Hosting Photoshop Plugins in ON1 PHOTO RAW

Hosting Photoshop Plugins in ON1 Photo RAW

ON1 Photo RAW can host plug-ins made for Adobe® Photoshop® that appear in the Filter menu inside of Photoshop. These are often referred to as “filters.” Filters can perform a broad range of visual effects to a photo.

ON1 Photo RAW can host plugins made for Adobe Photoshop that appear in the Filter menu inside of Photoshop. It does not support automation plugins. That includes plugins that create layers or change the canvas size such as interpolation applications. It does not support Photoshop panels.

During development we tested a broad range of currently available plugins from a range of manufactures. The results of our testing is detailed below. Note that ON1 plugins from 2021 and older will not appear inside of ON1 Photo RAW and are not supported.

MAKE

MODEL

X86 Support

Mac M1

METHOD

NOTES

DXO	Nik Analog Efex Pro 2	Yes	Yes*	In-Process	*PhotoRAW must be run in Rosetta 2
DXO	Nik Define 2	Yes	Yes*	In-Process	*PR/Rosetta 2
DXO	HDR Efex Pro2	Yes	Yes*	In-Process	*PR/Rosetta 2
DXO	Viveza 3	No	No	Out-of-Process	Does not apply results, DxO intercept issue.
DXO	Silver Efex 3	No	No	Out-of-Process	Does not apply results, DxO intercept issue.
DXO	Perspective Efex	No	No	Out-of-Process	Automatio n plugin, changes canvas size
DXO	Sharperner Pro 3	Yes	Yes*	In-Process	*PhotoRAW Must be run in Rosetta 2 Plugin is not color managed properly, reduces saturation. PPX-26510

Topaz	DeNoise AI	Yes	Yes	Out-of-Process
Topaz	Sharpen AI	Yes	Yes	Out-of-Process
Topaz	Gigapixel AI	No	No	Out-of-Process	Automatio n plugin, changes canvas size
Topaz	Adjust AI	Not Tested	Not Tested	Not Tested
Topaz	Studio 2	Not Tested	Not Tested	Not Tested
Topaz	Mask AI	Not Tested	Not Tested	Not Tested

Exposure	Exposure X6	Yes	Yes	Out-of-Process
Exposure	Snap Art 4	Yes	Yes	Out-of-Process
Exposure	Eye Candy 7	Yes	Yes	Out-of-Process
Exposure	Blow-Up	No	No	Out-of-Process	Automation plugin, changes canvas size

Skylum

Luminar AI

Yes

Yes

Out-of-Process

Plugin is not color managed properly, reduces saturation. PPX-26510

Corel

Particle Shop

No

No

Out-of-Process

Does not support 16-bit images

Installing Photoshop Plug-ins into ON1 Photo RAW

Installing Plug-ins

There are two main ways to install plug-ins into Photo RAW. The method you choose depends on if you use Adobe Photoshop or not.

If You Use Adobe Photoshop:

If you have Adobe Photoshop installed and your plug-ins already work there, the simplest thing to do is turn on the Secondary Plugin Folder option in the Photo RAW preferences. It’s located on the Plug-ins tab. Then press the Choose button, it will automatically default to your Photoshop plug-ins folder.

If for some reason you have changed this setting already, here are the default plug-in folder locations for Photoshop.

macOS - /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-ins/CC

Windows - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CC

Be sure to relaunch Photo RAW after changing these settings, as it detects plug-ins on launch.

If You Do Not Use Photoshop:

If you don’t use Adobe Photoshop, you need to copy all your plug-ins into the ON1 Photo RAW plug-ins folder. To do this, open the preferences, go to the Plug-ins tab, then press the Open Default Folder button. This will open the ON1 Photo RAW plug-ins folder in an Explorer or Finder window. If you want to manually find the plug-in folder, it is located at:

macOS - ~/Library/Application Support/ON1/ON1 Photo RAW 2025/PhotoshopPlugins

Windows - C:\Users\test\AppData\Roaming\ON1\ON1 Photo RAW 2025/PhotoshopPlugins

The next step is to locate the plug-in files where they were installed on your computer and copy them into this folder. The installation location varies with each plug-in, but generally, they will be installed into these locations.

macOS - /Applications/[vendor name]/[plugin name]

Windows - C:\Program Files\[vendor name]\[plugin name]

You will need to find the .plugin (macOS) or .8BF (Windows) files for each plug-in and copy them into the ON1 Photo RAW plug-in folder.

Advanced Tip: You don’t have to copy the actual plug-in files, you can create an alias or shortcut to their locations as well.

Note: Some applications that support Photoshop Plug-ins will not install the plug-in components unless you have Photoshop installed, or you define a custom location during installation. To get these plug-ins to work, run their installer again, and set the ON1 Photo RAW plug-in folder as a custom host application. See the example below for the Nik Collection.

Be sure to relaunch Photo RAW after copying in your plug-ins, as it detects plug-ins on launch.

Accessing Your Plug-ins

Your plugins are located in the Layer menu, inside of Edit. To use one, follow these steps.

1. Open a photo into Edit
2. Go to the Layer menu
3. Go to the Filters flyout menu
4. Select the plugin you wish to use

When you complete your editing in a third-party plugin, your results will be applied to a new layer in ON1 Photo RAW.

Notes on Compatibility

ON1 Photo RAW does not support automation plugins, those plugins that appear in the File>Automate menu in Photoshop. This includes plugins that create layers or change the canvas size such as interpolation applications. It does not support Photoshop panels

.

Not all plugins for Photoshop will work. There are many legacy plugins that have not been maintained by their developers and do not work under current operating systems or architectures. Only 64-bit plugins are supported.

A note for Apple Silicon (M1) users. Plugins can work in two methods, they can work inside the ON1 Photo RAW process space, or they can launch a separate application and work out-of-process. In-process plugins must be designed to run in the same processor architecture as ON1 Photo RAW is running in, either x86 or Apple Silicon (ARM) to function. If you have an older plugin that does not support Apple Silicon, you can quit ON1 Photo RAW and force it to run in Rosetta 2 emulation instead, then access your legacy plug-ins. If your plugins run out-of-process, then you can mix architectures generally. 

* Due to the wide variety of plugins, their age, and their unique characteristics, ON1 can’t guarantee that any specific third-party Photoshop plugin will work now or in the future.