The Best Lightroom Alternative? How ON1 Compares to Lightroom and Photoshop

Adobe's Lightroom and Photoshop programs have long been the standard in the photography industry, and for good reason. However, many users complain about Adobe's limited pricing structure, which has allowed a few other companies to get a stake in the photo editing space. One of those Lightroom alternatives is ON1 Photo RAW, made by ON1.

ON1 allows users to buy the software outright and avoid paying a monthly fee. However, is the software good enough to replace Lightroom and Photoshop? In today's video, I compare ON1 Photo RAW to Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and discuss whether they're viable alternatives for your photo editing needs.

0:00 - Introduction
0:33 - Adobe Creative Cloud
1:40 - Downside to Lightroom/Photoshop
3:31 - Lightroom/Photoshop Alternatives
4:08 - Price Differences
6:02 - Software Features
7:59 - What ON1 is Missing
8:37 - Comparing Masking Tools
9:02 - Editing Portraits
9:35 - Interface Comparison
10:29 - Final Thoughts

[ursmeyer]

Would love to see Affinity do a Lightroom-Alternative. ❤

[pauldomsten]

Great comparison! I've been using CS4 and Lightroom 5 since I don't want to pay the subscription prices, but since they are so old I've been considering alternatives. This really helps.

[underweightHater]

Adobe's monthly fee is nuts for such a mature product. i would be perfectly happy with 5 year old photoshop and lightroom... even older. if i own software, i like that the incentive is on the developers to do something that makes me WANT to upgrade. go ahead and earn my money, no problem. but getting paid every month whether you do anything for me or not? must be nice.

[DavidDLee]

As a Lightroom classic user, I learned very little here. I still own the last LR with a perpetual license and refuse to lease the software.
Exposure tweaks? Highlights / shadow tweaks? Clarity? Fusing 2 or 3 exposure bracketed photos into a single HDR image? Removing unwanted objects from the image? Bringing details from dark shadows or nearly over exposed sky? Showing smart selection?

[glyndavies]

Thanks Austin, I have been using On1 for a while and presently trying out LRc. The one feature that I really like in LRc is the masks, add, delete and intersect options are missing in On1. If this was added, i would stay with On1
What are your thoughts on this, BTW, i mainly photo wildlife, no landscape

[northislandnow]

After Adobe's new Terms of Service agreement sly F up. We canceled all Adobe products since we would be breaking the law with some of our NDA's for client work. Thank you for posting this. We don't have to worry about being sued do do the latest Adobe scam on there terms of service agreements.

[ericrinehardt]

I was a long time Adobe user who switched to On1 a couple years ago. ON1 is the bees knees. Very powerful, very intuitive (at least when compared to the clumsy LR/PS workflow), and affordable. It really should be the industry standard.

[kenw]

Excellent overview of the various softwares. I hope you continue to provide this kind of content, especially for ON1. Keep up the great work.

[Malco]

Thanks Austin, for the awesome comparison. I appreciate you taking the time, and I will use your link when I buy On1, which I plan to do.

[marleenvandam]

ON1 raw 2024 is fast, easy to use and performant! No regrets from my side!

[gavriel_adi]

This software for some reason opens on my computer saying that it checked for firmware updates and does not allow me to close the window on it and remains stuck on it, just trash can software

[Reason-fgik]

First, thank you for your video. When Adobe went to a subscription model several years ago, I bought the last commercial box Lr 6, I think, and I've been using it for cataloging, cropping, and initial exposure control. I have ON1 Photo Raw 2021 as my latest version, and it serves me well for all of my other editing needs. I'm going to upgrade to ON1 2024 this week, which will likely be my last upgrade.

[idxzel]

I am moving away from adobe because of their recent terms and agreement changes and have exported my documents (jpegs, raws, psd's and tiffs). If I want to access my tiff' layers (if possible at all), would I need the upgraded versions of ON1?

[MikePageKaltenberg]

I consider myself relatively competent with ON1 and have used it as my standard processor for 6 years now. The only features that I find myself missing when I watch editing tutorials are content aware filling and some of the masking plug-ins available in Photoshop.

[erichnk]

What about the DNG digital negative format I've used for about 100k of images and edited copies of images over the last 20 years? How can one switch over and retain all the edits?

[NepaliNed]

Hi Austin, I've really enjoyed your videos on the best lightroom alternative from a year ago comparing DXO, Capture 1, Luminar Neo and On1 and this one in more depth about On1. I'm a user of Lightroom 5 and it took me a lot of effort to learn how to use it and get comfortable editing my photos. I used to do film photography, so it gave me an appreciation for what the labs did for sure. It seems to me that Capture 1 has a big price tag, has a steep learning curve and it might have a lot of features I would likely never use. Luminar Neo, while the price is great, it might not have as much features that I'd be looking for. So I'm down to DXO, which is a little bit pricey, but has a lot of functions that I might use. On1 seems to have a great blend of just enough features, cost is great too. I understand your sticking to Adobe Lightroom and photoshop for business reasons, but if as you said you didn't have them, you'd go with On1. Would you go to DXO? I'm trying to find a new editing program that is similar to Lightroom 5 in terms of functions, layout and ease of structure in terms of processing and editing my photos. Would you say that either DXO or On1 would be something that might suit me? I took landscape photos in the past, trip photos and I'm looking to getting into street photography now that I'm retired. Any comments or suggestions, I'd very much appreciate it.

[charbar]

My only gripe is that on 1 Raw mobile is behind lightroom when it comes down to mobile or tablet work. I'm only starting to get into tablet editing now, and I can def see how it needs improvements

[autokrohne]

I used to update Photoshop and Lightroom regularly before their subscription model appeared. I did a cost comparison when they did the switch. The subscription, with regular updates instead of yearly updates, made more economic sense. With the subscription, I also have access to PS beta, which gives me a chance to try out new features early and provide feedback. This was not available with yearly updates.

But if you really hate that monthly charge, switch to ON1 or Affinity, knowing that not all of the features in PS and LR are available. Maybe you don’t need them.

[shaunkelly]

I have Lightroom 6 perpetual and am very happy with the software. It is getting a bit old and can't import my raw images from my R6 mk2 natively. I have also purchased ON1 and although it seems to be great software, I'm loathe to really spend time on getting used to it due to the one drawback it has that is limiting, to me anyway. The editing history disappears once you go out of edit mode. If you decide to return to an image, you are unable to see what you did before or go back a little bit. This may not be an issue for some, but it annoys me tremendously. I've gotten used to it in Lightroom and can't adjust to ON1 without this being available. I've even tried Open Source Darktable software which keeps history like Lightroom.
I've just taken out the trial for Adobe Lightroom Photography package to see how it performs on my ancient PC.

[NoahBayl]

I love On1 but the prossesing of the raw files is really bad. I compared it to the lightroom picture profiles. In both there is a profile that should match the cameras JPG On1 is not even close… Its not a big problem in Landscape but restoring the natural skintones from such a flat image is a challenge. Do you have a tip or workaround for this?