Difference in RAW Engine between Tier 1 and Tier 2
ON1 Photo RAW 2018 uses two different RAW engines: Tier 1 RAW engine and Tier 2 LibRAW library. Which engine is used for which camera can be found here: ON1 Photo RAW 2017.7 and 2018.5 - Compatible File Types and Supported Cameras
But be warned! Only full RAW for Tier1 cameras are processed by the Tier 1 RAW engine. Formats like mRAW (medium) and sRAW (small) for Tier 1 cameras are processed by the Tier 2 LibRAW library (at least for my Canon 70D)
Questions:
- How is the Tier 1 engine different from the Tier 2 engine?
- Why does ON1 use two different RAW engines?
I have the impression that the Tier 2 engine is not actually a RAW processor. For example, when processing a mRAW photo of a Canon 70D (Tier 1 camera, but mRAW is Tier 2 processing) with extreme highlights (see Issues with blown highlights), the highlights on the image appear similar to a JPG image. So I suspect that the Tier 2 processing actually converts the (mRAW) image to a bitmap format (e.g. TIFF) and then processes the image as a bitmap (like TIFF, JPG, PNG). In that case, Tier 2 processing would lose the advantages of RAW processing, and extreme highlights or color balance in Kelvin (see this thread) cannot be recovered and corrected like with real RAW images.
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Perhaps you are just flagged by an engine that says you have posted a lot and needs to be verified. Did you check all of the photos with street signs? Hahahaha. Anyway, here is your post. I got an email with it.
Rick Sammartino
The key parts of the link you've posted are these. Tier 1 uses On1s Engine and Tier 2 uses the engine in your Op-Sys.
Tier 1 Compatible Cameras
The list below is the Tier 1 list of cameras that are supported in ON1 Photo RAW. Camera models in the Tier 1 list below will be opened and processed with the new raw engine that is built into ON1 Photo RAW 2017/2018.Â
Tier 2 Compatible Cameras
The Tier 2 list below lists camera models that are also compatible with ON1 Photo RAW. You will be able to view, open and edit raw files from these camera models in ON1 Photo RAW, however, cameras listed in Tier 2Â will not be opened and processed with the raw engine that is built into the ON1 Photo RAW. These files will be opened and processed using the raw engine that is built into your operating system. This is how our legacy versions (Versions 10.5 and earlier) open and process raw files.
Further searching through the FAQs finds this description from when the new engine was first released:
New RAW Engine — Resize 2017 features the new RAW processing engine from ON1 Photo RAW. When you browse, preview and resize RAW photos this powerful engine is used. It's much faster and maintains better color and detail.
I don't understand why the new engine doesn't work on Tier 2 photos either, but I know that Lightroom pulls details out of highlights just fine. I'm not aware that Lightroom has any special engine to do that.
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The formatting is hosed up because I copied it from my email and pasted it in the reply. There are weird characters in my email from this forum. If you had any hyperlinks in your post, they are gone too. And perhaps it was a hyperlink that flagged your post. I am fairly certain that this forum is using a third party engine under it. Not something that ON1 developed.
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I given it some second thoughts:
My Canon 70D is a Tier 1 camera, but the mRAW photos are processed as Tier 2 images, just like ordinary JPG images. Very disappointing! Also speed of ON1 Photo RAW is quite disappointing.
So with pain in my heart, I will abandon ON1 Photo RAW as my default photo processing software, and switch back to LR5.
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Frank, why don't you just switch to raw. At least you can see what the difference will be.
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Frank, I agree with Rick, Why not shoot full Raw. I am pretty sure mraw uses a compression algorithm that loses data.
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Three reasons:
1. I don't need the highest resolution. With my 40D I used full RAW, and with 70D the mRAW resolution is about the same resolution. I don't want to waste an extra 10MB on file size if I don't need to.
2. ON1 Photo RAW is a RAW editor and Canon 70D is on the tier 1 list. It is fair to expect that photos from a tier 1 camera are processed by the tier 1 RAW engine.
3. I was quite upset about the 'camera profile' missing, the 'kelvin' button missing and the highlights on RAW photos being badly processed, and to discover they are not even processed by the ON1 RAW engine.
Adding to this the bad performance (compared to LR, which is already bad by itself), worse noise reduction (compared to LR), and ugly screen rendering (e.g. moire patterns for brick walls, what LR does not have), it is not suitable for me as default RAW editor. This is not why I bought ON1 Photo RAW 2018.
For special effects (Effects module, pano, HDR and layers) I still love it! So for now, my workflow will be to do RAW processing (tone & color, noise, cropping) in LR and special effects in ON1 Photo RAW. (on exported images from LR).
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Frank, I have all of the same problems that you do except that I'm using full RAW mode and still being dumped to tier 2. I don't see why there is a difference between my RAW files and newer ones from the same manufacturer and I don't think that's fair either. I don't get the option, but you do. You're complaining about features that you could have if you just changed the format. You haven't even bothered to try it to see if that extra 10meg might be worth it. 10meg is nothing on todays gigabyte drives. Just my opinion of course, you do what you want.
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Fair point, Rick. I'm sorry your situation is even worse than mine (tier 2 engine with full RAW on a tier 1 camera).
I was very enthousiastic about ON1 Photo RAW. But the tier1/tier2 discussion spoiled it all...
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It is disappointing and even more so since On1 seems to hide it.
(PS, tier 2 camera not tier 1)
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On1 does process Tier 2 raw files, it just uses a different engine than the Tier 1 cams use. It's not something you need to worry about since the OMD-EM10 is Tier 1 and is using the new raw engine.
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Hi,
to be assured that my compressed and normal RAW both use the ON1 engine, I asked Tech support (including a link to this thread and to the 2017/2018 official note on Compatibility)
"Given the discussion on the forum, I would like to know which RAW engine is used when I shoot Compressed Raw and what is the difference to normal Raw for Sony Alpha ILCE-7R II? "
James answered, and there is now a new official posting on Compatibility as well, see link in answer.
"Hello Magnus,
Thank you for using ON1! I apologize for the confusion. This model is in the Tier 1 list, therefore it is being processed by the raw engine that is built into our application. Please see:
https://on1help.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019689051
For detailed descriptions of the tools and features within our programs, please refer to the user guide:
https://on1help.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206373527-ON1-USER-GUIDES
If there is anthing else we can do for you, please feel free to send me an email. I am happy to help.James
QA & Technical Support Manager"0 -
Still, there is no mention about support for sRAW and mRAW formats. From experience I know that only full RAW formats for Tier 1 cameras are processed by the ON1 Raw engine. sRAW and mRAW formats for Tier 1 cameras are processed by the libRAW library also used for Tier 2 cameras.
How do you know whether your RAW is processed by ON1 RAW or libRAW engine?
If you can select a 'camera profile' and you can set the temperature in Kelvin in 'Develop' module, you are using the ON1 RAW engine. If not, you are using the libRAW engine.
Frank.
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My understanding, from the article at: https://on1help.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019689051 is that Tier 2 ONLY refers to files that will be opened and processed using the raw engine that is built into your operating system. And that is probably restricted to Apple OS as Windows doesn't have a RAW engine for the OS.
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I didn't read well enough. The article DOES mention that Canon sRAW and mRAW is handled as Tier 2.
So for me, the RAW photos from "old" Canon 40D I can process in ON1 Photo RAW, and my old mRAW photos from my "new" Canon 70D I will process in LR. But from now on, I will shoot RAW instead of mRAW with my Canon 70D.
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Don, I'm tier 2 and I run windows. I've tried to figure out what engine is being used and can't find any reference.
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Rick, I'm not sure as I cannot see any other engine other than the ON1 Photo Raw but my images are all from so called tier one set. But I do believe that, on Windows only, Photo RAW uses its own processing engine.
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