ON1 2025?

[FowlersFreeTime]

ON1 2025 is coming this month. Who is upgrading?
I am still using ON1 2024.5. The whole point of getting ON1 was to avoid annual subscription costs such as Adobe charges, however they keep releasing a new version every year and giving a small discount to existing owners in the hope of getting them to upgrade. I know development costs money, but this practically amounts to the same spending habit as a subscription.

I'm mostly happy with ON1 2024.5. It does everything I need, even if it doesn't have AI generative fill or AI-powered object removal. My only grumble is that ON1's denoising tool seems to require more and more horsepower every upgrade and my tablet is now struggling. Net result, I use that tool less. Maybe removing that crutch will make me a better photographer as I now have to consider noise and exposure more carefully before I hit the shutter? Or would upgraded software have more efficient code and ease my hardware constraints? I just don't know.

 

[spudhead]

ON1 2025 is coming this month. Who is upgrading?
I am still using ON1 2024.5. The whole point of getting ON1 was to avoid annual subscription costs such as Adobe charges, however they keep releasing a new version every year and giving a small discount to existing owners in the hope of getting them to upgrade. I know development costs money, but this practically amounts to the same spending habit as a subscription.

I'm mostly happy with ON1 2024.5. It does everything I need, even if it doesn't have AI generative fill or AI-powered object removal. My only grumble is that ON1's denoising tool seems to require more and more horsepower every upgrade and my tablet is now struggling. Net result, I use that tool less. Maybe removing that crutch will make me a better photographer as I now have to consider noise and exposure more carefully before I hit the shutter? Or would upgraded software have more efficient code and ease my hardware constraints? I just don't know.

What are the costs like Chris?

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

What are the costs like Chris?

For an upgrade as an existing customer: $80 USD to own it outright, or $7.50 USD per month to subscribe.
For new users I think that price is $100 USD. I don't see a different cost for the subscription model.

 

[Alan Clark]

I am still using the 2022 version, which I am reasonably happy with. At first sight there does not seem to be any change that I would find particularly useful.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

I am still using the 2022 version, which I am reasonably happy with. At first sight there does not seem to be any change that I would find particularly useful.

The changes they keep adding seem geared towards end users who want AI-this&that editing tools or straight up image manipulation. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising from a company that specializes in sky swaps. For the actual editing of raw photos, not much has changed, no.

 

[DaveC Oz]

I upgraded to 2024 last year mainly because the previous version that I used could not read the compressed RAW files from my A7CR. There are many things that I'm still getting my head around in the 2024.5 version, and nowhere near enough things that I need/want, to have me look at the upgraded version. The constant marketing hype emails have gotten more than a little annoying too. Upgrading every new "major" release doesn't make a lot of sense to me financially, you may as well go to their subscription model. Here in Australia that subscription version is very similar in cost to Adobe's plans, and in some cases more expensive. If I went down the track of subscription Adobe would probably win my dollars. The other issue with the upgraded software is it's hardware requirements. Even the current version is stretching my computer to the point of crashing occasionally.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Dave, you hit the nail on the head mate. I'll probably wait until I have a new PC/laptop before I upgrade.

 

[DaveC Oz]

So to resuscitate/hijack an older thread. Over the Christmas/New Year period I decided to give the latest version of On1 a go (2026.2). The price I was being offered to upgrade seemed reasonable. However while it worked quite well on simple edits, I found the whole masking/layering interface totally different and very biased towards using their "AI" options. Undoubtably I could learn the new workflows given time, but given that my 2024 edition is already learned, I prefer to invest my time in getting shots, rather than relearning processes in order to do what now only takes a few minutes. So I've put in a claim to return/refund. As an example, the recent picture of the Southern Cross took about 2-3 minutes to process in 2024, after I'd spent nearly an hour trying to do the same thing in 2026. Can't really see any reason to update at all.