ON1 Photo RAW 2026
Foreword
ON1 played a significant role in my decision to switch back to Windows. I couldn’t really get used to Digikam; Darktable was definitely better in that regard. But even with Darktable, I couldn’t achieve the results I’d gotten with ON1 Photo RAW.
This was probably also partly because I’d been working with ON1 for a very, very long time.
Installation
When installing a new version of ON1, I always keep the previous version installed alongside it for a while. Mainly to sync the settings and have a rough comparison.
As usual, the installation of version 2026 went completely smoothly for me.
Look and Feel
It feels like ON1 Photo RAW 2026 starts up and runs just as fast as the 2025 version. I couldn’t tell any difference (subjectively).
Further down, I’ll discuss a few special features that caught my attention.
The new “Mask Window” with its options takes some getting used to, but it’s not poorly designed.
In my opinion, the AI masks also work significantly better than in the 2025 version.
When it comes to non-AI masks, I actually found Darktable’s capabilities to be better. For me, the masks were simply the highlight of Darktable; I haven’t seen any other RAW converter that offers this level of functionality.
In every other respect, I think ON1 is ahead.
Presets
As usual, ON1 Photo RAW imports all the presets that were installed in the previous version—which saves you from having to reinstall them manually.
Even with version 2025, I noticed that some adaptive presets released for versions prior to 2025 can be quite sluggish. The preview takes a really long time, and applying a preset isn’t exactly fast either.
Surprisingly, the adaptive presets included with version 2026 work without any issues.
You can solve this problem by applying the “slow” and older presets to an image once and then saving them as new presets with the exact same settings (including masks).
The new preset created this way will then work quickly and without any issues.
I can only speculate here (support hasn’t had any ideas so far either):
The older presets are based on a different algorithm for the masks—ON1 then has to “convert” them to the new algorithm.
But as I said, this is just a guess—what was important to me was that I was able to solve the problem by saving it as a new preset.
Loading an Image
With some images, I sometimes see the “Loading image” progress bar, which struck me as odd since the same image loaded very quickly in a previous session.
Strangely enough, this behavior always occurs for me when I have Google Chrome open at the same time.
If I close the browser, it speeds up the loading process for me.
Whatever the reason may be—it’s hardly likely to be due to RAM, since I’m quite comfortable with 128GB.
Initial Conclusions
Personally, I’m satisfied with the 2026 version. After returning to Windows, I immediately feel “at home” there.
I’ve only had one crash so far—after updating to the latest NVIDIA driver, this no longer occurred.
More Articles
You can find more articles on image editing/photography and also on ON1 Photo RAW in this category.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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