I moved to On1 when Lightroom Classic went to SaaS pricing and because at the time Lightroom Classic catalog was easily corrupted. Since I teach Photoshop and Lightroom Classic that was a pretty big move. I have never regretted it. It allows you to use either a browser (like Bridge) or a catalog (like Lightroom Classic) for your image management. I would say it can do about 85% of what Photoshop/Lightroom Classic can do but if I need those features I can send images over to Lightroom Classic or Photoshop, work on them and bring them back to be managed by On1. They also give you HDR, panorama, focus stacking, resize, noise reduction and sharpening as part of the product. Some of those are on the map for this year to be updated. They also are very good at being honest and when they screw up they fix it. It is not perfect. For instance, its ML mapping isn’t as accurate as Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw but neither is any other product out there. By the way I use Affinity Photo to do most of my stacking as it gives me a better result. My workflow on those types of images is changing as the one bad feature about Affinity Photo is the stacks come out as tiff not DNG raw. In this case, Lightroom Classic does the best job and does create raw output.

I also have owned every produce MacPhun (original company) and Skylum has put out including Neo. I will not be giving them anymore money because they have proven to have a sales model that pushed incomplete and broken features that they never fix but rather just put out a new Product (not update) which still doesn’t fix the issues. Then in Neo they modified the sales model to sell you features that are part of most post processing software as Extras that you pay for. Generally when their features are compared against others they are at the bottom.

My advice is to send an email to help@On1.com to see if they will extend you the ability to get the 2023.5 product for free to try out. Or get a trial of 2024. BY THE WAY if you buy the MAX 2024 you not only get the standalone 2024 product but you also get plugins for it for Photoshop, Lightroom Classic , Affinity Photo , CaptureOne and others so you can use their features from your product of choice.

wonderful graphic art. So happy to see you identify it as such ..

I moved from Lightroom 6 to On1 over ten years ago for a couple of reasons. Lightroom Classic 6 database was unstable causing corruptions way too often. They were recoverable but.. On1 lets your use both a browser (like Bridge and the new version of Lightroom (the cloud version that runs on the desktop) or a database (catalog). It also had layers, did a decent job of raw processing and a lot of other features. I teach Lightroom and Photoshop at the college level so that was a pretty big move for me. Each update (twice a year) has added features. Only one time did they do a release which was basically a beta. But they owned up to and quickly fixed it. So where are we at in 2024. On1 is still a great product with both the Data Asset Management , browser and lots of great features but… it doesn’t match up the masking in Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw and it is having a major problem with PhotoRaw images (apple’s DNG format for the 43MP images it can do now since iPhone 14). They are working on it but right now I am processing those images in Lightroom Classic by using On1 feature then processing the Lightroom Classic version in On1 for the effects etc. I hope they fix it soon. The masking isn’t a surprise since no other competitive product does masking as well as Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw. Right now I am in a huge project using Peakto to cull the over 500k images I’ve shot in the last 50 years to a subset for my family so that when I am gone they will have those images.

So On1 is definitely worth the price (you can get discounts by watching the various YouTube people like Jim Nix, Anthony Morganti and others. If I was starting out I would probably use Lightroom Classic but with plugins to On1.

Miller and WHCC

if you are downloading the 2023.5 version you should own it as I understand their offer. They are doing this so you might update to 2024 either as a perpetual license or a subscription as they offer both.

RAW

Because of back and neck issues I have taken more iPhone images ever in the last year. I have an iPhone 14 Pro, shoot entirely in raw and ProRaw. What has amazed me is some of the apps like reeheld and Spectre allow you to take handheld long exposures up to 30 seconds. Other apps let you take them for as long as you want on a tripod. All of this without filters! I just downloaded a new app which allows me to shoot 3D images.. While it isn’t as good as my full frame mirrorless Canon it does things easier like shooting in the rain or shooting images in a museum where you aren’t allowed a tripod.. It is truly amazing what can be done now.

boy am I going to be the outlier. I have a v600 and it is good for prints at 600 dpi but the resolution numbers it quotes for negatives and slides aren’t accurate. I believe the reason is they are interleaving but I am not sure but I do know talking to a professional scanning company I trust that is so. Also your negatives and slides should be at 4000 dpi minimally. I spent years scanning everything with the flatbed scanner using silver light. There were at least 2 things I learned - cull cull cull oh those are 3 things. I scanned everything and the flatbed scanners are not fast especially you using some of the advanced features like dust removal (don’t it makes your images soft). So I am in a current project where I am culling thousands of negatives and slides. When I am done I will either decide to have the scanning company do the scans or do it myself using a copy stand, mirrorless camera, macro lens and light source. So much faster, just make sure they are clean as possible. Good luck

backblaze is backup storage. It is not designed to be a photo sharing application. You can view and download an image but it is not a simple interface or particularly fast. I checked with them directly after your comment. I think you are missing the intent which is to share images with my wife and daughter interactively.

I’ve been using backblaze since they started but as far as I know you have no way to access the data directly so they couldn’t see images. It is a great backup site and a critical part of my backup strategy but not for actively viewing.

Your best value would be a Mac Mini with at least 16GB and 1TB or more of SSD. Get a good quality 2k monitor and calibrate it. For the price a m2 or m3 chip will last you for another 10 years.

I have a M1 Mac Mini with 16GB and 500GB SSD and it runs every photographic and video app without any issues including having Photoshop, Camera Raw, On1 and Topaz Studio 2 open working on same image.

Not even close. Just the photos is 1.8TB so even if I made the images middle size Jpg’s still too expensive. But the big issue is when I am gone they will not have good quality images.

shared albums count against your iCloud storage so not an option. I have over 55K images in Photos and and 500k total. While I don’t want to share all of those I do want to share a bunch. I stopped using Google Photos (which never let me do raw image storage anyway). I am an Amazon Prime member so I have been trying to use Amazon Photos but it has a 5GB limit on videos and then stops uploading photos as well. Does Raw as well as jpeg, png and tiff. The problem with it is this a end of life issue that when I die (74 now) I want my family to be able to see images online and to do that with most solutions they have to pay at least $120 (cost of Prime and also SmugMug which I am looking at right now even though it doesn’t store raw images without increased cost)

I am hoping in the 2 years since I posted this someone has a solution?

Thanks in advance,

I agree! M1 Mac Mini with 16 and 1TB ssd. In a Photoshop with 10 pc users including expensive gaming PC my M1 Mac Mini blew their socks off.

Mac mini’s are the best value on the market but as the poster is a pc guy I can only wish him a Merry Christmas.