Thoughts/Suggestions about On1 2020
I am a long-time user of On1 at this point.
I do love it a lot. It has many strengths and it's color science is great.
However, I had several gripes about the UI in the previous iteration. I was really hoping they would all be addressed. Unfortunately, most were not. The following is a list of the issues that still exist and really need to be improved upon:
Comments about On1 2020
The cropping tool has remained essentially unchanged.
I was really hoping that this tool was going to be improved upon in this release. It wasn’t.
It is one of the weakest aspects of the application.
It needs some sort of gripper handle mechanism and a numeric method of specifying rotation angles. The way that you have to float somewhere around the edges and I hope for the rotation cursor is a time waster and terribly aggravating.
It also frequently "freaks out" and randomly rotates and crops the image for no reason. This is a flat out bug and should be addressed. It should not exist in the production release.
The cropping tool should also be accessible from a keyboard shortcut, you should not have to invoke the development mode in order to get at it. It should be accessible from the General browsing window.
There doesn’t appear to be a keyboard shortcut for quickly adjusting exposure. You are forced to click on it manually in the develop dialog box.
You should have a keyboard shortcut to invoke the import environment. It does not exist. You are forced to use the pulldown menu. This is an antiquated methodology.
The small dialog window for driving to your desired import destination is inconvenient to use. The Choose Folder option needs to be scrolled down to in order to see it. It should be immediately accessible since it is always the choice that most users would make.
The new speed enhancements are greatly appreciated. However, after editing several images in a row, I am still experiencing a hang that informs me that it is saving settings. Why is that?
I would be curious to hear others' opinions. Please chime in.
-
This is a list I've compiled (before 2020) and sent to On1. These are not bugs or feature requests, just badly implemented features that don't work as you'd expect them to. Some of these may have been fixed by now, haven't had time to check them yet.
- Cannot move folders between drives. The only option is to copy and manual deletion of the source
- Albums don't have a 'NOT' option (Ex: Find Mother and NOT Father)
- Tethering is only available for 2 camera brands, but cannot be hidden for all others
- Metadata pane keeps closing. If open, it should stay open.
- The keyword list pushes metadata pane off the screen. Metadata should be locked in place
- Importing keywords should have options to MERGE or REPLACE the current list to allow for external editing of the list and not duplicating on import.
- Cancel is disabled on all dialogue boxes. All operations should be cancelable in case they are opened by mistake.
- Batch rename is tied to Export Rename even though the settings for each would be different (Import has its own Rename, why not the others)
- Disabling Rename in Export causes Batch Rename in Browse to forget it's settings
- When creating folders, the name is not checked for errors. EX: If there is a trailing space, the routine fails.
- When double-clicking a keyword in the Metadata/Keywords pane, the whole keyword and trailing comma should be selected together.
- Borders: The Top/Bottom border width is not the same as the Left/Right border width. Photos, can't be centred properly.
- When using the colour picker in Develop for white balance, the new settings are not reflected in the sliders. (Tier 2?)
- Bright areas appear blown out and can't be adjusted even though they actually have detail in the Raw file.
- No quick and easy way to switch between grey and red masks.
- When adjusting the vignette masking bug, SHIFT doesn't lock the proportions
- When dropping a vignette masking bug on a tightly cropped photo, there is no way to scale it when the handles are off the screen.
- Curves: Not able to remove anchors without resetting the whole panel
- The info pop-ups should have a disable option for pros who don't need them.
- When creating a new stamped layer, the new layer is given the same name as the top layer causing confusion. It should be given its own name.
- No option to delete photos from the source after a successful import.
- Should have an option to auto-reset serial number for each import
I love On1, but details matter.
0 -
A short list from a short review... (YMMV).
Certainly a good/welcomed improvements.
2020 Pros
* Snappier interface (I am not sure the filters are faster)
* better noise reduction (usable, bot not industry leading)
* improvements to focus stacking such that it is now usable
* masking works well
* use of presets is noticeably quicker
2020 Cons
* maintains an affinity for putting dialog screens in the foreground of all applications, thus making it less possible to use other tools while on1 processes things
* no way to escape accidental presses of portrait mode. You just have to wait until it thinks it is done finding faces. Which can be very silly when the photo doesn't have any faces.
* AI used as a marketing term, certainly there is no ingest engine. no evidence of machine learning...
* Side car file create even if on1 does not open the file.
* exposure stacking still doesn't seem usable
* Pano doesn't seem usable
* over-sharpens images beyond user setting when exporting
* missing database tools (maintenance, backup)
* still seems to "phone home" quite a bit in every session. The good news is blocking access to the servers does not seem to impact the application. (Actually, not allowing the app to remotel access on1 servers speeds things up, possibly because PR doesn't need to have a response form the remote server to continue??)
* (minor) Missing a couple of my favorite lens in the auto correction (yes, other tools, including those that rely on lensfun) have corrections
* Weird things still happen randomly with develop, effects, and local settings
If you turn off "automatically make side car file" there is no way except for the on1 database to capture file edits (but you can't back that up, so what is the point)
Unknowns
* Is the metadata handling fixed?
* IS the JPG compression consistent with the rest of the industry yet?
0 -
The Mac OS has a means of adding your own shortcuts to a program's menu commands. I added Command-Shift-I for Import and Control-R & Control G to toggle between Red and Grayscale views of the mask. You can do this on Windows through the application's Properties panel. https://www.techjunkie.com/add-custom-hotkeys-windows-10/
0 -
I’d like to add another bug to this list.
When I import new files I like to skim through them and remove (delete) those that I do not want. If I import new files to a catalogued folder and select those I do not want and then hit delete, the cataloguing procedure locks up both the deletion and the screen until it has finished with the new files. This can take some time, in one case it was over thirty minutes.
Deletion should take priority over cataloguing. if an image needs to be deleted, cataloguing should let go of the image and allow the deletion to take place.
0 -
Once the catalog building process finishes that shouldn't be a problem. I do not have any problem deleting photos whether newly added or those that have been around for years and my entire library is catalogued.
0 -
I haven't had to do any culling with 2020 yet. Previously, just the act of importing photos was enough to trigger the catalogues making culling nearly impossible. Fingers crossed with 2020.
0 -
Brian, you are not seeing the problem. I know once cataloguing has finished the problem goes away, that is obvious. Upon import cataloguing starts again for the new images and during this process which can take up to an hour in some cases, if I try to delete one of the new files ON1 locks the screen until it is finished.
0 -
Its a really big step from 2019 verson. But i think the sharpening is not good. I hope that they will work on that. I really wanna do the jump from lightroom but it´s not there ON1. to bad :(
0 -
It would be necessary to improve the Image crop and rotating tools and the canveas sizing management to make easier to merge more images in a single pictures
Focus stacking has never worked properly neither in PR 2019 nor in PR2020. I really hope the issue will be fixed within this year
Noise reduction now seems to work but it could be more effettive in particolar in noise color adjustment
0 -
As a newbee with photo raw 2020 (comming from Lightroom) I'm still in learning mode. I see a lot of good functions and quick response. But there is something I don't get:
I was trying to sort some pictures to my personal needs. With 2020 under Windows the option for user defined sorting is greyed out in grid folder view and in albums. Is that a windows related issue? The user guide does not make any difference or hint on that. ... and yes the folders I'm working with are imported. (all search and filter action work as expected). Has someone seen the same issue?
0 -
What happens when you just drag the images in a folder into a new order within the Browser? Does Custom then become an available option?
0 -
Hi Brian,
You mean I should change the sorting algorithm under windows folder f.i. from Name to Date?
I did so but nothing changes.
0 -
No, that isn't what I meant. In the Browser you can drag the images around to arrange them in any order you like. Once you have done that does the Custom option show as an available choice? You should be able to resort them by any of the other standard choices then when you choose the Custom option again they will be arranged in the order you created previously.
I'm on a Mac so I can't speak specifically to the Windows version but Custom is an option that is always available even though I have not created a custom order yet. I would think if it is different in Windows something isn't right.
0 -
... and if you didn't mean 'custom', what did you mean by 'user defined'?
0 -
Right that is what I would have expected. In windows browser you can't move the pictures within a folder. You can choose to which item you would like to sort like name or date or type. "Free" movement is due to my knowledge not possible. comming back to Photo Raw 2020 the custom item as marked above is greyed out. Dragging pictures in grid view is impossible. I meanwhile made a request to customer support. Let's see what they'll comment.
0 -
I can't confirm it, but I think you need catalogs to do that. Do you have catalogs?
0 -
I don't think catalogs are required. The User Guide doesn't say they are. Here is what it does say (pg 37):
Sorting photos in Grid view
When working in Grid view, you can sort the thumbnails in a number of different ways by choosing the Sort By pop-up at the bottom of the window. The sorting options include: date captured or modified; color label; file name, type, or size; and rating.
You can also create a custom sort order by dragging thumbnails inside the grid window; click and drag the thumbnail so that the outline sits between two images, and let go.
Once you change the order of images this
way, the Sort pop-up will change to Custom,
and Photo RAW will remember the sort
order for that folder until you change it.
(Custom sorting also works—and the custom
order remembered—when you’re viewing
albums.)0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
17 comments