The ON1 Advisory Board: How Photographers Shape What We Build Before It Ships
A feature you use in ON1 Photo RAW today was probably rejected once, maybe more than once. Somewhere between an idea and a release, a photographer who doesn’t work here looked at it and said it wasn’t good enough yet. That conversation happens more often than you’d think, and it happens inside something we call the ON1 Advisory Board.
Why We Built This
Software earns your trust the same way a camera does. You learn where the buttons are. You learn what to expect when you press the shutter. You stop thinking about the tool and start thinking about the photo. That kind of trust doesn’t show up in a changelog. It gets built one decision at a time, long before a release ever reaches your desktop.
We could make those decisions on our own. Plenty of software companies do. Instead, we put real builds in front of real photographers early, and we listen closely to what comes back, even when it isn’t what we hoped to hear. The Advisory Board is how we keep that habit honest instead of optional.
What Members Actually Get Their Hands On
Advisory Board members run beta builds of ON1 Photo RAW before they ship. As they edit, they report bugs and share feedback through a dedicated portal that our QA and Product teams check directly. A report doesn’t sit in a shared inbox waiting for someone to notice it. It lands with a person whose job is to act on it. That loop catches problems. It also shapes direction.
Feedback Before a Feature Exists
We often bring photographers a rough idea instead of a finished feature, whether that’s a sketch of a workflow or a direction we’re considering. That means Advisory Board members weigh in while a decision is still cheap to change, not after months of engineering are already locked in. Telling us a concept won’t work before we’ve built it saves everyone the harder conversation later.
Private Round Tables
We also host small, private webinars for Advisory Board members. These are candid conversations about direction, trade-offs, and work still in progress, not polished presentations. We bring hard questions. Members push back. What comes out of that exchange is a better product than either side would land on alone.
Built With Photographers, Not Just For Them
There’s a difference between building software for photographers and building it with them, and the Advisory Board is where that difference stops being a slogan. Members shoot landscapes, portraits, wildlife, weddings, and everything between. They catch what a spec sheet never will, whether they’re standalone editors, photographers who’ve switched from Lightroom, or running ON1 as a plugin inside Photoshop. That range is exactly why the product holds up across so many workflows.
What It Takes to Join
We’re looking for more voices in the room. If you shoot regularly and want a real hand in where ON1 Photo RAW goes next, we’d like to hear from you.
A few things are worth knowing before you apply. Membership comes with confidentiality terms, since you’ll see unreleased features and direction before anyone else does. Beta software carries real risk. We don’t recommend running a beta build on photos or projects you can’t afford to lose, and beta builds aren’t suited for production work. Right now, installing a beta build replaces your shipping version during testing, so you’re trading your stable install for the new one while you test.
Coming in 2027: Beta and Shipping, Side by Side
That last trade-off is changing. In 2027, you’ll be able to install a beta build and your shipping build at the same time. Test new work when you have the time for it, and keep a stable version ready for the shots you can’t risk. It removes the biggest reason photographers have held back from testing, and it makes helping us a lot easier on your workflow.
Have a Hand in What Comes Next
The best version of ON1 Photo RAW is the one built alongside the people who use it every day. If that sounds like something you want in on, fill out the short application below. We review every response and reach out as we bring new members in.
