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Friday, September 15, 2023

Sharpening and No Noise in ON1 Photo Raw 2023.5 vs Lightroom 3 or 5

The other day I shot this photo of a spectator at the basketball courts at Venice Beach using the RAW setting on my camera.  I processed it with ON1 and Lightroom.  Lightroom is pretty much manual adjustments for lighting and contrast although it does have presets.  It also has sharpening and noise reduction, also manual.  On the other hand, ON1 has AI for both.  I start with the AI, and then if it needs some tweaks that is easy to do.  Same with the sharpening and noise reduction, where I can see the before and after in a split screen before applying it to the photo.  On my PC it's slow to finish once applied but does an amazing job.  The AI exposure is almost instant.  ON1 gives the best results using RAW images, especially with noise reduction and sharpening.

The photos below were shot with a 28-300mm Nikon lens at 200mm setting, f9, 1/800 second, ISO 1270, handheld
The above photo was processed in Lightroom - if you look at the small details like her bracelet you can see the difference from the photo below, done with ON1.  To see the difference full size you will need to click on the image, then right-click on it, open the image in a new tab, and click on that image.


ON1 has many other advantages - very easy to add a new sky, and too many other things to mention here.  The only disadvantage is it is slower than Lightroom on my computer.  ON1 2024 is coming out this month and is supposed to be much faster and will be adding lots of new and improved things.  Can't wait to test it.