2023
    The previous auto is also still available in the Brilliance AI pane.
Elizabeth GirardeauNovember 19, 2023
This is definitely helpful seems pretty intuitive. I have not used 2024 too much yet because I downloaded it just before going on a photo workshop and did not want to be learning a new system and interface when making workshop edits. I agree totally with those that don’t like the masking pop-up either. It is really, really annoying!
1. edoverstNovember 19, 2023
  I’ll add my voice to the chorus about the masking pop-up being annoying. I never thought there was anything wrong with the way previous versions (from 2018 through 2023, never used earlier ones) handled masking options. If it isn’t broken, don’t “fix” it. That part of the UI wasn’t remotely broken IMO.
  1. Patrick SmithNovember 19, 2023
    The ability to dock the masking pop up is coming soon
edoverstNovember 19, 2023
I do a lot of nature photography in which I often use a telephoto or a macro lens to pluck “flora” objects out of a background using a wide aperture … where foreground and background are both likely going to be picked as flora in Super Select AI and may not separate at all using either flora, background, or foreground as a choice. In those cases, the “Super Select” AI is pretty useless at trying to isolate sharp flora whether you use the flora or the foreground/background approach. Now if there were a Super Select choice of sharp (in focus) or its inverse (unsharp, or sharp then invert the selection) that would be a lot more helpful for me and probably a lot of other people who photograph flora as I do (as distinct from relatively isolated flora in a larger or wider-angle landscape that also has sky, water, buildings, animals, people or whatever else). The “Show Focus Mask” feature in the edit module can do a decent job of showing what’s in sharp focus and what isn’t, at a glance; if that feature could be refined to work as a choice in Super Select AI that would be a significant improvement in my book. Yes I can use a brush tool to try to pluck out in-focus elements for a mask, but there are lots of situations where that can be time consuming and frustrating, compared with an ideal AI tool that can tell with a single click on an image what’s sharp and what isn’t and produce an editable mask from that.
1. David OrlandoNovember 19, 2023
  I also do a lot of photos like you describe, ie a flower against out-of focus background foliage. Yes the newer AI select and superselect tools don’t work in that scenario, or even other general objects outside of the landscape/people/animals/transport categories that it seems to be trained on.
  I do find that the old “AI Quick Mask” tool does work really well in most of those cases. It is very good at edge detection. A few quick brush strokes on the flower in green “keep” mode and then on the background in red “drop” mode and I usually get an excellent mask. If its not perfect I just add a stroke to any spot it missed and it refines it.
THOMAS LASARNovember 19, 2023
As On1 is listening to its users I want to add one more wish to get rid of the masking pop up! Please give us a choice here to do masking without having to shift around that masking pane all the time.
Also I am still struggling to get used to the new logic of 2024’s interface.
For me Brilliance AI is like a Preset which gives me an idea how my image could look like. I might leave it, edit it or refuse it. I do use it to learn what impacts certain settings have.
1. Patrick SmithNovember 19, 2023
  We are going to make the masking window so you can dock it in the next update
  1. Steve PellattNovember 20, 2023
    Great!! so annoying. I have to say most of the so called simplifications to the User Interface just increase the risk of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome and other similar ailments. What I could do with one click of a mouse button I now have to do with two! I will go through this guidance and see how close I can get 2024 to look like 2023!
Ray WilsonNovember 20, 2023
Hi. In the 2023 version there was a little icon at the bottom of the Edit screen to repeat the adjustments performed in the previous photo. This useful icon seems to have disappeared and I have to use the top toolbar. Can I do something to make this appear, or is it gone for good?
Ray Wilson
Ray WilsonNovember 20, 2023
So glad I came across this! I liked the Export and Share icons being in the right hand pane but they had disappeared. Now I know they are contained within the Right “Bumper” and switched that on in the Window Drop Down Menu! Hooray!
Steve PellattNovember 20, 2023
I need to go through these but if they get me close to the appearance of the 2023 version then I’ll be happy! I’ve used ON1 since 2019 and this is the first update I bought not being sure about and that’s definitely been confirmed. The Brilliance AI is a real roulette wheel and mostly I skip it. The user interface changes seem to have been done to appeal to new purchasers not existing users/long standing customers. Do you have any idea how annoying it is having to remember to go to the opposite side of the screen for edit/browse? Equally have to do 2 clicks to export currently going to the left rather than 1 click bottom right. I used to find the little animations for things like the mask refining options useful and easy to find – now not so. I still haven’t found the ‘sync’ button (does it still exist) and now have to ‘copy settings’ and apply them.
I’ve been a long time advocate of ON1 but the 2024 version is really testing my patience. Did you really ask and listen to existing users before you changed all the interface? If your regular supermarket changes where they store everything and means you end up walking around more, getting delayed and frustrated you can’t find something then welcome to my ON1 world!
Brooks de Wetter-SmithNovember 21, 2023
I fully agree with the maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” While I understand the wish to simplify and facilitate through UI modifications, much of what has been available in previous iterations AIN’T BROKE. I am all for change when it is clearly beneficial, but the 2024 version seems motivated more by change for change’s sake, with the objective of getting folks to continue to purchase yet another version. These hints for making the transition from the 2023 to the 2024 version are extremely helpful, but must we keep the link handy when 2025 comes around so we can again reconfigure the UI? ON1 has been an incredibly helpful interface for editing photography. As one who has used it for a number of years, I have extolled its virtues to many photographers. That enthusiasm has now evaporated. Until a revised 2024 version is released, I will continue to struggle with the new UI, and am seriously considering the possibility of looking for other software to assist my work.
Dave EdkinsNovember 21, 2023
I agree with many of the above comments, A very useful set of tips for the interface, a lot of the alterations in 2004 have relocated items that were easy to find in previous versions, it’s taken a while to find everything. The Masking pop up is annoying and unnecessary, the masking panel is already open on the sidebar so why add another complication. And the Brilliance Ai isn’t brilliant at all, far too much adjustment, good job the old auto Ai is still available. The super select Ai needs work, most of the time it selects areas of the image that it shouldn’t. Having said all that it’s still a great photo editing program and getting better with each upgrade. It’s greatest asset is that it’s user friendly, lets hope it stays that way.
rswainNovember 24, 2023
On the Windows version, what happened to the Minimize, Restore, and Close buttons in the upper right corner. Also double clicking on the menu bar (File, Edit, etc) bar doesn’t do anything. One next to last thing – if I change the font size (Edit/Preferences/General), it affects much, but not the left sidebar font (Browse, Edit, more…). Last thing, how can I change the color of the background from black? This is the background of all the tools, top menu, both sidebars etc.?
1. rswainNovember 24, 2023
  I just ran into another issue – I use external NA drives which show up fine in my Windows Explorer, but don’t show up when I try to set the default Photo Location (in Preferences). This is a major issue for me because on my 30+ TB drives (2) I have all my photos. BTW, I just updated to 18.0.4.14762.
rswainNovember 24, 2023
I just ran into another issue – I use external NA drives which show up fine in my Windows Explorer, but don’t show up when I try to set the default Photo Location (in Preferences). This is a major issue for me because on my 30+ TB drives (2) I have all my photos. BTW, I just updated to 18.0.4.14762.
I misspoke about clicking on the menu bar, the issue there is there is no title bar on one computer (the one with the latest version (18.0.4.14762). This computer is my backup photo editing system on which I try new photo editing software before moving it to my primary computer.

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