Honestly, I don't think Photomator is a good Application. We all know that what makes Lightroom great is its Photo-management, so as long as competitors will lack on this great functionality, they will greatly fail !!!

While I use both ON1 and occasionally use Luminar Neo I found when using ON1 I’ll round trip to Photoshop. With Luminar Neo I didn’t have to round trip. So, I concur with your results Luminar is the best.

Bummer that the edited moon is below the cloud.

This is really useful, thanks. Much clearer than the PL8 manual!

I favor Darktable, which is a non-AI raw manager. Generative AI in most cases sucks. I can do all necessary masking with Darktable's multifacetted masking system. Masks generated by the Alternatively Intelligent little fucker - branded as "AI" - in most cases have to be investigated for errors if the result shall pass as professional work. When I draw my masks or define them as parametric masks I know where they need help, and I don't leave the scene before the mask is optimal. The attention and use of time don't differ much. I admit that 1000++ wedding images with the same facial corrections are easier with AI, but the results are commemorative pictures to be used once without much scrutiny and then in most cases stored away - as mass produced disappointing products tend to be.

interesting. for me 3 and 2 adn 4 is not bad - winner for me 3 tight !. number 3 has the best higlight retention, I was disapointed at 1 and 5 as these are the wirst

Man I love Filipinos. Great tutorial. Very clear, concise, and informative.

Never think of this. Is the RAW information still maintained when you switch back to develop persona? All this time once we go to Photo persona, all RAW information will be lost because it becomes a rasterized layer

I have a 12th generation i7 core and 32G ram yet the super focus render takes so long I usually have to cancel the process

Agreed

Another great video, thanks!

Excellent, thank you!

The software works reasonably well in some very specific scenarios but it is absolutely abysmal for old footage, not to mention that it will distort faces to a nightmare level when working on SD videos. Also their customer service is terrible and they won’t honor their 30 day money back policy.

Great video

Superb video.

watched a paul reiffer video ( a c1 ambassador, the only one left it seems ) how embarrassing he struggled to even fix simple problems with capture one masking tools something easy to take care of with photolab or better LR. when he praised an image for being noise free which also had not much detail left he reached a pathetic low and it was not even funny anymore. I would rate photolab as number one for user which do not need the special tools c1 offers like LCC or tethering.

#2 for me

Before the “reveal”, I thought #1 and #3 looked the best, especially when looking at the skies.

#3 - Capture One for me, which is good because that is what I use, and I picked it before you announced the names!!

Does anyone know if there is a way to use denoise on a mask layer and not denoise the entire image? EG: AI select the background, then denoise the background only?

I went back and forth between 1 and 2. I liked the tonality of both and thought they both did a good job of controlling the edges of the histogram. I use On1 as my primary editor, so it's interesting that it was one of the editors I gravitated to. Cheers and thanks!

Hi, thanks for this results slideshow, fascinating as ever. I'm a little confused, because if an image was processed in PureRaw first to denoise, then you would need to export .DNG or .TIFF files to the editor in question. So PureRaw 4 will have performed the demosaicing, not Capture One, for example. Would it not be better to remove PureRaw4 from the equation?

I don’t have a preference really to be honest! I think every result can be obtain from all these 5 raw editors.All matter of taste.Most important is the user experience, a fact that I learnt after been using quite some editors.

#6 was the best !

Does any of them support smart objects like photoshop does in the PC?

I like on1 because it is an all in one solution. it has filters like Photoshop, it has layers as well.

Slow to convert movie Better use tipard.

I bought PL8 back on 11/28/24, I installed it on my new MacBook Pro, M4 Pro chip, and it still doesn’t work and their tech support is an email several times a week which has not helped me fix the problem. Has anyone else had problems on their install with their software?

interesting. However AI denoising is so much easier.

Question did you review silky pix

I'm sticking with ON1 -- as I have for years. I cannot get my mind around the counterintuitive DXO -- where you select points, and then this somehow selects my object? Not sold. As far as Capture 1: I used to think it was MAC-only. I need far more convincing to cough up all the extra $$$. I do appreciate your analyses, and your conclusions. I am finding ON1's denoise and sharpening to be exemplary!!! Actually, I am like a pig-in-mud with ON1! Since v2022, I could not get later versions of ON1 to run -- at all. They claimed I needed a new graphics card. I finally got one. Wow! It works now! (I also have Sony A99-level cameras with Minolta lenses; plus a Nikon D850 with F-Mount glass.) As far as I can tell, On1's denoising and sharpening works equally well on both platforms -- just like it does on my Oly files.) I had an issue where ON1 did not handle my Olympus/OMDS RAW files very well at all -- then I talked to a Guy at ON1 ... (I must have spoken to the RIGHT guy!) ... at one point he commented: "OK, I guess we'll need to upgrade our ON1 to Level One Support for Olympus/OMDS files". And they did!!!!!! I have no desire to go through all that again with another vendor!!!!!

I would not call it a fair comparison just yet. The first image of the dog had a massive dark fringe around it and you just covered it up with a black background. For a proper comparison you should use multiple background colors. Dark ones and light ones. So it's easy to see the fringe around it. Of course the black background looked good. But would a white one have looked good as well?

Great video my friend! I'm an amateur photographer and use both On1 and Photomator. I think the desktop version of On1 is better, but the file management system, the fact that it ties into Apple Photos, the rating system and the better iPad app in Photomator make it worth the $26 per year.

Ein reiner Werbefilm. Schade, habe auf was unabhängiges gehofft.🤥

What a great video, thx! Maybe look at Affinity 2 pro, Nitro and ACDSEE photo manager to share your wise thoughts sometime? I’m a huge Cap One fan but I use the Luminar Neo for polish, DXO and Topaz for de-noising and ACDSEE for file management. This may sound extravagant but software obviously costs a fraction of what we can spend on a new lens...

Are these stand alone tools much better than Affinity Photo? I never do local adjustments in a RAW convertor, it has nothing to do with developing a RAW file.

Stop with the nonsense that "You're not going to use another layer because"! How much is someone paying NOT to simply use another layer in Affinity??????????

I went with Photolab 8 purely for its noise reduction. Couldn't be happier!

Thanks for your very straightforward and comprehensive videos. Having spent a couple of years paying for LR/PS I’m now ditching this subscription model and looking for alternatives. DxO is looks appealing to me as I don’t require AI-tools in my workflow and I’m impressed by its denoising capabilities. I considered Capture One Pro as well, but as I recall they stated that new perpetual license purchases do not include any feature updates at all, just bug fixes, in contrast to the subscription model. I’m aware of the fact that mayor update releases often require the purchase of an updated version in most if not all products, but this sounds as if you’d pay for any little new feature. Am I correct? This would be a mayor downturner.

Does it have a mobile version. Photo pea app

I have oni and luminar. Luminar is much easier to use and is much easier to achieve better results. I can always switch to get a lacking or feature like denoise 17:16

Thanks for another useful year end roundup. I look forward to the companion video about how each raw processor renders the images after minimal processing from you. I think it would be useful to mention which of the products offer HDR merge of bracketed images, since this is still important for many landscape photographers.

My one is ON1

Thanks very much. I use On1 and DxO Photolab 8 and I agree with your conclusions. I might have to give Capture one a try :-)

I'm very simply looking for the best Mac-based post-production of iPhone images: ProRAW, heic, jpeg. I know that DXO doesn't handle those images, but what are the best choices? Considering that more people shoot with iPhones than digital cameras (and shoot a lot more photos) this is an important question that for some reason gets ignored. On1 plugins (included with the Max version of the app, on sale now for $99) can work with Apple Photos, Lightroom, Affinity Photo. From what I can tell this is probably the best option for iPhone users.

Where’s part 2?

Thank-you for your review. I've been a C1 Pro user for several years and have always appreciated the quality of its initial render and the depth of tools for making adjustments. I have a perpetual license used on one machine as well as a current subscription used for another two. I can appreciate their position and the need for consistent revenue to be able to develop new features.

Excellent review/comparison, with surprising results: I didn’t anticipate C1 to be on this list, but it makes sense. However, comparing pricing is rather complex. The “one-time” cost of Luminar doesn’t consider all of its add-ons. DxO, which I often use (in conjunction with Lightroom…), may be “permanent,” but it has rather expensive annual releases. The last time I looked at C1, it seemed to be in a similar position as DxO, where the updates start to pile up; still, I’ll have to look at it again. As for Photomator: it is going to be interesting to see what Apple does with it.

Combination of LR & PS is much cheaper and better than DXO and C1. And you always have the latest updates. A subscription is $120 per year.

Well done. Thanks. 😊