Although many prefer using PhotoLab as the central hub of their photography workflow, using separate applications for DAM and printing, I’m looking for an all-in-one solution with tight integration and a uniform interface. PhotoLab 9 seems (after a several days with the trial) to have hit the sweet spot in capabilities for my needs.
Is ON1’s Photo RAW, now in version 2024, ‘better enough’ than Lightroom Classic to be worth a switch? After using Aperture (until it was discontinued), Capture One (for a few years), and now Lightroom Classic (for several years), Lightroom Classic has become my standard against which others are judged. To be worth moving to another program, it has to have something pretty good going for it.
Capture One, Lightroom Classic, PhotoLab Elite, and Photo Raw have all been updated this Fall. The question for me is whether or not these changes make switching from Lightroom Classic a good choice.
I wrote about my approach to selecting a post-processing software for my photography earlier. My approach now is the same; what I consider important has not changed. What has changed are the features of the different programs.
I’ve spent the last couple of months working back and forth between the raw processors Capture One, Lightroom Classic, PhotoLab Elite, and Photo RAW in an attempt to settle on just one going into 2024. Owning more than one is just too expensive and too complicated trying to keep edits and metadata in sync. My primary raw post-processing tools have been Capture One and Lightroom Classic. So that’s where I started my efforts.